Genesis 11 recounts the building of the tower of Babel, near what would become Babylon. A lot of folks had migrated to the plain in Shinar, and decided to build a city.

Was that really a good idea?

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not agreeing with Cambodian despot Saloth Sar/Pol Pot in decreeing that “the cities are evil” or advocating the forcible relocation of all citizens to the countryside.

But I’ve gotten the impression that what God really wanted his people to do was not to settle, farm or build cities, but to be restless wanderers upon the earth (Genesis 4:10-12, 17b); spreading over the face of it and caring for its flora/fauna and carrying His name to every corner of it. Citizens of no particular country. Shepherds of flocks and of His people.

Relying on His providence at every turn.

Instead, they built kilns and baked bricks in order to build a tower that “reaches to the heavens.” (Interesting to be writing this on the day that the newest “world’s tallest building,” the Burj Dubai, officially opens. Its shape is reminiscient of the ziggurats built in ancient times in surrounding Mesopotamia.)

God frustrates the building of Babel’s tower-or-ziggurat-or-brick-heap by confusing the language of the people there; multiplying the tongues with which they spoke. Linguists might snicker at this notion just as biologists might chortle at creation, but while both are correct in observing that languages and creatures grow and adapt, languages and creatures also have to have a beginning somewhere, somehow. They’re not, like Topsy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin “never borned; just growed.”

There are lots of interesting aspects of this passage of scripture.

• The ambition of the people. There’s no indication that they’re engineers of any kind, but they are determined to build a tower that reaches to the heavens “so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Paul puts an updated twist on Deuteronomy 30:12-13‘s achievability of God’s will for us through humility rather than ambition when he says in Romans 10:5-13.
• God’s determination to frustrate their plans to gather and build … because they are frustrating His plans for them to disperse and care for His world? Was God’s intervention for their own safety, as well? How tall could these amateur masons build a tower of bricks rather than stone before it collapsed upon them, killing and maiming … how many? Even towers built in the more technologically-advanced Roman era still collapsed (Luke 13:4)
• God’s high estimation of their capabilities (limited, of course, by the limitations that He is obviously aware of as their Creator): “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”
• The royal plural used once again. “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
• The effectiveness of His countermeasure. They stopped building the city. They dispersed. Is the countermeasure still effective? Think about the obstacles to progress in commerce and technology that are still present because we are having to communicate across borders in more than a dozen major languages and hundreds of minor ones. Imagine, for instance, what it takes in order to just communicate the dimensions, weight, voltages, and tolerances of a module for the International Space Station among the partner nations.

The people of the erstwhile Babel intended a tower and left behind a brick heap. They might have avoided the trouble just by listening for – and heeding – what God had been trying to tell us from the very beginning.

Am I off base in perceiving God’s original intent for His people?

Just consider for a moment. Cities collect too many people where there are too few resources. Resources must be transported to them. Farms must be managed to grow food. When cities were finally built, they were walled. Why? For defense. Armies had to be mustered to defend them from raiders. Resources had to be stored there to support people sequestered behind the walls. Farms outside the walls had to be protected. Innocents died. Ambition soared. Self prevailed.

Did Moses boast about striking water from rocks when he was a shepherd in Midian … or when millions were encamped together in Rephidim?

Did ambition trouble David’s life when he was a shepherd in the hills surrounding Bethlehem … or when he was king in Jerusalem?

When pioneer farmers and ranchers settled the American West, were they ever as far from food and necessities as the destitute and homeless in our contemporary cities are now?

There is no question in my mind that there are too many people per square acre of life-supportable land in most of the world today, and nowhere is that more true than in our largest cities. That’s where more people – surrounded by those who should be helping shepherd and care for them – fall through society’s cracks into poverty and desperation and crime and early death.

I believe there’s something in each of us that is ennobled by seeing ourselves not as conquerors but as caretakers; by sharing rather than accumulating; by being aliens and strangers in this world – always in wonder at what God has done and might do eternally through us, rather than proud of the brick heaps we have built by ourselves.

Today’s reading in The Daily Bible (Genesis 6-9) – the story of Noah and the ark – is one that virtually every child who has been to Sunday school remembers. Noah was at least five-hundred-and-some years old and had three sons when the rest of mankind had become so sorry that God became sorry He had made them – and determined to wipe them and, necessarily, the animals and birds off the face of His earth.

All except Noah and his family.

God, expressing His disgust with mankind’s continued predilection toward indulging self, has either cut human lifespans short to a general maximum of a hundred-and-twenty years … or has cut the lifespan of humankind to the hundred-and-twenty years required to build a lifeboat. The language isn’t crystal-clear.

He instructed Noah to build a great watertight, wooden box, half the length and nearly as wide as an iron ship built thousands of years later: H.M.S. Titanic. But unlike Titanic, this ark is watertight for more than a year after forty days and nights of unrelenting rain and unstanched flow from underground springs began.

