GHA

There’s an interesting story written in Sumerian about 4000 years ago called Gilgamesh and Huwawa. It tells the story of Gilgamesh’s search for fame. He is confronted with the fact that, like all humans, he is mortal and will one day die. He reasons that if he can figure out a way to establish a name for himself then he will have achieved a sort of immortality.

The irony here is that Gilgamesh is already a man of renown. He is the king of his people. His people love him and view them as his shepherd. He single-handedly built the city defenses for them to protect them from their enemies. In short, he’s got it all.

But Gilgamesh strains his neck over the city wall, the wall that he built, and he laments that his past accomplishments are not good enough. He needs a new adventure to secure his spot in history and establish an eternal name for himself. He wants to live a life of meaning, a life of significance, so he decides to undertake a new adventure. He will travel to the east to defeat the mighty monster Huwawa. Before embarking on his journey, he seeks out and receives the blessing of the sun god.

There’s actually a somewhat similar story in the Bible. In Genesis 11 we are told that there was a group of people who, just like Gilgamesh, wanted to make a name for themselves. They sense their mortality, so they chose to build a tower that will reach into the heavens.

The big difference is that in the Bible God responds negatively to the undertaking. Why? Why did the sun god bless Gilgamesh in his search for fame but God thwarts the people in Genesis 11?

Because God refuses to be manipulated.

You see, the people weren’t building just any old tower. They were building a ziggurat, a tower that also serves as the home for a deity. They figured that if they could build God a home then they could contain him and manipulate him. After all, if they build a nice home for God, shouldn’t God bless them in return?

Maybe we don’t build towers to house God anymore, but we do sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that if we perform--go to church, give to missionaries, read the Bible every day, serve in the youth group--then God is somehow obligated to bless us. He might choose to bless us, but he’s not obligated. In fact, sometimes, like for Job, the ‘reward’ for our faithfulness is suffering.