Texts:
"And if one part of suffers, all parts suffer with it; if one part is glorified, all the parts are glorified with it."
But the truth is we live divided lives. We live divided from our neighbors, from our brothers and sisters, and from ourselves. We desire intimacy and connection but we do not want these things at the expense of our identities. I think there is an implicit belief that, by allowing another person to be themselves, or by identifying ourselves with another person, we lose piece of our selves. How little confidence we have in who we have been made to be! So easily threatened, so easily challenged, so easily made defensive, we choose to cut people off from relationship with us when we fear we might be hurt or when we realize we have the capacity to hurt each other.
What if our identities are not so much in spite of one another but because of one another? What if it is when we are met with the Other that we have the opportunity to be our most true selves? Instead, we try to make it on our own. We try to live as though we are impervious to the world around us, above needing each other, above desiring intimacy and connection.
I think this is the real issue with the story of Babel from Genesis for today. It wasn't that God was jealous that the people were working together or that God was threatened by them building a big city and a big tower. I don't think it was that God was threatened at all. Having created people to be in relationship with each other and with God, God saw people attempting to do this on their own, pointing to their accomplishments as the end and purpose of their existence. The self becomes puffed up as it starts to imagine that it has no need of those around it. Conversely, the self who has known failure and defeat begins to believe it serves no purpose. We have been created for relationship, to rejoice in each other and to grieve with each other.
Where we burn bridges, God builds. Where we hate, God loves. Where we turn away, God turns toward. Where we see tally our defeats and successes as a mark of divine favor, God removes all of the stipulations, all of the excuses, and all of the reasons and simply says, "You are mine."
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