Genesis 11 angers me. As I finished reading this passage in preparation for my message this Sunday my blood boiled. Not at men, but at God. How could he divide the unity that was beautiful. Man was successful. They created brick and was on their way to creating the largest building of their time, one that would reach the heavens. God himself said that anything would be possible for them. Then, like a Greek God, He confused man and separated them from their success. Why would he do this?
As I was preparing today I realized I was reading it with my North American eyes. Success? Is that really such a great thing to be unified around, especially when built on the selfish ambition that the people of Babel were soaking in. “Let’s build for ourselves a great city so our name will be great!!!!” God is not even on their radar.
But then, as I think about this story as an explanation of why we have so many cultures, I can’t help but be angry yet again. God caused division in culture which has lead to wars, racism, and genocide. At least man was unified. But then again, who I am to say man would not soon have a civil war. God choose the lesser evil in this. Instead of being unified around evil and selfish ambition, he separated man like two unruly friends in a classroom.
So here we are, surrounded by racism, war and genocide because of the differences in cultures. The question is, what do we do with it as the church? Now that we know we all come from the same family and that we are all made in the image of God, what are we going to do? We have a call, as a church, to have unity in diversity. To not think that every Arab is strapped to a bomb. To not think that every Mexican is dirty. To not think that every white person is rich. To not think that every black person is African or poor. The list goes on. Our call is to realize and live in the unity we have in Christ. Our call is to act out against the racism we see and bring appreciation to the diversity that our God has created.
For His Kingdom 