And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built … So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
The city of Babel stands in the Bible as the paradigm for men’s work and men’s pride- trying to be like gods, building a city without God. Guillermo Arriaga picks the same name for the screenplay of Iñárritu’s most recent film. It shows a globalized world, reaching from Morocco to Japan, where human beings do not understand each other, attribute wrong motives and therefore hurt or even kill each other: a world gone out of control, where civilizations clash and wars are almost inevitable. And all this depicted in powerful images by a director who describes himself as left-wing, and heightened by performances of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.
In the Bible, Babel does not remain the final paradigm. Another event, taking place in another city, defines a different vision of human interaction.
And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"
The event here described takes place on the feast of Pentecost, in Jerusalem. The disciples of Jesus gather in a room and are being touched by the spirit of God. As a result, they experience a new unity, pictured by the fact that men and women from such different places as Crete and Arabia can understand each other. Ever since this event, which is often described as the birth of the church, Christians have made the same experience of the reconciling power of the Spirit of God: rich and poor, black and white, on the left and on the right of the political spectrum, yet they find deep relationship and trust around the values of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
So Babel does not need to be the final and somewhat apocalyptic vision of our planet. Might you and I be challenged to embrace a different vision, that of Pentecost? Don’t wait for the movie, read the book and do something about it!
# posted by tino @ Friday, January 26, 2007
