Sunday Worship: Genesis 1 & Loneliness

Over the next five weeks, we're gonna talk about what is how what is our response as the people of God? If we have been created for God, what does it mean for us to truly live into community? What does it mean for us to truly live into friendship? What does it mean for us to truly live into family? If we have been created one for the other, if we have been created to be together, we, as the church, can pretty firmly stand up and say that loneliness is not part of God's plan for us, that God created us to love and to respect and to build each other up. [00:36:00] (47 seconds)  #CreatedForCommunity

And and God didn't create it with some sort of hierarchy. God created people for people. Theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez says that there can be true that true love can only exist among equals. And we see that as God creates in Genesis one and Genesis two. We are created for each other. We are created on the same plane. We are created as equals so that we might love one another, so that our community that surrounds us, so the world that we live in, so the world that we build, we might be together. [00:34:41] (52 seconds)  #LoveAmongEquals

And we've looked at Genesis one and Genesis two and, you know, there's not a a subordination there. It's not like, well, God created women to be subordinate to men because they were created second. Like, God created Adam and then it divided Adam in half. There's no subordination. Because for a subordination in this story, then Adam would be subordinate to the dirt from which he came. God, in creation, in Genesis one and Genesis two, is creating in such a way that tells us we are not supposed to be alone. [00:34:01] (40 seconds)  #EqualInCreation

How can the church say, that's not one of the things that matters? How do we build community? How do we build love? How do we build a place where everyone knows they are accepted, where everyone knows they have a place, and that one place isn't better than another? Because I think a lot of the times we're really good at saying everyone has a place, but then whether we mean to or not, some people's places are better than some other people's places. [00:38:07] (41 seconds)  #EveryPlaceEqual

The man's illness might have been physical. He had physical ailments, certainly. But when you look at kind of what was actually going on in his life, the larger thing that was holding him back the larger thing that was holding him back was the reality that he had no one. No one to put him into the pool. He was confined to his mat. He was scrabbling and trying to get into the waters when the angel stirred it up, but he could not because he had no one. [00:31:22] (31 seconds)  #NoOneLeftOut

And when we talk about loneliness, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about that illness that is around us, that illness that is inside of us that tells us we don't have anyone or tells us we don't have a place, tells us we don't matter. And for this, the church very much has a response. For this, the church, the people of God very much have a role to play in going out into the world and coming together in our own community and saying, you matter. You have a place. [00:31:53] (32 seconds)  #YouMatterHere

And we live in a culture where it's so much easier to be needed than to need. We have been created to be together. We have been created to need one another. We have been created to want one another. We have been created to love one another. And so often, we find walls in our way, walls that create loneliness. [00:40:52] (40 seconds)  #CreatedToNeedEachOther

And yet, Genesis one, Genesis two, John five tell us and show us that in order for us to be in community, for in order for us to be whole, not only should we help, but we should receive help. To be in community means to be vulnerable. To be in community means to say, I have loneliness. To be in community says, I need you. [00:40:21] (31 seconds)  #CommunityNeedsBoth