(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Oct 4, 2015)
(World Communion Sunday)
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Aloneness Is a Divine Feeling
Amy is a special needs high school student. This is her first day of the sophomore year. Much of her day, she is alone. It is not easy to be alone. When she walks the maze of crowded halls, where lockers are constantly banging open and shut, other kids either don’t notice her at all or they do and they tease her. When she makes it safely to her next class, she takes her seat nervously, surrounded by strangers. She keeps her head down and avoids eye contact with other students and especially with the teacher. She is alone, and it is not easy to be alone. When her lunch period finally arrives, she hugs the side of the cafeteria wall, scouting the boisterous and uncaring crowd of students. Just the thought of approaching a table and being rejected brings a tear to her eye. Then, out of the corner of this teary eye…at last…she sees Layla, her friend from last year. Layla is wandering among the tables more confidently than Amy ever could. Their eyes meet and Layla excitedly waves Amy over. Her wave is like a life-raft amid the storm of students. For thirty minutes, Amy is not alone. She and Layla share themselves with one another. They share food. They share their hurts and hopes and curiosities. They share laughter, deep sighs, smiles, and silences. It is good to be together. And then the bell rings, and after a brief hug, Amy wanders back into the labyrinth of crashing lockers.
We have all walked in Amy’s shoes. Maybe not in a high school hallway, but surely among the larger corridors of our world. Perhaps we felt aloneness most acutely as children, when our parents dropped us off at school for the first time. Or when we experienced rejection by our peers. But it doesn’t end with childhood. We continue to feel it. Perhaps like Amy, we feel it most when surrounded by a crowd of people with whom we have no connection, among whom we can find no sympathy. Or perhaps we feel our aloneness most when we have time to reflect on our lives and we realize how far adrift we have been pulled from family and friends.
Aloneness is a divine feeling. It is an echo of the way God felt long, long ago. God had been creating diligently. At the end of each day, God had surveyed creation and saw that it was good. Day one, good. Day two, good. And so on. And then God creates the human. Good, right? Well, no actually. For the first time in the history of the world, something is not quite right. Now there’s a bit of drama. Now things get interesting. God can feel the aloneness of the human, and this, God says, is not good. The human needs a companion.
Companionship:
Divine Quest, Human Affirmation
What happens next can only be described as comical. Too often our reverence for the Bible represses its playful and humorous spirit. So here a gentle retelling is in order.
Having decided that the human needs a companion, God sets to work. The human was created from the earth, so it makes sense to create the companion from the earth also.[1] God sets to work molding and shaping of the earth and forms a lumbering, cumbersome creature. God parades the new creation before the human, who ponders it as it leisurely chews at a patch of grass. “I call this creature,” the human says, “a cow. But not a companion.” So God sets to work again, this time creating a lighter, more mobile creature. God parades it before the human, who ponders it as it flutters around, picking at seeds along the ground. “I call this feathery thing,” the human says, “a bird. But not a companion.” And so God sets to work once more. The next creature saunters before the human, giving a low growl. The human’s eyes open wide in awe. “I call this furry monster,” he says, “a bear. But not a companion.” The spectacle continues until God has created all the creatures of this earth. But still, a companion is not to be found (2:20).[2]
Exhausted by this ordeal, the human begins to nod off. God draws the human further and further into a deep sleep. Then, while the human slumbers, God takes one of his ribs and creates a creature beyond his wildest dreams. When the human awakes, he exclaims: “At last!” (2:23). For here, at last, the man looks into the eye of someone who looks back into his eyes and somehow recognizes him, gets him, sees him beyond the surface of his skin. Here, at last, the man looks into a face of infinite depth.[3] Here, at last, the man meets a companion. And so it is that God puts into place the last piece of creation: companionship.
But that is not the end of the story. Creation is a story that continues, even today. And the aloneness of that first human echoes over and over again in countless lives. For too long this story in Genesis has been shackled to the context of matrimony. But this is not a story that defines aloneness as singleness and marriage as the solution. God does not mandate that every man find companionship with a woman, and vice versa. The only pronouncement that God ever makes in the story is simply this: “It is not good for the human to be alone.” It is the human who makes the final pronouncement of what is good, who proclaims the words, “At last!” This is a story where God seeks what is best for the human and pays close attention to the human’s heartfelt, soulful response.