Inside her is that family and a mated pair of each unclean animal and seven of each clean animal, male and female (with “unclean” and “clean” evidently a distinction which long predated Moses’ law), plus all the food that they will need, and the stamina of people whose only hope is God. Near the end, they could hear a wind blowing outside their craft, and the waters began to recede – for the next hundred and fifty days.

Almost every child remembers how Noah sent out birds after the rain had ceased, to see if there was yet dry land. Almost every child remembers that Noah sacrificed some of those precious clean animals, and the scent so pleased God that He promised never again to exterminate all life with a flood, setting His rainbow in the sky as a reminder of the covenant. Some children will remember that God then gave Noah and his family permission to consume the animals as food, and warned that both men and animals would be accountable for each life they took – and that man should not eat any flesh with the lifeblood still in it.

There’s a very important detail that we forget to tell our children:

The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” ~ Genesis 8:21

The time for judgment against all of mankind has come and gone.

The time for judgment of each man and each creature has come. It is a new era: one of personal responsibility.

What we also rarely share with our children is the rest of the story. It continues the pattern that the Bible has established in those few previous chapters: that God entreats man not to sin, man sins anyway, man is punished, the punishment eventually leads to death, and that God shows mercy to those who want to walk with Him.

The rest of the Noah story is embarrassingly sordid. Noah turned to farming, planted a vineyard, let some of the grapes go sour, distilled wine, became drunk from it, and passed out stark naked. His son Ham discovered him, tattled to his two brothers Shem and Japheth, who took great pains to restore his clothing as well as preserve his dignity. Noah, made aware of the indignity later, pronounced a curse on Ham, whose descendants through son Canaan would serve his brothers’ seed.

So it is Noah, not God, who issues this curse and sets up the consequences that will persist through many, many generations to come … until the prophecy of an era when God’s original intention would be restored:

The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: ” ‘The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die. ~ Ezekiel 18:1-4

Today’s reading in The Daily Bible (Genesis 4-5) tells the story of the generations that follow the creation of Adam and Eve, who have been expelled from the fertile garden into a world of hard labor with the soil and hard labor in childbirth.

Cain, a tiller of the soil, is born; and some time after, Abel his brother, a tender of flocks.

But go back with me for a moment to the pronouncement of God’s judgment on their parents in Genesis 3:17-19. I’ll wait while you read.

Finished? We speak of that judgment as “the curse.” Did you notice? When Adam and Eve disobeyed, God didn’t curse either one.

He cursed the ground, to make Adam labor. And since apparently neither of them had chosen to eat of the tree of life, they would have to perpetuate their species through childbirth, and that would be the labor of Eve. It’s not a curse. It’s a consequence.

Cain, as a farmer, inherited the consequence of that curse. He had to work the soil in his chosen profession. His brother Abel probably seemed to have it easier: just let the flocks wander and eat whatever cropped up from the rocks.

There’s no indication in scripture that God asked for an offering from either one. But both offered.

Let me propose the possibility that God’s displeasure with Cain’s offering (“some fruits of the soil”) and pleasure with Abel’s (“fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock”) was based, not so much on what they offered, but on how they offered it.

Abel had it relatively easy. The abundance he enjoyed in his flocks was clearly God-given. Perhaps he offered in a heart of gratitude because that was so easy to see.

Cain had it tough. He worked soil that was cursed. The abundance he offered to God was clearly the result of his labor. Perhaps he offered with an attitude rather than gratitude.

(For some reason, I’m reminded of the prayer Jimmy Stewart delivers as hardscrabble farmer Charlie Anderson in the movie Shenandoah: “Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eatin’ it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same for this food we’re about to eat. Amen.”)

This attitude may well be what led Cain to jealousy and murder and deceit before God. And the consequence was that the curse on the land got even tougher for him: it would no longer produce for him, no matter how hard he worked.

Yet there is mercy in God’s judgment. A mark is placed on Cain so that no one will take his life to avenge Abel, lest they be punished seven-fold.

Rather than wandering with flocks like his dead brother had done, Cain turned to settling and building a city. One of his grandsons, Jabal, chose the life of tents and flocks and herds; another, Jubal, the pursuit of music; and another, Tubal-Cain, the forging of metal. (A granddaughter, Naamah, is barely mentioned.) But Cain’s history of internecine warfare persisted; his son Lamech also killed, and felt so justified in killing that he called for vengeance seventy-seven-fold.

Adam and Eve were given another son, Seth, and perhaps it says something of his character that when Seth had a son named Enosh, “At that time men began to call on/proclaim the name of the LORD.” Maybe Seth did not want The Story of God and Man to be lost, so he passed it on to his children.

In the generations that follow, men father children, grow very old, and eventually die – with one extraordinary exception.

