IT S NOT GOOD FOR US TO BE ALONE

Transcription

1 Psalm 8 and Genesis 2:4-24 October 4, 2015 IT S NOT GOOD FOR US TO BE ALONE The LORD God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. That is the very first expression of God s love for human beings found in the Bible. God was concerned for Adam. And concern is an expression of love. The Man whom God created out of the dirt of the earth and, by the way, the name Adam in Hebrew simply means dirt creature existed all by himself. God had made the Man in God s own image and likeness, and had breathed God s very own breath, God s own divine Spirit, into him, to give the Man life. Adam was the crowning jewel of God s creation. He surpassed anything and everything else God had made. And God was exceedingly pleased and delighted with this very complex and detailed building project that had just been completed. There was just one problem. Adam was the only human creature on God s green earth. And that meant it would be a very lonely and desolate existence for him. God was quite worried about that. In my mind, I imagine God awake at night, tossing and turning and fretting over what to do about poor, solitary Adam. The LORD God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. You know how you buy a lamp or a table or some other piece of furniture for the house, and you put it where you want it and look at it, and then say, It s really nice, but it doesn t look quite right. It s incomplete. There s something missing. I need to buy another lamp or table or whatever for the other side of the room, a companion piece, to balance things off. I guess that s how God felt about Adam in his solitude. Adam needed something or, more accurately, Adam needed someone, a companion piece to bring balance and completeness to his existence. God s first idea was to take all the wild animals and the birds of the air and parade them before the Man, one after the other. I guess God s

2 thought was that one of them might offer close, life-long companionship for Adam. And as Adam gazed at each creature that passed by him, he came up with a name for them. You re an elephant. You I ll call a lion. This one with the black and white stripes, that s a zebra. And on and on it went. Deer and porcupines and owls and eagles and platypuses and lobsters and hummingbirds and puffins and panda bears and robins and squirrels and chickadees and foxes. Adam had names for them all. And as God watched and observed, I m sure with a sense of deep pride about what a great job his beloved Adam was doing, a thought occurred. These animals are nice and all. And I made them out of the very same dirt from the ground that Adam was created from. But they re not intimate companion material. None of them are the perfect partner and helper for Adam I had in mind. And so it was that, according to this particular creation story (because there are actually two different creation stories in the book of Genesis), God put Adam into a deep sleep, took one of his ribs, and from a part of God s first human creature God created a second human creature. This woman was the absolute perfect companion for Adam because she came directly from Adam. Adam realized this immediately, even though he was probably still sore and recovering from his divine surgery. And he spoke those beautiful, poetic words: This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. How overjoyed Adam must have been to have found the one companion, the perfect partner that he was meant to spent the rest of his life with. Thank you, dear God! I believe that inside of every one of us there s a deep yearning; a heartfelt longing and desire to find the perfect partner and companion to share the rest of our life with. Today we often call such a perfect partner and companion a soulmate. And although our soulmate wasn t made from one of our ribs, we may well believe in our hearts and minds that he or she was made by God especially and specifically for us, the way Eve was made for Adam in the creation story. Whether you take this story from Genesis about the creation of the first man and woman literally or figuratively, I believe it teaches us some 2

