Created for Community

Today’s Reading: Genesis 2:4-25

The first characters that we will reflect on are the first humans. In the story, God creates the man, molding him from the earth itself. The man has come to be known as Adam, but Adam wasn’t actually his name! In Hebrew, the word for “earth” is “adamah,” so because man was created from the earth, the Hebrew word for “man” was “adam.”

God creates many other creatures, trying to find a suitable partner for the man, before finally putting the man to sleep and creating the woman from the man’s rib. Unfortunately, this is one of those texts that has been used to subjugate women throughout history. The argument goes that man was made by God, but because woman was made from the man, she is somehow lesser, one more step removed, one step further from God. And this text has also been used to oppress non-heterosexual individuals because it speaks of marriage between a man and a woman.

When we read the story that way, though, I think we are missing the point altogether. The story isn’t trying to make a claim about who is more important, and it isn’t trying to make a major theological statement about marriage between a man and a woman. The point is that God recognized that human beings aren’t meant to be alone! It teaches us that we are created to be in relationship with one another. We are created for community. Our differences are much smaller than our similarities and we are meant to walk through life together. Like Adam and Eve, we are meant to grow together and support one another.

Today, I invite you to spend some time in prayer, giving thanks to God for the gift of relationships, for those people in your life who support, care about, and love you.