Enoch lives a brief 365 years in a time when his ancestors and descendants live 700, 800, 900-and-more years, and the account of each one ends “… and then he died.”

“When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” ~

In the garden where God put Adam and Eve, they could hear Him walking in the cool of the day. That apparently was not enough for Enoch. He walked with God.

Scripture records over and over that this is exactly what He wants and hopes and plans for us.

“I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.” ~ Leviticus 26:12

“My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.” ~ Ezekiel 37:27

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’ ” ~ Revelation 21:3

“No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.” ~ Revelation 22:3

Isaac Watts wrote the hymn Joy to the World that we’ve heard a few times in this Christmas season now closing:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

And William Cowper’s O For a Closer Walk With God yearns for the same:

So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.

So in five chapters, God has already taught us foundational truths about life. He created; He blessed His creation with purpose; He offered choice; He warned that sinleadstodeath sinleadstodeath sinleadstodeath (Genesis 2:17); He judged and pronounced consequences; He showed mercy; He expressed His desire to walk with us.

And, perhaps, He has hinted that a works-based attitude is never as pleasing to Him as gratitude-based worship.

“And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” ~ Genesis 2:9

My church family is beginning a year-long study of the entire text of the Bible together, using The Daily Bible (NIV) as arranged and commented by F. LaGard Smith. I hope to blog along with the study, and am posting those thoughts with the tag The Story. Today’s reading (Genesis 1-3) starts, as you might guess, at the very beginning.

In that beginning, God creates. He creates in an order. He creates mankind. And because the more general introductory account (Genesis 1:1-2:3) places the creation of man in a different order than the more specific account about Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:4-25), we have one of our first quandaries about scripture.

(Personally, I think it’s possible that God hand-made Adam (“him” – 2:4-7) in that pre-“third day” time when there was land but no vegetation, then planted a garden specifically for him; then created mankind (“them” – Genesis 1:26-30) in an image of dominion in the later “sixth day” period. Perhaps He wanted Adam to watch Him create.

I hope you’re not hoping to read the definitive, incontrovertible answer to the question of how long those “days” of creation lasted. There isn’t one. God could have created it all in six 24-hour days. He could have taken millions of years of His time to perfect each liquid brushstroke of ocean and each chiseled craggy bluff and each hand-sculpted breathing body. He could have spoken it all into perfect existence in a moment. He did it His way and He described it His way. If you think you have to understand everything about Him to believe in Him and serve Him, you haven’t read Job. Get over it, will you?)

Of course, there’s the matter of God speaking in the royal plural, too: “Let us make ….” I have my thoughts about that, too. He might have been speaking to angels who witnessed creation (Job 38:7). He might have been speaking within Himself, a Personality that is both One (Deuteronomy 6:4) and more than One (Genesis 1:1-2; John 1:1-4) – to a part of Himself, the Word, through whom and for whom He created … and who would later become flesh as His Son (1:14). I can’t explain that. I can’t describe it. I just believe it to be true. (See The Really, Really Big Picture for some of my further thoughts.)

But both accounts of creation agree that man was created to have dominion (Genesis 1:26; 2:15); to take care of what God had created.

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’ “~ 2:15-17

No, I also don’t know why God planted a tree in reach of His crowning creation that would bring pain and suffering and death to that creation. I have some thoughts about it, though, as you might have guessed.

Did you notice that there was no prohibition to eat from the tree of life? What would you imagine that a tree of life would do for you? If you’ve read ahead to verse 22, you know:

“And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ “~Genesis 3:22

But if you’re Adam, you might not know. We know that God balanced the poisonfruit tree with the tree of life. He offered a choice. After Eve is created, she finds the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.” Perhaps the fruit of the tree of life wasn’t as good-looking and pleasing to the eye. (Just as life itself isn’t, always.) Perhaps it didn’t have fruit like the groves of the tree of life in Revelation 22:1.

God doesn’t offer encouragement or prohibition to eat from it. One tree is enough for Him to offer a choice: eat or don’t eat.

I’m not going to go into all the ramifications of choice in God’s plan or argue against Calvinism or refute universalism. I’m just saying that God, from the very beginning, even before there was a helper for Adam, offered him a choice.

He also offered life. Perhaps He described to Adam what the fruit of the tree of life would do for him; perhaps not. Perhaps that tree’s proximity to the poisonfruit tree made him cautious about trying it. We don’t know. Of course we’d like to. We’ve always thought the answer to life was the fruit of the tree of knowledge, haven’t we?

When the answer to the questions of life is life itself.

The answer to the questions about God is God Himself.

The point I’d like to make – at the beginning of this new year – is that Adam missed an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He had a second choice.

He never tried to eat of the tree of life.

Perhaps he was too busy living life – working at his job tending the garden; cherishing his new helper Eve – to accept the free gift that was just standing there, arms open and full of the promise of eternity.

Okay, sermon’s over.