All of us seem to have this internal mechanism that functions to make us actually care about other people. I am amazed, to be perfectly honest, not at the level of selfishness that I see in the world and in relationships. I am amazed, time and time again, that most people, most of the time, seem to spend most of their time and energy and emotion trying to be good to other people. I am amazed that for so many for so much of the time, the questions that haunts them are the questions regarding their own ability to please, to satisfy, to help and support and care for others. I am amazing and profoundly encouraged at this amazing human capacity to actually be other-centered and to constantly be asking the question, was it good for you?
We’ve had this conversation, or have heard others having it: What do you want to do tonight? I don’t know, what do you want to do? Well, I want to do what you want to do. Well I want to do what will make you happy. Well what will make me happy is doing what you want to do. You’ve heard people have this kind of conversation. You’ve probably had that conversation. When you pick that apart, when you scratch the surface of that conversation, it really is an amazing exchange that is happening. One person is telling another person, what would be the most satisfying, fulfilling and fun thing for me to do at this moment is to see you being completely satisfied and fulfilled. It’s an amazing exchange.
Think about it- why, biologically speaking, would we care so much about pleasing others? Why? I’m not talking about the simple cost/benefit analysis of nature. The “I scratch your back, you scratch mine,” approach to life and relationships. I’m not even talking about the “raise kids so the kids can take care of you when you’re older” nature of biology. I’m talking about the emotional desire to be good and pleasing to another person. I’m talking about a desire that goes deeper than emotion. A hunger, a craving, to actually get beyond ourselves and to look to another person’s health and happiness and blessing and benefit beyond our own. What compels us to live like that for another?
Let me cut to the chase- because we are made in the image, in the likeness, of a loving, giving, serving God who exists in a relationship of loving communion. We are made to exist in that communion- a relationship with God, with the creation, and with one another. Therefore, we can never be fully alive, fully complete, fully happy or satisfied alone. We need to be in GOOD relationships.
This is the story of the first chapter of Genesis. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Out of nothing, ex nihilo, God made something. At first the something was chaotic, it was formless and dark. But God began bringing order, design, and purpose into existence.
In an amazing display of eco-engineering, God created everything in such a way to support and sustain his purpose and plans- everything was made in the context of a relationship. Take away one day in the creation story, and the line of dominoes stops. But drop them all into place and the result is dynamic, the result is life. He makes the atmosphere, he makes the earth, he makes the air, he makes the water, he makes the land. He fills the atmosphere, he fills the sky and sea, finally, he fills the land. He fills the land with plants and animals. And everything, everything up until now, is good.
It is good what God has done. It is good how God has done it. It is good, because God is good and can only do good things. This is why Jesus will say in his ministry that only God is good, completely good, flawlessly good.
God has done good, but he’s saved the best for last. God begins speaking with himself. Not to himself, mind you, God is not the crazy old man walking down the street carrying on a conversation with the voices in his head. God has a dialogue- the father, the son, the Holy Spirit. God says let us make man in our image- male and female, God makes humans.
I remember a seminary prof being very excited about this from a comparative-religion point of view. In the ancient near east the gods of the people demanded to be worshiped, and the way they were worshiped was to make idols, image bearers, who would be venerated, celebrated, appeased. They were literally gods in a box- contained, kept, and controlled through religious practice.
Our God told a different story. My image cannot be carved in marble or stone. My image cannot be captured in silver or gold. My image is too wonderful, to glorious, too dynamic, too real to ever be found in an inanimate object. No, my image will be found in people, in men and in women. Men and women will be my representatives to the earth, and to one another. So then they will look upon each other and they will see my image reflected back to each other. You have never looked at a human being and not seen something of the image of God- in your mothers eyes, in the you your own children’s resemblance to you. In every addict, every baby, every Canadian, every derelict, every enemy, every friend. You have never looked at a person and not seen the image of God.
And conversely, and why it is NOT good to be alone, you cannot see the image of God anywhere else. You cannot see the image of God in anything but another person. You can see the work of God, the beauty of God, the hand of God in mountain or an ocean, a sunrise or sunset. You can see what God has done and thus see and understand something more about his glory, his majesty, is very nature and being. But still, you cannot see his image except in other people. If you cut yourself off from others, you are cut off from the image of God, and you and thus incomplete, alone, disconnected.
And so it is not good to be alone because outside of relationships with others we are profoundly disconnected from ourselves. We are cut of from the fellow image-bearers of God, and when that is missing, we lose ourselves.
But the story isn’t over. God goes deeper in chapter 2. He will explain to us what it means to be his image bearers to creation and each other.
God makes the man from the dust of the ground. He forms Adam from the earth. The two are inextricably tied- Adam to the adamah. But then he does something different, something new. He breathes life into the man. He puts his spirit, his image, into the man.
But then the first “not good” appears. It’s not good because it’s not complete. Like a story without closure, like an artist that knows something is still missing before the masterpiece is complete, God says, something is not good her. It is not good for the man to be alone.
God’s image was incomplete. There was no other for Adam. So in a hilarious parade of animals Adam examines every living creature, looking for the one that will complete him, the one that is like him, yet different from him. He names every creature God created- every bird, all the livestock, all the wild animals, everything. And surprise, no suitable helper was found to complete Adam. Everything was too different. Not enough likeness. Nothing he saw seemed to bear God’s image as he did.
It says next that God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep because now god was going to do something new once again. A new way of creating, a unique way of creating that would never be repeated. It was reserved for this one occasion, for this one relationship. It would be a way of creating that would then bear implications on our image, and on our relationships. God took from the man a rib, and from that rib created the woman. Man from earth, Adam from Adamah, woman from man. They sound alike in Hebrew, and in English. The relationship, the connection, is undeniable.
