October 3, 2021 – Genesis 2:18-24
Genesis 2:18-24
Equal Helpers/Fitting Partners
Lectionary 27B – October 3, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The story from Genesis tells us what it means to be human.
As I often say, it’s important to understand a few basic things about this story.
First: the “man,” sometimes called “Adam.”
In Hebrew, this is ha-adam – literally, the adam.
The creature made from adamah, that is, the earth.
So, it simply means “creature made from earth,” “earth-creature,” “human being.”
It is not a man, at first – it is an undifferentiated “earthling,” neither male nor female.
And, here is the thing: it is lonely!
Poor thing! it is all alone!
But God, in God’s great kindness, notices this, and says emphatically:
It is not good for the earth-creature to be alone.
Not good!
So God says, I will make an “ezer kenego” for the earth-creature.
Ahhhhh: as many of you know, one of my favourite phrases in Hebrew! Ezer kenegdo!
“Helper as a partner” is not a bad translation, I guess.
Helper is certainly right: it is that word we had in the Psalms a couple of weeks ago, remember?
The one that affirmed: “God is my helper!”
And the emphasis on the “partner” part is on equality:
I will make a partner fit for the earth-creature.
I will make a helper equal to the earth-creature.
I will make a face-to-face companion who is a true counterpart for the earth-creature.
Well, you get the idea.
Then, in any case, it won’t be lonely any more.
So then – in what I always think passes for comedy in the Bible –
God first makes a bunch of as helpers for the earth-creature.
And they are all very nice and the earth-creature names them.
The animals are okay helpers and companions, but they are not “fitting,” they are not “equals,”
they are not the earth-creature’s face-to-face counterparts.
So: God puts the earth-creature into a deep sleep.
And then . . . what God does not do is take a rib from the earth-creature.
No! I don’t think so!
The word is much better translated “side”!
God takes one of the earth-creatures sides and builds it up into a woman!
Then God closes up the original earth-creature’s flesh!
And the original earth-creature wakes up and exclaims:
Yes! This is it! This is what I have been waiting for! Bone of my bone! Flesh of my flesh!
This at last is a fitting partner for me! This at last is an equal helper! This at last is a face-to-face counterpart!
The earth-creature delights in the new partner fit for them.
The two are different: only now is there sexual differentiation,
for now the earth-creature claims they are man and woman, ish and issha in Hebrew.
Together they will help one another, they will care for one another, they will wonder and delight in one another.
This, I take from the story, is what it means to be human. This is what we are for.
To help one another, to care for one another, to wonder and delight in one another.
And together, they will help God tend the garden of creation they are in.
And together they will care for the other “helpers” or “partners” that God has made: the animals.
This is the purpose of human beings, according to the story.
The humans are made from the same material, right?
They are fit for each other. They are made from one common ancestor.
They are not the same.
They are different.
Yet: they are to care for one another and the world God made.
Now often this story is read as a way of legitimising heterosexual unions.
But I don’t think it necessarily needs to be – and I’m sure that’s not its intention.
I think at its most basic level it is telling us something about all human relationships.
We are all connected, we are all related, we are all siblings.
We are all made from the same material, and yet we are all different.
As human beings, although we are all different, God made us to care for one another.
Although we are all different, God has made us in order to help one another.
Although we are all different, God has made us to wonder and delight in one another.
God has made us all in order to alleviate the loneliness of existence.
This goes for all of us.
This goes for all people of different skin colour.
This goes for people of different socio-economic backgrounds.
This goes for people of different gender orientations.
We have all been made to alleviate one another’s loneliness.
We have all been made to care for one another.
We have all been made to care for God’s world together.
And we have all been made to delight in one another and be astonished by one another.
What a great gift a human being is to another.
You get a sense of this in the Psalm today:
What a thing is a human being!
Just a little lower than God!
I think we need to have sense of this everyday – especially these days.
What a thing are friends! What a thing are co-workers!
What a thing are family members! What a thing are people you don’t yet know!
Give thanks for all of them!
Now this is all true – of course it is true.
But the truth is that we live in a world where we do not all help each other.
We certainly do not all care for each other.
And we absolutely are not all delighted by or astonished by one another.
That is sad – very sad.
The Bible is very clear-eyed about this.
If you read on in the next chapter of Genesis, we see the damage done by these same human beings when
they decide it is better to be lords over one another rather than equal partners with one another.
Then, everything becomes disrupted in human relationships and indeed in all creation.
But – according to today’s story, that is not the way things are meant to be.
That is not God’s intention.
That is not what we are for.
It was National Truth and Reconciliation Day this week.
And a great gift to us as staff was being given the day off in order to read and study and
engage in some way with the work of reconciliation.
This morning, God is clearly telling us that indigenous and non-indigenous peoples have been made as
fitting partners for one another, as helpers to one another, as counterparts.
We are called to delight in one another.
For sure, the particular story of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in this land means that
confession and forgiveness will necessarily play a big role in the reconciliation we long for.
And that will not be easy.
But it is also important to remember that it is not an end in itself, according to our story this morning.
The end is caring for one another, delighting in our differences and learning from each other,
and together caring for the Creator’s world.
We might despair if this will ever happen.
But I am here to announce to you this morning that this is the Creator’s intention.
That the creator has generously given us tools of sympathy, insight, reason, and goodwill to move us all forward.
And that above all the creator has come among us in person, offered us all unconditional love and forgiveness,
and empowered us all with a very loving spirit and all its gifts.
We have everything we need, but much simply depends on how we steward these gifts.
So let us be reconciled with one another.
Each day, let us care for one another, let us delight in one another, and let us together care for the Creator’s world.
It is what we are for. Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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