3 important truths about human relationships (because you see, the creation story doesn t have to be literally true to contain divine truth). One of the truths I take from this creation story is that God is involved, to the extent that we allow God to be, in the formation of all intimate human relationships. I believe that the Lord has a hand in bringing the right people together in loving, lifelong partnerships, because God is still of the opinion that it s not good for human beings to be alone. And because it s not good for human beings to be alone, we re all in need of a companion, that perfect partner and helper, to love. We were born with a craving, a natural yearning, to be in a devoted and unique relationship with another person. We were created with an inherent need for intimacy with and deep love between us and another special someone; a soulmate. The God who created us still worries about us and is concerned for us, because God realizes, perhaps even more than we ourselves realize, that it s not good for us to be alone. That s just not the way God created us to be. The second truth contained in this creation story is that, once we ve been blessed with a loving, intimate relationship with the person we re going to spend the rest of our life with, that relationship needs to be nurtured and encouraged and worked at. We can t just sit back, do nothing and expect the bond with our soulmate to remain strong and vibrant on its own. Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, it says in Genesis, and they become one flesh. To me, the word, clings implies that significant effort and determination is necessary in order to remain in loving union. When you cling to something, you hold on tight and refuse to let go; you simply won t allow storms or turmoil or trials or temptations or any challenge in life to tear you and your beloved apart. In essence, clinging to a life partner and soulmate is an act of will, seasoned with heartfelt love and affection, and fortified with constant prayer and sincere requests for God s guidance and strength. Finding a lifelong companion and partner who is perfectly suited for us is something of an inexact science. It s a difficult thing to calculate or predict. For some people, it happens almost magically. Or, in the vernacular of our faith, it s an unexpected, miraculous blessing. I can t tell you the number of people who shared with me how, the moment they first laid eyes on their spouse, who was a total stranger at the time, they knew with absolute certainty that he or she was the one. And the vast majority of the couples who told me that have been married for decades forty or fifty or more years. So it would seem that 3

4 their instinct or feeling that this person was their soulmate was absolutely right. Was it the Holy Spirit nudging them and bringing them together? No one knows for sure. But why couldn t it be? It s a perfect explanation for how that loving relationship came to exist, if you have faith in God. And then there are the very common stories of devoted and longmarried couples who die within a short time of each other. One passes away, and hours or days or a week or two later, the other one dies to go be with them. Because they realize that it s not good for them to be alone. For those who ve had a long, very happy, intimate marital relationship and their spouse has died, there s great comfort knowing that their true love is now being truly and eternally loved in the presence of the God who made them. And there s also immense joy and anticipation, trusting that, God willing, one day in the life to come they will see their soulmate again. I can t end this sermon without acknowledging those people who are still waiting, still searching for and eager to find their perfect partner and helper somewhere preferably as soon as possible. Maybe they re afraid that they ve missed their chance. They got a flat tire on the way to a high school dance and the one they were meant to be together with forever found someone else to dance with and fall in love with; or way back when, they turned their nose up at someone who asked them out; and now, years later, that person seems like someone they really could have grown close to and loved for the rest of their life, but the opportunity has gone by. To the people who are still looking, still searching, still hoping and praying that they will find their special someone, I say, Keep the faith. Trust and believe, because there s good reason to believe that God is present, somewhere in the mix, working behind the scenes and supporting them in their quest to find their life partner. I say that with confidence because I truly believe God is concerned, and God s will is for them to find a lifelong companion, a perfect partner. Because the God who made them knows very well that it s not good for them to be alone. You see, in God s mind, loneliness is a bummer. Human beings weren t created to go it alone in life. They were meant to be in loving, caring, intimate relationships, because the world can be a cold, hard place to live in, especially if you re living in it by yourself. And God knows that. So, with prayer and in trust, those who haven t found their life 4

5 companion yet can place their aloneness and their lonesomeness in God s loving, capable hands, and prayerfully wait to see what God has in mind for them. I believe that in this world God made, there s a special someone for everyone. Of course, it may not be the person we think or hope is the one. But I believe that, if God is allowed to have a say in it, and if we have open minds and hearts, that someone will eventually be revealed. In the meantime, as the searching and waiting go on, we can give thanks for the blessings of loving family, close friendships, and caring members of our church community to lean on so that we don t have to live life totally by ourselves. Because that s not the way God intended life to be lived. Because it s not good for us to be alone. So, as I conclude my message this morning, my hope and prayer for us and for every human being is that no one will leave this earth without knowing the joy and fulfilment of finding the companion and soulmate whom God made for them, and wants them to be in a loving, lifelong relationship with. Amen. 5