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Disclaimer: This is a transcript of Pastor Fenker’s sermon. It was preached from an outline, and the transcript taken automatically from the audio. Please forgive any typographical or formatting errors.

᛭ INI ᛭

When it comes to the Tower of Babel, what Genesis seems to tell us is that it was a great time of advancement. Suddenly, mankind was building towers into heaven. They were using new technology. They had bricks instead of stone. They had bitumen for mortar. Much like today.


Many things are changing, new technologies all around us. But when it comes to those forefathers of ours that settled in the land of Shinar, The more things change, the more they stay the same. They built a tower for 2 reasons. They built a tower in order to reach the heavens. And they built a tower in order to make a name for themselves.

We too. want to make a name for ourselves. We, too. want to get to heaven. Now, we’re all good Lutherans, so we know to avoid building towers to heaven. But how often we build up towers, in comparison to others. We often think that we are better than others. We’re the better sister or brother, we’re the better friend. 
We’re the better parent, the better spouse. The best worker. We’re at our job.


We do this all the time. And we hope that we at least get some recognition. Someone will know our name. Remember our name. Remember what we have done for them. Remember those times that we were, we were indeed, better than them. 


The Lord God, comes down to Babel, and there confuses their language so that they would leave off building the city. And the Spirit of God comes to you too. He comes to burn up.


The towers that we make, which are really walls that separate us, one from another. And he burns them up. He brings us to repentance. 
He says, all such things divide us and most dangerously divide us from the Lord. And so the Spirit says that this is not the way of the Spirit. This is not the way that the spirit would have us live our lives, in fervent love, toward one another. 


And so the Spirit takes up another job. He doesn’t just burn away what is unloving and sinful within us, starting first, oddly enough, in the waters of holy baptism. But the spirit also builds us up. 
He wants to build you up. He wants you to grow up into maturity in Christ, your head. Christ, who was humble. 


Christ who is humble. for you in your place. And the spirit is building you up. By the Holy Gospel. 


For the foundation has been laid. Christ is your foundation. The one to build upon. 


And in the gospel, in the scriptures comes the entire word of God, the whole council of God comes to you in the scriptures reveals Christ to you. And the Spirit would build gold and silver. and precious stones upon the foundation of Christ. All the good to teachings of Christ. 


So it was, in Acts chapter 2, that the Spirit, through the preaching of Peter, unconfused the language, uniting all peoples in the preaching of the Holy Gospel, that ultimately it was all that Christ came to die, and that the Jews that were there for Pentecost had killed. the promised savior. But Peter says they are not without hope. You and I are not without hope either. 
For the Spirit unites us, unites us to Christ and unites us together. And we rejoice to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, the body of Christ. 


Christ’s body, the church, the very body of Christ, for you, was given and shed on the cross. And so now, you are united all the more to Christ by the Spirit, here in the supper of his body and blood. And so, the spirit would call us not to build towers, not to build walls, not to place ourselves high. 


But rather the Christ way, the way of humility. The way of love. And the way of humility and love is yours all the more. 


All the more, through holy baptism, all the more, through holy absolution, all the more, through the holy word, all the more, through the supper of Jesus body and blood. That you would then go out, and not confuse one another, or drive anyone away, but rather be truly united. truly united in a way that forgives sins that does not boast or puff up, but rather serves, serves the neighbor, but most especially serves in the way of forgiving, that we might truly be one body. not only as a congregation, but as our families, and even inviting those friends and coworkers, or anyone, to join us, in what the spirit is doing, not building a tower into heaven, but rather building you, as his own very temple, a bastion of love and forgiveness, Christ’s love, and forgiveness, in this confused and troubling worlds

᛭ INI ᛭