The Last Piece of Creation:
The Companionship of Christ and His Common Table
And it is a story that is played out every day in endless variation. It is played out wherever the divine echo of aloneness is heard. God looked upon Amy on her first day of school, and said, “It is not good that Amy be alone.” God looks upon your life and mine in our times of isolation—when we live days on end without someone genuinely asking how we are, when we walk among crowds of people without meeting a single pair of eyes that look into ours, when the most company we can find is in the high-definition pixels of our televisions—God looks upon us at these moments and says, “It is not good that they are alone.”
In fact, if we listen closely enough, we may hear God murmuring these words at the beginning of the story of Christ. God looked upon humanity—saw how it was turning in on itself, becoming insular and recklessly self-reliant—and said, “It is not good that humanity is alone.”
Theology has formulated the doctrine of salvation in a number of complex ways. But perhaps it can all be reduced to this: when we are alone, Jesus comes to us. Jesus looks into our eyes and sees each of us as a person of infinite worth. Jesus waves us over and makes himself our companion.
The word “companion” itself literally means “with bread”—in other words, a companion is a person with whom we share bread. And can you think of a better example of a companion, a bread-sharer than Jesus? There's a reason people called him a drunkard and a glutton. There's a reason he’s always telling parables about dinner feasts and making metaphors of bread and water. He was always at a table, breaking bread and passing a cup—and more often than not with the nobodies and nothings (Matt 11:19). Jesus is the companion par excellence. And at this table where people all over the world gather today, he went so far as to say that he is the shared bread and cup of companionship. So that wherever food and drink are shared in his selfless spirit, there is Christ. There is companionship. There is our salvation from aloneness. There is the last piece of creation.
It is a mystical gift, a miracle. Amy received it when she sat down with Layla amid that noisy and crowded and utterly lonesome cafeteria. We receive it when we gather here around this bread and cup.
Creation is a story that continues today. And the last piece is not missing. It’s right here. Here at the Table. This table. Your dinner table. The lunchroom. Wherever we find genuine companionship and say, “At last,” wherever two or more share themselves the way Christ shared himself.
Prayer
From time to time, God, we wander your creation alone. We take comfort that you feel the depths of our aloneness. We find solace in your words, “It is not good.” And we find hope in your everlasting quest to draw us together in companionship. Open our eyes to the companionship of Christ wherever it appears. Around tables known and unknown, near and far. In eyes and faces familiar and strange, in homes next door and on the other side of the world. It is a gift that we receive, and a gift that you call us to give as you continue to seek what is good, very good—what is best—for this world. Amen.
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[1] The word for “human” in the Hebrew is adam, which comes from the word for “earth,” adamah. The human, in other words, is an “earth creature.” When God decides to make the human a companion, God forms more creatures “out of the earth [adamah]” (2:19).
[2] The idea that God creates all the creatures of the earth in an attempt to find a partner for the human is suggested by a key repetition. Just as God “brought” the woman to the man, so God first “brought” the animals to the human (2:19, 22). The implication is that God brings them all to the human in the same manner to see whether the human affirms the creature as a companion or not. The highly enthusiastic and poetic response that follows the creation of the woman leaves no room for doubt that, at last, the sought-after companion has been found.
[3] The Hebrew for “a helper as his partner” might be translated more literally, “a helper who is opposite to/facing him.” This expression “opposite to/facing” is used elsewhere to illustrate a scene where one person stands before another and thus suggests an intensification of the persons’ relations. In English, we might say they “face” each other. To me, the connotations of this expression bring to mind the idea that the companion whom God seeks for the human is one whose face draws the human into a relationship. For centuries, people have spoken of the infinite depth of another’s face or eyes, and so perhaps it is this that defines, at least in part, the companion whom God seeks for the human.
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