Creativity: The High Tower

Where do you find the most creative people in the world? The scientists, the artists, the scholars, the businessmen, the craftsmen; creativity and the city go together. So why does the story of the first great city end in confusion?

In Genesis 11, a people who had been spreading out across the earth settle down instead. They learn to make bricks and bake them thoroughly, and they stop building outward and start building upward: a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that they may make a name for themselves. This sermon walks two movements: the building of the tower, and God's response to it. The tower was a ziggurat, a temple, an access point to God; they wanted physical security because they lacked spiritual security, and physical access to God because they lacked intimacy with him. They had drifted east, away from the garden, until God had been pushed to the periphery of lives that were otherwise growing, innovating, and succeeding. When God comes down and confuses their language, it is discipline, but a gracious discipline of a picture of the isolation and disintegration already at work inside them. Centuries later God comes down again. Jesus Christ is crucified outside the city gate, the ultimate scapegoat, forsaken and stripped of his name, so that we would have access, forgiveness, a name, and citizenship in the city that never fades. And at Pentecost the table of nations is reversed: many languages, one message, the redemption of nations.

If you've been building a career, a family, a home, or a reputation, and quietly wondering whether the validation you are working for will ever actually arrive, this sermon is for you. Whether you are exploring Christianity, wrestling with doubt, or simply tired, take a few minutes to watch and see the freedom that comes from being known before you have built a thing.