Holy Textures

Genesis 11:1-9

The story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 is a creation story.

Like the creation stories that have preceded it, the important question to ask of this story is NOT, "Is it factual?" The question to ask is, "Does it tell something true about human experience?"

Aside: In the first 11 chapters of Genesis there are several linked creation stories:

• Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 - how God made the good world: 7 days of creation.
• Genesis 2:4 - 3:24 - why we suffer and are estranged from God: no longer in the Garden of Eden.
• Genesis 4:1-26 - why there are peoples who are similar but different: Cain kills his brother Abel and is sent into exile.
• Genesis 6:1 - 10:32 - starting over: Noah and his family as the new originating humans.
• Genesis 11:1-9 - building the city of our dreams: why there are so many languages

The story of the tower of Babel is both an instructive and a cautionary tale. It instructs (explains) to us how, after the flood, where there was once again a single first family - Noah's - yet there came to be many different peoples with many different languages.

But like the story of Cain and Abel, which is a cautionary tale about human jealousy and Divine justice, this is a cautionary about human hubris and Divine purpose. ("hubris: exaggerated self-confidence," an often fatal, always mistaken assumption that one knows all there is to know)

From the vantage point of the 21st Century, it is not too difficult to hear in this story echoes from every age of human history: "Wow, with this new technology, nothing can stop us from building a whole new dream world." In Babel, the technology was bricks, in our century it is the internet, in the past it has been planes, trains, cars, ships, etc., etc. The caution in the tale is not, "Stop creating new technology." The caution is, "Don't be over-confident about what this new technology will result in. Everything has a price to pay. Everything has unforeseeable, unintended, unpredictable consequences." As Leonard Cohen says, "There is a crack in everything." And as John Calvin says, "Everything is depraved."

As in the Cain and Abel story where God intervenes to both protect Cain and yet also make plain God's expectations for justice and caring, in this story God intervenes to both protect language and yet also make plain God's expectations for novelty, complexity and diversity - and appropriately humble, honest, human labour and participation in populating the whole world.

Nonetheless, the opening verse of this story contains an echo of a deeply embedded human ache:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

In our age of both global communication technologies and stubbornly entrenched local violence, we long for a global understanding as the means to achieve a single, common purpose and harmony. A longing to which this story still stands as a cautionary tale about our hubris.

Acts 16:16-34 (35-40)

Whenever we read the Bible, it is important not to get distracted by the special effects. The important question to ask is NOT, "Is this story factual?" The important question to ask is, "What is the truth that this story is telling?"

This story of Paul and Silas may or may not be completely factual in all its details. But it is certainly truthful in its revelation that vulnerable people (the girl in this story) are exploited by others to make money. And that anyone who jeopardizes the ability of the powerful to make money will pay dearly (publicly accused, humiliated, beaten, imprisoned). This is an old story whose truth we all know all too well.

(In Biblical times, it was believed that everything, and I do mean everything, was caused by some living spirit, seen or unseen. "Normal" human behaviour was caused by the spirit of that person. But deviant behaviour was caused by a spirit that had possessed the person. The spirit could possibly be holy and good, or it could be demonic and evil. In Biblical understanding, this girl's spirit is not clear: it is accurately publicly saying who Paul and Silas are. But unclean spirits can do this - as for example the spirits that recognize who Jesus truly was. Paul probably initially tries to ignore the girl because he would be aware of the consequences that would follow if he were to challenge the spirit in the girl. That Paul finally acts because he became "very much annoyed" (verse 18, NRSV) may or may not be factual, but it certainly reveals a believable human characteristic of Paul's. It is precisely this telling of the faults and failings of the "heroes" of the Biblical story that makes the story believable.)

From this point on the story gradually introduces surprises: novel, unpredicted possibilities.

Surprise number 1. Having been publicly shamed, beaten and imprisoned, Paul and Silas do not fall in line and become obedient to the prevailing authorities. Instead, they exercise the inner spiritual freedom which they still have - they pray and sing! They are in prison but still free in faith. Is this part of the story factual? Who cares? Is this part of the story truthful? Does it truthfully open up to us new possibilities for how WE might respond to constraints we experience in life? (Or is this a delusion, a lie?)

Surprise number 2. Having been freed from their chains and had the prison doors opened by an earthquake, Paul, Silas and all the other prisoners stay in their cells! Having been set physically free, they continue to exercise the freedom in faith they already had by choosing to stay put instead of fleeing. If Paul and Silas had still been captive to the logic of who has true authority in their society (the magistrates) they would have fled. But the upside-down logic of this is that fleeing is still part of the same old story, whereas staying put is what confirms the new freedom in faith that Paul is giving witness to. Is this part of the story factual? Who cares? Does it truthfully open up to us new possibilities for how WE might break the cycles of rebellion-punishment-obedience and respond in a way that is truly faithful and free?