AS this text has been around for millennium, many have reflected on what it means. Of all the bones in the body, why did God take the rib? That starts to make sense when we read and study the rest of the bible and we are told over and over and over again to guard our hearts. A solder is given a breastplate to wear because it is vitally important to guard the heart. We are told to guard our hearts spiritually, for out of the heart flows all the life of a person- all their thoughts, all their words, all their deeds. So we guard and protect our heart. We must give our heart to God and worship him with all our heart. When God wants to know who we are, he looks to the heart.
So why, of all bones in the body, does God go for the rib? Why not a bone from our head, most men don’t seem to use their brain anyways? Why not a bone from our foot, then we could sit around and be waited on? Why does God go into that place and rip it open to make a woman? He is going for the heart. Every man has had his chest opened up and his heart exposed. Every woman feels deeply connected and a part of this humanity. Every person is born into the world as an image bearers God, made to know and be known by God, made to know and be known by other people.
And so there is one thing worse than having our chest ripped open and our hearts made vulnerable to the world, and really,vulnerable to another. And that is to be alone.
The worst thing is to be alone.
The worst thing is to have our hearts wrapped up behind our ribs, behind our armor, behind our work, behind our sarcasm, behind our busyness, behind our pursuit of pleasure, behind our fun and games. The worst thing is to have our hearts kept behind layers and layers and layers of protection, and to be alone.
It is not good to be alone. AND BECAUSE IT”S NOT GOOD TO BE ALONE we do wonderful, and horrible things.
We do wonderful, caring, loving, selfless, giving amazing things because we were made in the image of a God who says it’s not good to be alone. We write love songs and sing them to the woman who has captured our heart. We make ourselves beautiful and desirable to the one who loves us. We will work and toil to provide for our family. We care for our children, and our children care for us. We will stand alongside of a neighbor in their darkest hour. We stand in solidarity with others, we care for the orphans and the widows, the hungry and the homeless. We will do wonderful things our of this God given need to not be alone, because it’s not good to be alone, and because we will want to do good for others, for our fellow image bearers.
But sometimes we’ll do horrible things because of our loneliness. We do horrible things to try and satisfy our need for relationship, for connection. A man will use his strength over a woman to try and satisfy the lust of his eyes. He will take what was not his to take, and in the process he will even lose another part of himself. A woman will sell herself by the hour, using what she has, to gain what she doesn’t have, destroying a part of herself each time. A couple will create a co-dependent relationship, playing off of each other deepest needs, and deepest fears. A parent will hold the heart of their child captive because they don’t know how to let go. A boy will look at page after page of pornography trying the find the image that will suddenly make him feel alive. A girl will read magazine after magazine trying to find the secret code to break the grip loneliness. A friend will hold his or her friends captive to with their threats.
It is not good to be alone, and yet sometimes we don’t know how to be together. It’s not good to be alone, but we don’t know how to make together good either.
I’ve asked Evan to sing us a song- a song that a friend played for me in college, and when I heard this song, it was one of those moments where you thought the guy must have read your mind. It was one of those songs that has never left me because it came at the time when I needed it most. It made perfect sense of the struggles that I had faced in relationships, and the solution that I knew I had to pursue. I hope I haven’t set the bar too high, but I think for some of you, this is just the song you need to hear today…
Break In The Cup
Break in the Cup, David Wilcox
I try so hard to please you
To be the love that fills you up
I try to pour on sweet affection,
But I think you got a broken cup
Because you can't believe I love you
I try to tell you that there is no doubt,
But as soon as I fill you with all I've got
That little break will let it run right out
I cannot make you happy
I'm learning love and money never do
But I can pour myself out 'til I'm empty
Trying to be just who you'd want me to.
But I cannot make you happy
Even though our love is true
For there's a break in the cup that holds love
Inside of you
Now I begin to understand you
As you explain this fear you feel
It's when you see me fall into that sorrow
it makes you doubt the love is real
'Cause the lonely wind still blows through me
I turn away so you can't see
But now how could I still be so empty
With all this love that you pour on me.
I guess you cannot make me happy
That's a money back guarantee.
But you can pour yourself out 'til you're empty
Trying to be just who I'd want you to be
You cannot make me happy
It's just the law of gravity
And that break in the cup that holds love,
Inside of me.
So if you're tempted to rescue me
Drowning in this quicksand up to my neck
Before you grab my hand to save me
Why don't you ask me if I'm finished yet.
Because you cannot make me happy
Not when I'm empty inside of me
But you can pull yourself right in here with me
My misery'd love to have your company.
We cannot trade empty for empty
We must go to the waterfall
For there's a break in the cup that holds love,
A break in the cup that holds love,
A break in the cup that holds love,
Inside us all. Inside us all
If we are not going to be alone, and make it work, we must first go somewhere else. We must go to the waterfall. The never-ending source of water. Because when you are standing in the downpour of a waterfall, it doesn’t matter so much how broken you are anymore. That water just keeps on coming. It keeps on coming and coming, cleaning us and filling us up.
When I got that, when I got it, that I could spend my whole life looking for others to pour into me, or I could look to God to pour into me, I got it friends. I got it. It got that I had to get right with God first. I got that I had to get into the waterfall before I got into any other relationship. I got that I would always be a broken cup, about half full, looking to other to fill me up, or I could be a broken cup, (I’m still a bit broken folks) in the waterfall, and I could find someone else in that same waterfall. That’s what it looks like to be in a good relationship. That’s what it look like to know and be known and to never be alone.
And while this series will focus on focus on male female relationships the next few weeks, this stuff applies to everyone. This sets the foundation. This is about saying it’s not good to be alone in the world, but if I’m going to have good, giving, serving, caring, compassionate relationships, I have to get into the waterfall. I have to go to the source.
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