Community is
a natural thing for all of us. We all exist in some form of community somewhere
in some way. Most of us have attended high school. I, of course, have a hard time remembering high
school, but high school is often our first adult experience of
community.
What kind of communities
do we have in high school? We’ve got the nerds, the dorks, the geeks, and the goths,
the list goes on and really these are just groups of people – clicks. All of these groups have, at the bare
minimum, shared interests. These shared
interests link them together. For the
most part, everyone has this innate desire within themselves to gather with
people who have something in common with them. I think this is demonstrated in
our culture, in a broken way, through reality TV. In particular, the television show Survivor. I
know a lot of people say they don’t like the show, but really, I think most of
us secretly do. It’s not hip to like it, so most people say they are not a fan,
but then they go home watch Survivor or go to the bars to
watch the show.
Why is Survivor so
popular? Well, because it fits nicely into our post-modern world, in the sense
that, to win the game, you have to form alliances? To win the game you have to
have some sense of community. You have to work together to make progress in
this game but ultimately there is only one winner - so betrayal is an intricate
part of the game, and that’s what our culture resonates with. Survivor touches on our longing to be part of
a community, but it also touches on the reality that we cannot truly trust
anyone, because if we do, they will ultimately stab us in the back.
This longing for
community is woven into the very fabric of who we are. In the very first pages of world history in
the book of Genesis, God speaks the world into existence. He speaks mountains
and oceans and animals, tigers, lions, and elephants into reality. He speaks life
into existence. In chapter one verse 26 of Genesis God creates human beings. God said let us make man in our image and in
our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air,
over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move
along the ground.
The story continues in
verse 27 - God created man in his own image and the image of God he created him
male and female he created them. Two things should be noted
here. God created man and woman in his image, but there is an interesting thing
about God’s image. What does he say in verse 26? He says let us make man in our
image, in our likeness. In the beginning of the page, the first page of
Genesis, at least in my book of the university edition of the bible, we find
God saying - Let us create man in our image. We see the trinity, a picture of God
the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit, creating man in their image
which means that you and I are created by a community.
At our core, we find,
that we are created for community. We were created to be with like kind. If you
move to chapter two in Genesis, there is a more detailed account of this
creation story. God has created all the animals and everything. He is going to
place man into the garden and man does not have any needs. The reason the is important is because God is says something very dramatic in verse 18.
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable
for him.”
It is not
good for man to be alone. Man has everything, perfect relationship with God. No
need for food, shelter everything is just there for him. Yet it is not good for
him to be alone. Now a lot of young men will take this and say, “See that just
means it is not good for man not to have a wife.” This is not to hard to agree with, but
I think this statement goes far beyond a wife because everything is right.
Everything is perfect. No sin has entered the garden at this point and something is not good
- being without like kind. That is important. It shows that we are created for
each other. I believe this transcends
just the man and the woman. It is about the human race. We need each other.
The Genesis
story continues - Adam gets Eve and Adam and Eve sin. They disobey God. They
eat from the tree that they are not supposed to eat from. They are removed from
the garden and everything is impacted. The
community of the environment, the community of animals, and the community of man
are all thrown into chaos, and all those communities are damaged because of sin.
No longer can the community of man and the community of God have any kind of meaningful
relationship. It is now a broken relationship.
