Genesis 2:18-24 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” 19 So out of the ground the LordGod formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man[a] there was not found a helper as his partner. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman,[b] for out of Man[c] this one was taken.”

24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Once upon a time because that is how all the good stories begin, there was an old man who had faithfully attended the little country church up on the hill in his hometown for decades. Over the decades, the old man had been a deacon and a trustee, he did a turn on the Stewardship Committee, and he served on the Board of Christian Education. He had sung in the Choir and served on the Music Committee. He had taken the youth group on outings and taught the School Sunday children. He hosted fellowship hours and set-up tables and chairs for funeral receptions. He had greeted people at the front door and folded bulletins. He even served three terms on the Property Committee trying to keep the old church building open and safe. He had done Crops Walks and food drives and everything else you can imagine.

He could sing every hymn in the new hymnal and every hymn in the old hymnal without flipping either book open. He had heard a dozen preachers proclaim the good news following the Revised Common Lectionary so many times, on its three-year cycle, that he could predict what scripture was going to be preached next week without looking at the bulletin. He had been confirmed in this church, married in this church, witnessed the baptism of his children and grandchildren in this church. He had grown up and grown old in this church and someday he would make one last visit to this church and they would carry him out in a pine box.

Then one Sunday, he just stopped going. First it was just one Sunday now and then. But then it became two or three Sundays in a row. And after a few months, he only showed up for special services. He smiled to think that after all those years of making fun of those Christmas and Easter folks that he was becoming one of them. After a few months, the minister came to visit him. It was a cold late fall evening, and the old man was sitting alone in front of a blazing fire when the pastor knocked at the door.

The old man could guess why the pastor was visiting, and the old man welcomed her, and led her to a comfortable rocking chair near the fireplace and waited for the pastor to speak. The old man didn’t know what he would tell the pastor. He wasn’t mad at her. He didn’t storm out of church in a fit. He didn’t quit the church. He had endured the worship wars when the pianist and organist didn’t speak to each for two years. He attended faithfully during hurtful theological debates and upheavals over changes big and small. He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t hurt. He was just tired. Sometimes it was difficult to see the point of hearing the same sermons and singing the same songs decade after decade.

The minister made herself at home but said nothing. She rocked back in the rocking chair with her fingers curled around the cup of tea that the old man had made for her. In the deep silence, she watched the flames dancing around the burning logs. After several minutes, the pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning log out of the fire and sat it down all alone on the brick hearth outside the fire. Then she sat back in the rocking chair and silently rocked as she drank her tea.

The old man watched all of this in silence. As the lone log’s embers started to dim and die, the red-hot wood went from flaming hot, to glowing red, to fading into a darker red, to black as the fire died out. Soon the embers were black, cold, and dead. As all of this happened the pastor and the old man didn’t speak a word. The minister glanced at the clock on the wall and started to get ready to leave. She slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember from the hearth’s floor, and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Almost immediately, it began to glow red once more. With the light and warmth of the other burning coals around it, it flared back to life. As the minister reached the door to leave, her host said, with a tear running down his cheek, "Pastor, thank you so much for your fiery sermon. I will be back in church next Sunday.”[i]

Our scripture reading today is one of those foundation stories from the Book of Genesis that unpacks fundamental expectations of our identity as human being and followers of the living God. But there have been so many distortions and harmful translations of this passage that it can hurt not only our relationship with each other but also our relationship with God. This passage has been used to argue that women should be subservient to men; that God designated women to be helpers and to play a supporting role to men; and on and on. There are many issues and questions that we can explore in this passage from the Hebrew word “adam” which can be translated as a general collective term meaning “humans” to individual term meaning “a man” or “the man” to a gender nonspecific term for a person to a male specific term. It is an incredibly difficult passage to translate. But the translation that has given us the most problems is the Hebrew term “ezer kenegedo” which many English translations of the Bible have translated as “helper.” And that translation has reinforced a tone which suggests a lower status, a sense of ownership, domination, and control of men over women that is not really present in the text. We need to be honest and explore these translation issues because as recently as 1862 this passage was cited in a decision by an American court to refuse a divorce request from a woman who wanted to leave her husband because of domestic violence.[ii]

This makes it critical that we confront these passages and look critically at how the Bible has been used in light of translation issues. As we look at the other ways to translate “ezer kenegedo” and even look at how other English language Bibles choose to translate these terms, we come up with very different readings of this passage. “Ezer” can mean “help” or “to be strong” or “to support or save,” and “kenegedo” can mean “corresponding to.” So, another possible translation can be “an equal but opposite helper to the adam” or “an equal but opposite source of strength for the adam” or another translation would be “partner.” These translations really take the power and control out of this passage and emphasize the nature of human relationships.[iii]

My friends, we are meant to live in relationship. Humans are not designed to be solitary, to exist without friends or family, to function without a partner. Some animals are made to live alone: tigers, aardvarks, skunks, bears, owls, and turtles. They don’t live in community. They don’t gather in groups for safety and companionship. They might seek out a mate now and then, but from the time they leave their mother’s care until the day they die, they live alone. No commitments, no leaders to follow but themselves, no responsibilities except to themselves. It is coded into their fundamental nature, they are solitary creatures.

