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Presentation 06

Man was not created by God to be an island but to live in community. This should not surprise us since God said in Gen.1.26 “let us make man in our image”. That was a conversation that took place within the community of the Godhead. And the inter personal relationship that exists within the Godhead is one that God intended to reflect in man. In the passage before us we see how this idea of community was originally established first, within the marriage bond.

Introduction

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John Milton observed that ‘loneliness’ was the first thing which God’s eye named ‘not good!’ Adam, the crown of God’s creation was reflecting God’s image and was surrounded by God’s gifts but there was something missing! Adam knew what it was to be ALONE. Perfect solitude soon turns paradise into a desert. The idea of perfect solitude on some tropical desert island is not as idyllic as some would have us believe. Ask any mariner, who’s been rescued after weeks or months in such an environment, “What do you long for more than anything else?” The answer he is most likely to give is, ‘The company of other human beings’.

The Need of Companionship

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When a prisoner is placed in solitary confinement, he is removed from the one thing which, next to life, is most precious to him - companionship. God was sensitive to Adam’s need and pronounced his solitude to be ‘NOT GOOD’. We need others because of our physical, emotional and intellectual makeup. We cannot develop as individuals in isolation.

Isolation produces a warped view of reality. It is for this reason that the ancient Greeks defined the ‘idiot’ as ‘a wholly private person’.

The Need of Companionship

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There is something unhealthy in the person who shuns the company of others because man has been created for the company of others. God has designed him to be a social being. The question of loneliness and isolation is very relevant to today’s society. In one year there were over 500 suicides in Scotland, a country of only 5 million people. These were people who for a variety of reasons were unable to relate to others.

The Need of Companionship

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Do we take the problem of loneliness as seriously as God does? You may not be lonely and for that reason find it difficult to identify with those who are. Ask yourself if there ever a time in your life when you experienced aloneness? Access that memory! Use your imagination to enter the world of the lonely. Of course there are different kinds of loneliness.

Many teenagers, who have travelled to London for the first time on its network of underground transport have described how desperately lonely they have felt in that great metropolis!

The Need of Companionship

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Many single people struggle with the hardship of loneliness a soreness often exacerbated by insensitive work-mates, neighbours and friends who constantly tease them because they have never married. Some may be single from choice, others as a result of family commitment, and others because they have never met the right person.

For such people there are times when waves of loneliness break over them. They arrive home from work with no one to unburden their problems to. Watch them as they eat their microwave ‘meal for one’ Or as they enter into the escapist world of television Seeking distraction from the fact that they are all alone.

The Need of Companionship

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What of the loneliness of the inadequate personality, the sort of person that no one has tried to forge deep bonds of friendship with because people feel uneasy in their company? They will not develop emotionally or intellectually without stimulation. The TV set in their bedroom is no substitute for a caring friendship.

Think too of the loneliness of those advanced in years. They have outlived their contemporaries and are institutionalised or housebound. They thrill when the doorbell rings but hesitate to answer lest they open the door to danger. Their family are too busy to pay attention to them. They can’t face that truth and so constantly to make excuses for their family not being in touch.

The Need of Companionship

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What of the awful loneliness of the bereaved? Have you been able to walk sensitively into their private world of grief? They feel as though half of their being has been amputated. They are not looking for gushy sympathy but for the assurance of caring, loving support and not just in the few weeks after the funeral service.

God has designed us to be social beings and for this reason, ‘loneliness’ was the first thing God said was ‘not good’ as he viewed his creation.

The Need of Companionship

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Today lonely people are often given trite advice, “Get a Budgie!” As though a caged bird could supply all the physical emotional and intellectual needs of the owner? Was that God’s solution for Adam? Did he say, “Get a pet”? No of course not! What did God do? cf. v18 God decided that he would make a helper suitable for him.

But notice before doing that, Adam is given the task in v19 of naming the animals. The Hebrew word for ‘naming’ involves much more than giving a name. It involves an examination of a things nature and character and sometimes even a classification.

