Word to the Wise
Friday, February 16, 2007 - Sixth Friday in Ordinary Time
[Genesis 11:1-9 and Mark 8:34-9:1]Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel is a parable not about the origin of different languages but about the same thing that got Adam and Eve in trouble - human pride. Humans think that because they have learned how to build with bricks and bitumen (technology), they can frustrate God's plan for them to fill the earth. Instead they decide that they will build a city with a tower "with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves...." Once more humans decide that they are greater than God's sovereignty. God shows them differently. "If now, while they are one people, all speaking the same language, they are started to do this, nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do." Technology has become a new language in our day and presumes to speak a language that all can understand. The internet is a good example. The sheer fact that a particular science can bring about a particular effect seems to be the only argument necessary in its own mind for doing it. Human pride is a difficult trait in a person of faith, but in the secular mind, there are no boundaries to it. Just in the area in which I teach, Biomedical Ethics, irresponsible voices urge results in genetics, end of life issues, utilitarian access to health care that are little more than the voices of the Old Testament folks who seek to build the tower with its top in the sky so that they can make a name for themselves. The Old Testament teaches us that no matter how ancient the lessons about human pride, humans seem determined to build that tower. It seems easy to do if you don't believe in moral responsibility. The old saying is forever true: "The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" AMEN
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