Friday 21 February 2025
St Peter Damian
Genesis 11:1-9. Happy the people the Lord has chosen to be his own – Psalm 32(33):10-15. Mark 8:34 – 9:1.
Jesus’ enthronement comes on the cross
For many centuries as the enlightenment held sway and the educated class became enamoured with their technological mastery, the story of Babel was a bit embarrassing. Setting aside the theology of the text and its genre, it was perceived as representative of Christianity’s anti-human and anti-technological tendencies.
These bronze age Christians just want to hold back human progress, and their God must be pathetic to be threatened by our advancement. Facing the industrial-scale and tech-enabled horrors of the past two centuries, and the terrible ecological damage we have wrought, shatters much of this. Our technologies, whether bricks, mining techniques, guns or AI, may be mere tools, innocent on their own, but there is something deeply wrong in us that bends them to ill.
Against this triumphant image of human as master we gaze on Jesus, lowly and gentle, whose enthronement comes on the cross.
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