Tower Building Can Be Hazardous

This past Sunday, I preached from Genesis 11:1-9 which is the story of the "tower of Babel."  When I read this story as a child, I liked it.  I liked seeing God give those evil people their due. When I grew up, it dawned on me that "those evil people" included me.  Tower building can be hazardous.

Beware!  The Tower of Babel is like the famed phoenix.  It keeps rising from its ashes.  Chances are you have built one or may be building one now.

Perhaps you, like me, are fairly inept with building tools in your hand.  If so, you may be taking false comfort in the thought that you will not be guilty of building a tower. 

Beware!  Towers of Babel are built of many things.  Some of the most damning are not built from bricks and mortar or glass and steel.

There are the towers that are built from ego blocks.  The building starts out well enough.  Those with strong egos are usually surrounded by others who have helped to convey to others a strong sense of self-worth.  The problem comes when nothing matters more than stroking our own egos and becoming obsessed with making a sure everyone else knows who and what we are.  When one with a strong ego becomes egotistical, the tower often crumbles and falls.

There are the towers that are built on the backs of our children.  Having failed to become all we hoped to become, we strive ever harder to be sure our children become all they should be.  It is admirable to see parents who guide and direct their children toward self-discovery and who urge them to be the best they can be.  The problem comes when the parent or parents confuse who their children can be with who they had hoped to be.  The parent trying to complete in the child what they failed to complete is a builder of a tower that will crumble and fall.

There are towers that are built from status blocks.  Individuals, couples, families, churches, and societies can be builders of such towers.  A person, a couple, a family, a church, or a society consumed by concern about its status will spend too little time looking outward and forward and too much time looking inward.  Such persons and groups forget to consider how their choices today will play out in the lives of others.  As a result, they build empty edifices that look good from the outside but are empty and hollow inside.  While others look on from the outside and rave about what they see, the builders slowly die from emptiness they know all too well.

Why do we labor so hard for that which crumbles, destroying others and ourselves?  Have we forgotten the Builder who calls us forth to a way of life?   Abraham knew that Builder and came to know that only that which God built would last.  “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10).

There are towers that are built on sure foundations.  To build those towers, we will need to look to the Master Designer and Builder and follow the plans provided—plans that call for the elevation of the Designer and Builder, not the elevation of our ourselves.