The Genesis of Relationships - Gen 2: 4-17

Family. Relationships. Love. Drama. Death. Commandments. Consequences. The Book of Genesis seems to have it all. In fact, the book of Genesis is one of my favorite books of the Bible because it is so very human - speaking about how we are created, who we are in relationship to the God who dreamed us into being, the messes we get into and how God redeems us. Its all in this book about our beginnings. And it really is beginnings, isn’t it? God continually making a way out of no way and reclaiming humanity when we stray. The book is just so earthy and raw.

For the next several weeks we are going to be exploring what the book of Genesis reveals about the relationships that we find ourselves in. And those we choose to be in. And those relationships that choose us, like our relationship to God. Relationships help define and shape who we are and what we believe in, which is why I think they are the very beginning of our holy scriptures.

Genesis is a book of stories that are told in Sunday School, but there are some pieces that are often left out, simply because they are not memorable for kids or attention capturing for adults. The genealogies. I don’t know about you, but genealogies fascinate some of my family members. This past week I had a few different family gatherings and during one them, my cousin (or second cousin- once removed as she introduced herself) was talking about sifting through reams of paper worth of family documents to trace her husband’s lineage. My grandfather has been working for years to trace our family roots through all of its twist and turns. Yet, we skip right over genealogies in the Bible thinking they are just a list of names, instead of remembering they are part of history, our history, the history of relationships.

In verse four of today’s scripture we read that “these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created”. The generations and lineage of Adam, Noah, Jacob. All part of God’s plan, connected together and connected to us. We were created for relationships - to others and to God. And even when the humans in the narrative screw up because they are broken by sin, God still beckons them back into relationship with the Holy One and with others. Because this is what we were created for. So for the next several weeks we are going to be talking about relationships.

This week we are invited to think about the start of all relationships, our primary relationship, the relationship we need to be paying attention too and working on, but sometimes push to the side. Our relationship with God.

Our relationship with God is primary because it is God who created us. The God who made the Heavens and the Earth. Who thought up every herb that springs in the field and crafted them into being, created humans out of the dust of the ground. God formed man as a potter forms something out of slab of clay - seeing the potential that humans could have and then bringing shape to us. When the shell was formed, God breathed life into us and made us a living soul. Take a moment and marvel in that. God loved us into being. God created us out of nothing, not on a whim, but because God has a purpose for humans. God wanted to be in relationship with us, not in an abstract way, but intimately. God is the god of relationships. God is deeply connected to us and we are deeply connected to God, both in a simple and complex way, just like our family relationships.

After God created Adam, the first human from the dust, Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. Eden can be translated as joy or delight. And in Eden Adam was given a purpose, a vocation, to till and keep the land. Along with these specific duties came instructions, “to eat freely from the garden’s produce, except for that of the tree of knowledge of good and evil”. At the very beginning of humanity’s relationship with the Divine, we were given the capacity for obedience and disobedience. The ability to be in relationship to good as it is defined by our Creator or to be in a relationship with evil, that which is contrary to God. 

Of course the story goes on beyond today’s scripture passage into Genesis 3 where the story is told how sin enters into our lives. How Adam and Eve chose what is contrary to God and thus the generations that followed struggle to remain in right relationship with God, each other, and the world around them. Sin entered the picture and we lost the joy and delight of Eden. The joy and delight of relationships, which sometimes can get messy. Its not how God envisioned relationships or created them to be, but is the reality of the world we live in - a world marred by sin.

As a pastor I have often heard people say that they wish God wouldn’t have given us the capacity for free will, the capacity to be obedient or disobedient. But Pastor Mike Slaughter states that it is out of this free will that we get what defines all of our relationships - trust and integrity. God trusted Adam and Eve to obey the command they were given, and for a while it worked so well. But then the seperant entered the picture and made the couple doubt that God could be trusted, so they strayed from the only instruction they were given, and the relationship was broken. So broken that Adam and Eve hid from God in shame.

Notice that when they strayed from God, it was Adam and Eve who hid from God in the garden. Brothers and sisters, do we not do the same today? When we stray from this relationship that is primary to our very being, when we don’t trust God, or act in a way that doesn’t reflect integrity, we hide from the Lord who made us for relationship with the Divine. Instead of turning to God and restoring the relationship, we hide and isolate ourselves. And when we hide from God, cutting ourselves off from this first relationship, chaos will follow in all of our other relationships. 

All relationships are important, but when we cut ourselves off from our relationship with God, then we are going to be searching for other relationships to fill the place of our first relationship, our primary relationship, the genesis of all relationships, and its not going to work. We are going to be separated from the joy of the relationship we were created for. 

Brothers and sisters, where are you in your relationship with God today? Is it your primary relationship? Do you spend as much time in God’s presence as you do in the presence of others? Do you find your joy and purpose in God’s love for you? Or do you feel that your relationship with God is broken or you are hiding from your Creator? How can you work on your relationship with God over the coming weeks - growing it as you would with any of your relationships with each other? How can your relationship with God be one marked by trust and integrity?

Friends, your Creator and the author of relationships, yearns to love us. Yearns to be in relationship with us. May we seek to truly make our relationship with God a priority in our lives. Amen.