The Empire of Sameness (Day 4: Roots & Shoots)

• The Ornament: The Tower / The Brick
• The Scripture: Genesis 11:1-9

The Surface Reading

On the surface, the story of Babel could be reduced down to a fable explaining why people speak different languages. The people are punished for being “too proud.” They try to build a tower to reach God, and God—apparently insecure about the competition—zaps them with different languages to knock them down a peg.

A Closer Look

Guides: Rob Bell / Pete Enns

To understand this story, we have to look at a significant innovation at the time: The Brick (see Genesis 11:3).

Before Babel, people built with stone. Stones are God-made; they are organic, unique, and jagged. To build with stone, you have to slow down and fit them together carefully.

But at Babel, they invent the brick. Bricks are human-made. They are uniform, identical, and efficient. You can stack them fast and high. And once you have bricks, you can build an Empire.

The text says they wanted to “make a name for themselves” and prevent being scattered. They were building the first totalitarian system—a machine where everyone speaks the same, looks the same, and works for the same goal. Babel isn’t just a tower; it is a factory of uniformity.

The Critique of Empire

Lens: Rob Bell (Jesus Wants to Save Christians)

When God comes down to confuse their language, it isn’t an act of petty punishment; it is an act of divine disruption.

God looks at this “Empire of Sameness” and sees that it crushes the individual. An Empire requires everyone to be a “brick”—replaceable and identical. God throws a wrench in the gears of the machine. By confusing their languages, they are forced to stop working. God breaks the efficiency of the Empire to save the humanity of the people.

God would rather have us scattered and diverse than united in oppression. God disrupts our “efficient” systems to remind us that we were created to be stones—unique and jagged—not bricks in a wall.

(And as we will see tomorrow, the only way to have a “Great Name” isn’t to build it yourself, but to receive it from God.)

The Question

In What is the Bible?, Rob Bell dedicates a chapter to the idea that “History is usually written by the winners, but the Bible was written by the losers.”

The scriptures were written by slaves, refugees, and exiles living under the boot of massive superpowers.

Bell suggests that for those of us living in the modern West, it is easy to miss the Bible’s critique of Empire because, in many ways, the Empire is working for us. We read these stories assuming we are the slaves making the bricks, but if we are honest, our lives often look more like the people living comfortably in the Tower.

It is time to check our perspective.

It is hard to see the cost of the system when you are benefitting from its efficiency.

Instead of asking “Who is oppressing me?”, try asking: Who are the invisible people making the ‘bricks’ that support my lifestyle? Who are the workers or the overlooked neighbors who have to be crushed so that my economy can stand tall?