Babel

To be honest I have never understood the story of the tower of Babel found in Genesis 11:1- 9. I have a lot of difficulty believing that whatever the people of the time made from their bricks and tar, it could be a thing that all-powerful God was concerned about. And in the big scheme of things it hardly slowed men down from attempting to be gods.

On the other hand, the movie “Babel” recently spoke powerfully to me about the consequences of our continuing inability or failure to speak and listen to others in our increasingly interconnected world. In some way the biblical story is given a prophetic face, and I wonder if the story is being realized in our time.

Babel (the movie) is in fact three 3 stories skillfully woven together. An American couple, whose marriage is unraveling, are traveling in Morocco when tragedy strikes. Their children have been left in America with their Mexican-American caregiver. Meanwhile, in Japan, a deaf Japanese girl longs to communicate with and be valued by her father and her peers. And in each situation, there is a lack of real communication, caused by all the usual culprits; marital woundings, cultural differences, language barriers, physical handicap, a sensationalist press, deafening noise. The result is a sense of foreboding throughout the movie as you realize that in a world without time, without compassion and without understanding, the inevitable result will be tragedy at some level.

Such is our world, and Babel is a warning to people everywhere. But frankly, no one is listening, and so individuals will suffer damage, and national and international catastrophes will not end.

Whatever the world's reaction, Babel should however speak forcefully to Christians who wish to impact our world for good. There is enough noise, conflict, mistrust, positioning, rallying, polarizing, vilifying , and all the rest. We should not be adding to that which is destroying lives and the world. While I have no problem with staking out our views on truth, and defending these, in a world where “human pain and suffering has a universal language”*, our rhetoric should not be one more damaging factor. We have a better role to play.

We who are Christians should begin to speak only our universal language, the language of grace. This is the language of the Kingdom of God. Those who speak grace talk softly, listen carefully and patiently, encourage, suggest alternatives, do not condemn but rather affirm the value and dignity of all people and speak God’s love, forgiveness and hope to a desperate and lonely world. This was the language of Jesus. It was the language of Mother Theresa. It is the language of Billy Graham. People listen to this language and are affected. This language is that which can change our world.

It will not be easy for us. It is hard not to respond aggressively to the world when you are demeaned, marginalized and ignored. It is hard to respond with grace to the institutional church when you believe it is missing the mark, and when it seems not to care. It is hard not to be critical of fellow Christians who do not seem to understand their responsibility to the world around them. But we must find a way to speak to these issues in a way that is loving and caring. This is a great challenge for me, but I am going to try and speak more of this language of grace.

If you think you might attend Babel, be aware that the movie has some brief nudity and brief, but occasional alarming sexually suggestive scenes. While these are relevant to the story, there is also a somewhat gratuitous, but not explicit scene of a boy masturbating. If this would offend you, please don’t go. As well be aware that we couldn’t understand the non-English parts of the stories where some of the speaking was in an Arabic language, Mexican and Japanese. In North America these will be subtitled in English, but here in Slovakia they were subtitled in Czech, and so we were not able to understand what was being said in some of the movie and could only guess at it from the images we saw. Ultimately this added to the sense of the movie for us, but I’m not able to vouch for this language in them.

If you do go however, I think you will be impacted by a thoughtful and relevant film. I look forward to what you think.











*Victoria Alexander, www.filmsinreview.com