Dios, Bog, Dieu, Dia, Allah, Mungu, Tuhan, [Sign it]
They speak of the one who wanted humans to go out and populate the earth and care for it dearly. These are all words for God in Spanish, Croatian, French, Irish, Arabic, Swahili, Malay and American Sign Language. Take a walk through any of the world’s major cities like New York and you have the opportunity to hear dozens of different languages over the course of a day but we know that two weeks from now and two weeks from then and about every 14 days after that one of the world’s 6000 languages will go permanently silent. Increasingly English, Spanish and Mandarin are spreading as “Universal languages” but something very real may got lost in those sweeping efforts. Amazingly, though, sometimes when a culture experiences truly difficult times a language of a minority can be strengthened. For example, in the 1940s Spanish dictator Francisco Franco banned minority languages such as Basque and Catalan but now they are flourishing and are considered the co-official language in their respective parts of Spain.
Language is so much more than mere words and it reflects the culture of those using it. We risk losing a great deal of the rich heritage and traditions of the people and places where they came from when native speakers die and there is no one to pass on a language. Of course, there are days when a little more silence and a lot fewer words might feel like just the ticket for one’s peace of mind but, in the end, language is the clearest way we have of expressing our feelings, emotions, opinions, insights, instructions, news, and the range of human experience.
Given some of the souvenirs up here and others I know a number of you have in your homes, many of us have spent at least a bit of time in a place or with people who spoke another language besides the English most of us learned to speak and communicate with here in our part of the Northeast. From infancy we are taught how to put into words – spoken, written, sometimes shouted and, now, electronically – what our needs and wants and ideas are and once we put them out there we have an expectation of them being heard or read or somehow acknowledged. On an average day each of us will speak at least 7000 words and we are hopeful that a good chunk of them will be received in the way they were intended.
There are times, though, when good intentions aren’t enough. Take these people of Shinar, soon after the flood, when God gave the earth a new beginning. In their effort to make a name for themselves and secure their future as a single homogeneous community that would be safe and protected from the rest of the world, they focused on solidifying their place in the world by immortalizing themselves with a tower (that the images on the screen depict in various widths and heights). What they missed in their earnest building up with materials meant to last and be indestructible was God’s desire that they go out and populate the entire earth so that all of creation could be cared for by humankind. God saw that their focus was not on their creator but on what bigger and stronger tower they could build within a city, presuming that they alone could link heaven and earth. God sees that basically they were full of themselves and thus dramatic action would be necessary. God was, after the new start offered to Noah and his descendants right before this, pushing them out of the nest they had built for themselves. This passage speaks of a desire for a diversity that already happens in the natural world where the thousands of species of fish, birds, animals and insects learn and adapt to their surroundings and all those other creatures.
In forcing them to recognize their diversity through language they are humbled before God and the whole wide world that they had sought to keep at bay. And thus was fostered the wonder and beauty of the variety of the human experience and along with it, in some folks, the fear of the other.
Scripture has been used for good and evil ever since these words of stories and laws and poetry and lineage and prayers have been shared. The history of consequences of interpreting the Bible for destructive means is filled with examples of abuse of these words and this story that we know as the Tower of Babel. One of many examples could be found in some South African theologians who used this text as a justification for apartheid by arguing that God wanted to separate languages and races apart from one another.
The diversity of cultures begins with God’s action here of re-creating a world where the most basic element that distinguishes humans from other creatures – how people speak to each other – differs and there is no value attached in this act of God of making any language more important or valuable than another, just different. God has twice uttered with a blessing, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth.” (Gen 1:28 and Gen 9:1) God’s vision is for them to spread out and they want to stay put not just with the tower but with a city around it explicitly so they won’t have to “be scattered over the face of all the earth!” (Gen 11:4) What God wants most is what they fear most. And maybe what God is seeing is not that unity is a bad thing but that uniformity is not desirable. Being of a single mind, allowing for no deviation, is a sign of totalitarianism because to all think the same on any matter is unnatural. Uniformity is a sign that people thinking for themselves is dangerous. Those building Babel thought they were constructing the center of the world, a place where everyone would be alike. When people become anonymous and of one voice, their individual significance and worth are lost. What is gained in God’s actions here is a respect for the differences present in the people. Our diverse cultures, languages and traditions are to be lifted up as a blessing.
Throughout history whenever there has been a concerted effort to try to control the thoughts and beliefs of groups of people, and ultimately their words, tyranny has entered the picture because we were each created with minds that are all over the place and experiences and personal histories that inform those minds and our life’s work of finding meaning propels us to express those thoughts with language. Babel may literally mean “to confuse” but that just means we have to devote energy and time to making sense of it all. We lose out when we allow fear to taint our relationship with a person from a far off country speaking a language we don’t know or even the person who moved here from the southern part of our own country and continues to use y’all when talking to a group of whatever size and all y’all when they want to make sure to include everyone in the group – an inclusive habit I gladly adopted from my years living in Virginia.
Language is a great gift that affords us a connection with each other. It is that connection upon which the love of neighbor that Jesus taught is built upon, not so we can stay hunkered down fortress-like with those who sound and look like us but rather we might learn and grow and be in relationship with.
Let us offer up the words of this prayer from Xavier University:
“Almighty God, through your Holy Spirit you created unity in the midst of diversity; We acknowledge that human diversity is an expression of your manifold love for your creation;…Enable us to be the architects of understanding, of respect and love; Through the Lord, the ground of all unity, we pray.” Amen.