Surprise number 3. The response of the guard to become a believer and care for Paul and Silas' wounds is a courageous response. His initial reaction of drawing his sword to kill himself is because he knows what will happen to him when it is discovered all the prisoners have escaped - he will be brutally tortured and then killed. Better to kill himself as painlessly as possible. But by accepting the truth of the above two surprises, the guard steps outside the norms of his society and becomes vulnerable to the same persecution that Paul and Silas received. By being baptized he now knowingly, willingly, gladly puts himself and his household in exactly the same danger he thought he was in when he first saw that the prison doors had been thrown open. However, by being baptized he now also claims for himself and his household the freedom in faith from the rulers of this world that Paul and Silas gave evidence of. Is this part of the story factual? Who cares? Does it truthfully open up to us new possibilities for how WE might respond with courage to adopt new beliefs and new ways of being, even in the face of being punished, ostracized, or worse, by our friends and society?

Surprise number 4. (But only if you read right to then end of the story.) Paul and Silas didn't flee when an earthquake opened the prison doors, and now when the magistrates set them free, they still won't go! The logic of the old story of how the rulers of this world are the only rulers would have Paul and Silas taking the token offered to them and getting out as quietly and as quickly as possible. But Paul and Silas have been living all along in the freedom of their faith. They don't accept the "authority" of the rulers of this world because they believe the truth that there is another ruler - one whose "rule" is love. And so, in this freedom, Paul and Silas demand, and get, a public apology. By so doing, they set an example of courage, and they actually provide an element of increased social safety: the Magistrates will be less hasty to condemn followers of this new Way of Jesus. Is this part of the story factual? Who cares? Does it truthfully open up new possibilities for how WE might live to the fullest extent our obedience to the narrative of God's love?

John 17:20-26

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Again, we have a small section from a much longer, more complex passage.

These verses re-iterate the central concern of John, the formation of an organic, complete, total, loyal relationship with Jesus / the community of his followers (now and in future generations) / his Father. This fully devoted relationship is what John means by "love." It is by abiding in this love, sharing God's word and God's glory, and being completely one that outsiders may truly know / understand / realize that indeed Jesus was sent by the Father. And as verse 17:3 says:

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent

And again, I would repeat that while the exclusionary language of John is antithetical to the Good News of Jesus, the vision of the community that abides in the unity of God's love is to be lifted up as a challenge to all followers of Jesus. Will the outside world indeed see in us the love and glory of God?

David Ewart
www.holytextures.com

Acts 16:9-15

One interesting thing about this rather prosaic passage is that it highlights once more the important leadership and resources offered by women in the early Christian community - and even lets us know her name: Lydia!

Lydia is described as a God-fearer or a worshipper of God. ("God-fearer" should be heard as slangy street language and not as a formal term.) This means she was a Gentile (i.e., non-Jewish) adherent of Judaism. Scholars believe there were a significant number of such God-fearers, and that these were among the first of Paul's Gentile converts to the way of Jesus.

Things I wish I knew about the setting of this passage:

• Why were only women present at the prayer gathering?
• Why were the women meeting by the river instead of in someone's home or a syngogue?
• How would the presence of Paul and his male companions be viewed, at least initially, by the women, and by the community?
• How had Lydia, a woman, come to do what was normally only something a man could do - trade in cloth?
• I understand that purple was an expensive dye in those days, so what does that imply about Lydia's social status and standing in her community?

John 14:23-29

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Once again we have a small excerpt selected from a much longer, richer, and more complex passage which is the whole of Chapter 14.

These verses are part of an address by Jesus to his followers (then and now) on why they should not let their hearts be troubled (Verses 1 and 27) even though he is about to leave them.

Acts 11:1-18

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This passage is a great sermon illustration of how challenging to received traditions and social customs, "loving one another as I have loved you" can be.

We can accept the difficult challenge of loving those we are close to, but how should we regard those who are strangers and foreign; those who may have habits and customs that are repugnant to us. If they agree to become like us, they can be included in our responsibility to love. But are we to love them as we find them?

John 13:31-35

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This passage is taken from a much longer, more complex and richly significant telling of Jesus' last supper with his followers before his betrayal, arrest, trial, torture and execution. The first verse of John 13 sets the context:

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go the Father. Having loved (agape) his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.