Created for Relationships—Genesis 2: 18-24; Mark 10: 2-5, 13-16
In Genesis 2, God decides that man needs a helper because being alone is not a good thing. So, in response, God creates all the living things, and allowed man to name them, but they are still not right for a helper. I think…this week…I’ve learned the answer to this. On Friday, I took my cat to the vet for a yearly checkup. This is never an easy outing, and I double dreaded it this year. Thankfully she is all good minus being chubby and cantankerous. It was the 7-minute ride there and back that truly brought the nightmare. [SLIDE]
On the drive over, I hear the familiar “uck, uck, uck,” sound that signals an impending throw up. And sure enough, the cat carrier took a hard hit. The vet very kindly wiped her down and cleaned/replaced the padding in the carrier for me with a towel. On the way back, I opened the top of the carrier for her to poke her head out. For a minute, all was well, then she climbed out and got very still. My cat, who has to take a fiber medication to help her go to the bathroom did the biggest number two ever between my seat and the center console. To top it off she walks over and tinkled on my lap right after.
If I wanted all this, I would have adopted a child and not a cat. Send help, O Lord. And yet, two hours later I have this sweet, purring kitty snuggling up next to me while I work acting like she hadn’t been a complete terrorist that morning. God created us to be in relationships. Whether it’s family, friends, furry family, romantic relationships, or otherwise, God has created us as relational creatures. [SLIDE]
In Genesis 2, which is a retelling of the creation story, we see that man is alone in the garden God has created. God, in an attempt to help this, creates a number of other creatures to keep man company. And while they are all nice, there’s still something missing. God has to create a help which mirrors the man, made in the image of the man. When man sees woman, made in man’s image, he rejoices. “’At last!’ the man exclaimed. ‘This one is bone from my bone, flesh from my flesh!’” Pause here to think for a moment. The man is beyond excited to see a creature made in his own image. Remember that humanity is made in the image of God, and how pleased God must be with that creation, and how hard it must be when we go against God. That’s why we use the image of a child rebelling against a parent because of the overwhelming grief. [SLIDE]
But now I want to challenge you a bit. Many of you came from backgrounds where this story of woman being pulled from man’s rib was taught as women are lesser than or weaker than a man. I grew up hearing it. But it’s not true, especially if you look at the original language. The word for “help” used to describe woman is “ezer.” That is not a subservient word. It is also the same word used when the Bible says God is the help of humankind. God intended this relationship to be an equal partnership based on love. The concept of hierarchy in a marriage, and the man ruling over woman was introduced in Genesis 3:16—when sin entered. Power, ruling over, hierarchy…all those are marks of sin, not God’s design.
But this introduced another problem for all of our relationships—strife. Sin replaced the blissful harmony that God intended with contention, strife, and a struggle to maintain the joy of being in relationships with one another. We see from the outset that God gave human’s wide abilities to make decisions in relationships. After all, a human named every one of God’s creatures and also called them good. But when sin came into the mis, that decisions making capability also became very problematic because it, too, was corrupted.
We fast forward then to our Gospel lesson. Sometimes, the lectionary gives me really good scriptures. And sometimes it gives Jesus’s most incredibly uncomfortable teachings on divorce, which if I were picking scripture, would CERTAINLY not be in the mix. But let’s consider for a moment literalism versus sarcasm. The Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus. John the Baptist had been imprisoned and executed for challenging King Herod’s divorce and marriage to his brother’s wife. They were now hoping to trap Jesus in the same political conundrum. What Jesus says is that a breakdown in relationships, whether marital or other, comes from a place of cruelty and hard heartedness. Two people who are being loving, kind, and gentle with each other do not tend to dissolve a relationship.
Jesus advocates to the religious leaders that the role of faith in marriages, relationships, families, and other connected relationships is to participate in healing and reconciliation, never exacerbating when cruelty and hard heartedness strike. I remember a story years ago. A man and wife had been married for 5 years. He came in one night and gave her divorce papers. The cause of the breakup was because she kept eating potato chips in bed and he was tired of the crumbly bits. This is the kind of hard heartedness, flippancy, and frankly strange behavior Jesus was targeting in his words. Relationships fail because people often look for reasons to be hard hearted or difficult instead of coming back to the question of loving their neighbor and being kind one to another, tender hearted and forgiving. [SLIDE]
But Jesus doesn’t stop with just marital relationships. We get another story where the disciples turn parents and their children away. Children in that day were never supposed to be that front and center in public. But Jesus welcomes them in. Children were expected to be dependent on the father and obedient in this time. In using this example Jesus emphasized the profound need for the people to be in a relationship to God…wholly dependent and reliant on God.
Relationships tend to be hard and messy. Some of us would say our dating lives look like a comedy sitcom. Some of us struggle in friendships. Some of us have family that we cannot be around because there’s old trauma, hard heartedness, and toxic behavior. Some of us have failed marriages that we may not want to talk about without adding a little humor to soften the sting. Make no mistake, living in relationships with one another is a supremely difficult task.
But faith is a relationship. God called us out of the old behaviors of how faith was practiced in Jesus’s day. We don’t have the rules, regulations, and requirements. We have a relationship. And we have God’s Spirit with us. If you live in love which is giving, kind, gentle, joyful, honest, and all good things, relationships can be beautiful thing our lives. But Jesus warns us that hard heartedness, coldness, cruelty, and the assertion of “I’m right!” can sneak in and make life difficult. In those moments we come back to how Jesus lived and related to others, and the love and care he showed. [SLIDE]
Nothing proves the messiness of relationship’s more than my own grandparents on my dad’s side. When I was in high school, I was in our living room, and you could see their house from our windows. This is the joy of growing up rural. Midafternoon on a Saturday, I watch as my grandfather takes the trash out to the bin. Suddenly I hear my grandmother yelling, “I’m going to divorce you, you sorry old man, I’ve wasted 50 years in this mess.” He turns to yell back, “Ah, shut up you mean old woman.” And suddenly a shoe, pan, or hairbrush (I can’t tell which) comes flying out of the house towards him.
A couple of hours later I walk over to make sure there’s not a homicide scene. I can see through the kitchen window into their living room. They’re sitting together on the couch watching and old John Wayne movie just as happy as 75-year-old couple married for 50 years can be. There was no doubt they loved each other. But love and relationships can be messy. [SLIDE]
As difficult as it may be, the whole of the stories in the Bible are a message to us on how to live in relationship—both with God and with one another, for we are created in God’s image and placed on earth to live together as God’s children. So may your relationships be filled with prayer, love, and may you be the one to reflect that image of God to all.
WORSHIP VIDEO https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1697817214337036