Woman the compliment of Man

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Why is Adam given this task before God provided him with a suitable helper? For this important reason, that he might recognise that within the existing created order there was no suitable companionship. He could see for himself that the ‘budgie’ solution was unable to deliver an equal, one who could minister to his deepest needs. In the process he was learning something about his own uniqueness. Much as we might love our pets - and we are able to derive great benefit from them - they are not an adequate substitute for human companionship.

Woman the compliment of Man

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There is nothing sadder than seeing an old person reduced to attributing human qualities to their pets in their struggle for companionship. They often do so because either they have alienated all human friends or because none have taken the trouble to sustain that friendship, or because they have outlived them or have become geographically removed from them. There is nothing in the created order to match human companionship quite simply because only man was made in the image of God.

Woman the compliment of Man

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Now a number of people have balked at the literal interpretation of this passage which describes Eve being created from Adam’s rib v21. Some have suggested that it is only a myth with a theological meaning.

However when we turn to Matt 19v4-5 we find that such tampering with the text brings them into direct conflict with the understanding and teaching of Jesus. If God has chosen this means to create the first woman he must have done so with very good reason. What might that reason be?

Woman the compliment of Man

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First, it stresses woman’s equality with man. Scripture teaches that woman is neither the property of the man nor is she his inferior. The Genesis record affirms that she with man together displays image of God. Woman has been called into a regal partnership to subdue and rule the creation. She is a helper suitable for man. An old divine puts it like this:

“That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved.”

Woman the compliment of Man

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Woman shares with man in the dignity of bearing God’s image. This is of practical importance. Men can sometimes derogatively point to their wives and say, “Here comes my spare rib” as though describing something you might order from a Chinese takeaway - they might even say they would prefer the Chinese takeaway.

But Genesis does not allow us to speak in these terms. Jesus is never found speaking of women in that way, because it undermines the dignity which God has conferred upon them - they too are made in the image of God.

Woman the compliment of Man

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Secondly, this method of creation reveals woman to be the complimenting counterpart of man. The man/woman partnership is much greater than either of them alone. Each brings something to the relationship which is different and unique and which enriches the other.

During a Christian wedding service, the young couple are often reminded of their God given roles. It is stressed that the male - female distinction is not intended by God to lead to inferiority or superiority but to equality. Man and woman are intended to compliment one another and to equip one another to realise their full potential within the marriage bond.

Woman the compliment of Man

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At the same time we must guard against suggesting that the unmarried person is an incomplete individual. A senior churchman who purposefully chose to remain a bachelor was invited to speak at a Christian convention. The previous speaker had said that, “The single man is an incomplete man”, as he turned around to look at the bachelor minister.

It was an extremely embarrassing and potentially distressing remark. Afterwards the bachelor minister was asked how he had been able to preach having just heard the suggestion that he was incomplete. He replied, ‘It was as though the Holy Spirit whispered into my ear the words, “Poor Jesus”’.

Jesus was the most complete man who ever lived.

Woman the compliment of Man

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The important point is this, when God saw the awful solitude of Adam he said of it 'not good’ . That is a verdict he continues to pronounce on loneliness. Marriage was God’s solution to Adam’s particular type of loneliness. It is not the solution to all types of loneliness and the role of the church in not that of marriage broker. What then should the church be doing? We need to become increasingly sensitive to the needs of the lonely. Married couples who only befriend other married couples need to draw in lonely, single people and help them integrate with the church family?

The Psalmist says, ‘God has placed the solitary in families’ Psalm 68.6.

Conclusion

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If we are members of the family of God then we have a God given responsibility towards those who are alone. The most important thing we can give to the family is time, it is also one of the most costly things! It is important for the lonely person to be able to say and to feel, “I belong”.

It was this sense of belonging that gripped and thrilled both the social outcast and the downtrodden slave of the C1st church. May God help us more and more to generate that sense of belonging in our home church.

Conclusion

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