But as hard and difficult as, we, human beings find relationships, we are biologically, emotionally, and spiritually coded to live in relationship, to exist in community, to be in partnership. I enjoy watching the show “Alone” on the History Channel. In this show, trained experts, are dropped off in the wilderness with a collection of survival gear and video cameras to document their adventures. The goal of this show is to see which one of these men or women can stay out in the wilderness alone the longest. The person who lasts the longest wins half a million dollars. Each contestant has a satellite phone and can quit at anytime for any reason. And contestants drop out of this show for many reasons. Some get hurt, some fear wild animals, some can’t find enough food or water, but after watching five seasons of this show, I noticed that the reason that the best survivalist experts quit is loneliness. Day after day after day of being alone take away their will. Being alone is harder than being hungry. In the opening days of each season, the contestants talk to the camera about missing their favorite foods but as the days go by, they spend more and more time talking to the camera about husbands and wives, about children, about parents, about friends, about birthdays, about friends and family who are sick, about family who have passed away. The show “Alone” boils down to relationships.

In Season Five of “Alone” on day 35 in a mountain valley of Mongolia, a man named Randy begins talking to the camera, “woke up this morning in a muddle, a poor situation…today I really hit a wall.” So, Randy goes fishing but after a morning of fishing he comes back to his camp and continues talking about what he is missing, “five weeks I walked here, all up and down my territory in solitude, eating only what the land provided. Lack of good food and lack of companionship at this point has really sort of taken a toll on me and in all honesty, I’m struggling. No matter where I am at, I actively search out community. I think that has been one of the things that has been so hard on me out here, I have no community. With community comes a sense of place. Without community there is a huge part of my world that is missing. I wish I could pull it from the environment, and in some ways I have, but in some ways that is a temporary fix like putting a band aid on a bullet hole…I want to keep going, I just don’t want to do it without anyone else.”[iv] After Randy reaches this insight, he picks up the satellite phone and quits. Trying to use anything else in place of human community is like putting a band aide on a bullet hole. As in our story, it is like a log trying to burn by itself. The deep insight reached on this show shocked me, but as I reflected upon it, it also captures the fundamental essence of this scripture. It’s all relational.

As we reflect upon this powerful passage we have read from the Book of Genesis today, I want us to focus upon one huge takeaway: it’s all relational. God’s intends for us human beings to being in relationship and this passage highlights all three major forms of God intended relationships: a relationship with God, God and human; a relationship between humanity and the natural world, the rest of living life and human; and finally, a relationship with other human beings, human and human, partners called into mutual aid and support. Our relationships are a fundamental part of our identity that shows the incompleteness of ourselves trying to go it alone.

On this World Communion Sunday, we are reminded that we are part of a larger relationship than just those in the pews around us. We are a part of a worldwide family. God’s Table calls us together in our relationship with Jesus Christ and our relationship with brothers and sisters around the globe. We need to remember to deal with all the power problems and the family fights because at the foundation it is all relation! And when we accept this, we must ask: what do we need to do today to make those relationships stronger? What do we need to do to be in right relationship? What do we need to do on our end to keep those relationships flourishing and growing?

As our story at the beginning of this reflection reminds us, relationships can wear us down but without them we will go cold and our flame of hope, love, and mercy will go out. We are but one little ember but together we can keep burning bright for today and for years to come. We are relational!

[i] My re-telling of the “Silent Sermon” based upon the version available from http://www.wisdomcommons.org/virtues/22-compassion

[ii] Aleksander Gomola, “The Myth of the Creation of Woman in Genesis 2:18-23 and Its Possible Translations – the Consequences for Christian Anthropology.” Studia Religiologica 47(2), 2014. P. 82.

[iii] Aleksander Gomola, “The Myth of the Creation of Woman in Genesis 2:18-23 and Its Possible Translations – the Consequences for Christian Anthropology.” Studia Religiologica 47(2), 2014, Nancy deClaisse-Walford, “Genesis 2: ‘It Is Not Good for the Human to be Alone.’” Review and Expositor, 103, Spring 2006, and Terence Fretheim, “Genesis” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2015.

[iv] “Alone” Season Five, Episode 8, Randy, beginning at minute 44.