May 30, 2021: No Longer Alone

Genesis 2:4b-25
Rev. Rhonda Blevins

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.  So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
    for out of Man this one was taken.”

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

______

In many parts of the Southern United States, including my East Tennessee home, the Sunday before Memorial Day is called “Decoration Day.” Are you familiar with this tradition? Churches that have cemeteries on their grounds will clean up the gravesites, and families will place flowers on the graves of their deceased loved ones and ancestors. I didn’t understand this tradition when I was a child as I accompanied my grandmother to the cemetery on the Saturday before Decoration Day to place flowers on her parents’ graves. “Why are we giving flowers to dead people,” I wondered. “They can’t even enjoy them!”

But with age (a LOT of age), I began to realize that the flowers weren’t for our deceased ancestors, but for us, as a way to keep the memory of our forebears alive, and as a way to honor their memory.

But a particular flower has become associated with Memorial Day in America: the red poppy. “The red poppy officially became the national emblem of remembrance in 1920 – but the resilient little flower's roots run deep, all the way back to the battlefields of World War I, where it grew in the unlikeliest of places.” Red poppies are beautiful, but they “are technically classified as weeds. They’re resilient little plants, growing in even the most inhospitable landscapes — such as the desolate battlefields of Belgium. Even though the landscapes were left devastated, red poppies would spring from the wreckage come spring, like tiny beacons of hope.”[1]

A brigade surgeon for an Allied artillery unit, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, was particularly moved by the red flowers he saw popping up all over the European battlefields after the human conflicts had quieted. He noticed a cluster of poppies in Flanders Field in Belgium that spring, where he was tending injured troops. A huge battle ripped through the countryside, killing roughly 87,000 allied soldiers. One of the men who died was McCrae’s best friend. Overcome with sorrow, McCrae wrote a poem, “In Flanders Fields,” as a way to grieve his loss. Written from the perspective of the soldiers buried underneath the poppies, the poem honored the thousands of troops who perished in that battle:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

“If ye break faith with us who die” . . .

Today at the Chapel, we begin a summer series called “Faces of Our Faith” in which we remember our forebears of the faith—including some of the lesser-known stories with lesser-known characters of the Bible. It’s a way for us to remember their names and their stories, in the same way we remember fallen soldiers on Memorial Day or deceased ancestors on Decoration Day in the South. And as we remember their stories, we learn about ourselves—we discover that their story IS our story—that we are inextricably linked with those who came before, and with all people who walk the planet with us today.

So what better place to begin this series on “Faces of Our Faith” than with the story of Adam and Eve—the progenitors of the human race—the mother and father of humanity—making us all cousins, albeit perhaps a few (thousand) times removed.

Now, this story isn’t exactly one of the lesser-known stories from the Bible—Adam & Eve aren’t strangers in our directory of faith forebears. But when we hear about Adam & Eve, our first thought may be about how that blasted woman ate the fruit and got her fella to do the same, and how they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, the one act that explains human suffering. Let’s be clear: that’s an oversimplification of human suffering, but it’s a great story, nonetheless.

Like every great story, all five elements of plot development are right there:

• The exposition, in which we discover the setting and meet the major characters—in this case the setting is the Garden of Eden and the major characters are God and Adam.

• The rising action, in which we read about the conflict or problem and some action related to it—in this case we have Adam’s aloneness, and God parades all manner of animal in front of Adam to heal his loneliness.

• The climax or turning point in the story, and in our story today we find God causing Adam to fall into a deep sleep, God takes a rib, and creates a living, breathing being, presents her to Adam, prompting Adam to cry out, “This at last is bone of my bones
  and flesh of my flesh!”

• There’s the falling action—the two become one flesh

• The resolution: they were naked and unashamed.

Think about that moment when Adam first lays eyes on Eve—particularly about what doesn’t happen. He doesn’t say: “Hmmm, too fat or too thin, too old or too young, too white or too dark, too loud or too quiet, too smart or too dumb.” He doesn’t swipe left to reject this potential mate. He accepts her, just the way she is. “This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh!”

If you’ve ever had someone accept you, deeply accept you and everything about you, then you know how Eve must have felt when Adam woke up from his deep sleep. And if you’ve ever experienced a deep oneness with another human, you know how Adam felt when he exclaimed, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!”

In that moment, in the second chapter of Genesis, we’re introduced to the concept of companionship—deep, abiding, companionship. We were not meant to walk this earth alone. We were made for each other—and together we walk the mile and share the load. Together we tend God’s garden. Together we care for creation. We cannot do this work alone. We have been given one another as a gift. “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” said one human to another.

This isn’t just Adam’s story. This isn’t just Eve’s story. This is the story of every man and every woman who ever walked this sod. This is the human story. This is my story. This is your story. This is our story.

This story of community is why 72 years ago, residents of Clearwater Beach, at the prompting of a little elderly lady from Canada, Mrs. Nora Atkins, they began to work and pray together, that they might form a church here on this island. Their prayers and their efforts, their blood, sweat and tears, their sacrificial giving, including the gift of five lots of land from the Skinner family—the land on which we now gather. All of that work, and all of those prayers served as the foundation for what would become the Clearwater Beach COMMUNITY Church (aka Chapel by the Sea).

And now, 72 years later, we carry the torch of faith as we work and as we pray. We stand on the shoulders of people from whom we inherited our faith. Each of us have had our own, unique journeys, that brought us to this very moment that we share here together. And as you reflect upon the winding road that brought you to this moment, upon whose shoulders do you stand? Who were the people who influenced your faith along the way?

This summer, we are going to create a mobile made of driftwood and seashells. If you have some shells at home, you are invited to take a sharpie and write the names of those who have helped form you in faith. Write one name per shell (and you can create more than one) and bring them in over the next few Sundays. This is one way we will celebrate the “Faces of Our Faith.”

Now, think back to the poem I read to you at the beginning—“In Flanders Fields”—written from the perspective of the fallen soldiers from World War I in Belgium:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

One day a professor named Moina Michael at the University of Georgia read that poem and was so inspired by it that she wrote a poem in reply. Not only that, but she launched a movement to make the red poppy the symbol of Memorial Day. Perhaps her reply to the fallen could be our reply to all who have gone before, on whose shoulders we stand. The poem is titled, “We Shall Keep the Faith”:

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet— to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.[2]

[1]Sanci and Lizz Schumer, “Everything You Need to Know About the Symbolism Behind Memorial Day Poppies,”Good Housekeeping, May 21, 2021, https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/a27419480/memorial-day-poppy-flower-symbol/ (accessed May 30, 2021)

[2] Moina Michael, November 1918