Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 6, 2024
Genesis 2:18-24

The audio of this sermon can be found here. The video of the full worship service is available on the Trinity Episcopal Church YouTube channel.

As we gather to celebrate Trinity School Sunday, I have been thinking about history. You know me, I’m always thinking about history. And I learned that Trinity Episcopal School was founded on July 7, 1845. Just four years after Trinity Episcopal Church. The headmaster, Mr. Dean, began that school in 1845 with nearly fifty students. But that school was closed down. In the summer of 1873, they tried again. Trinity Church Parish School was organized by the assistant priest. It was also closed down. I suppose that third time is the charm. Trinity Episcopal School was founded, yet again, on September 8, 1952. And here we are, seventy-two years later.

It sounds like that reading from Genesis. God presents to the human in the garden all the living creatures that God has made. And from that parade of the animal kingdom, the human tries again and again to find a helper, a partner, and nothing works out. Not even the cats, not even the dogs are good enough. God keeps on trying, but nothing seems to stick. It’s an almost comical image. In my mind’s eye, there is the human, in the garden, and all the creatures from the zoo walk by. And can’t you hear God saying, “how about an elephant? Would that work for you?” Too big. “A cockroach?” Too gross. “A ring-tailed lemur?” Too exotic. 

Because, the only creature sufficient to be the human’s partner, is another human. And so God creates again. And from that one human, God created Man and Woman.

Now, I want to be precise with my language here. At the beginning of this story, that person is not a male, nor is it a female. It is a human, a person. What we call “mankind.” It is only later on that God splits that person and makes Man and Woman. I know you were all taught in Sunday School that there was a male, and that God created the female from the male. But that’s not what the story says. There was human, there was person, and that human could not live alone. So God made two humans, to be partners for each other, to be helpers. This is not a story about gender, though we often read it that way. No, this is a story about the human need for relationships, for community, for other humans. 

And it’s those things – relationships and communities – that make us who we are. Yes, we are all taught that we need to have grit, pluck, to pick ourselves up when we fall. We probably teach this to our children, and to the students at our school. We want them to be strong, courageous, to have what it takes to keep on going even when this world gets tough. We want our students to be individuals, to know that they have it in themselves to make something of themselves. This is how we adults think, too. That we should have all the answers. That we should be able to figure things out; to do things on our own. Because anything else is weakness. That’s our pride and our ego talking.

But we should have all learned from the book of Genesis, that no human can do anything for themselves. True strength, true grace, comes from other humans. Grit, resilience is only possible when we have helpers, partners, when we have a community. The single human in the garden could not live life alone. We are social creatures – we are weak when we are alone, we are strong when we’re together. That’s the point of the story.

This is what I have seen and learned from the long history of Trinity Church and Trinity Schools. Truly, both institutions have needed resilience in the face of challenges spanning all these years. There have been hurricanes, and pandemics, and turmoil, and leadership changes. Sometimes one institution has been strong, the other facing existential threat – and sometimes the shoe has been on the other foot. At every step, either Trinity could have failed. But I believe the grace, the grace that God has given us, is each other. Trinity Church and School together can offer a vision, a spirit of unity in this world that is so terribly fractured. 

Now, have we achieved righteousness? By no means. Both of us are a work in progress. Is this relationship perfect? Not at all. But neither was the relationship between Adam and Eve in the garden, and yet that was the gift that God gave. 

And it’s not just about institutions. It’s about our own communities, partnerships, friendships, and relationships. I’m certain that you can look back on your life and see how God has provided people along the way to be your helper. And I’m certain that you can look back and see how God provided you to help someone else. That’s the point of the story in Genesis, and it’s what we have learned here, in this place. We were created for each other. And I hope it’s the lesson we walk away with today. We cannot do life alone. God has gifted us each other. That’s why Jesus called disciples together, not as individuals. Jesus called together a Church, he did not call people to live life on their own terms. And it’s what Saint Paul will remind us – in Christ, there is no longer male and female. Through Jesus, by virtue of our baptism, by virtue of our faith, we are no longer strangers, but friends. Helpers. Partners. 

And, it’s what I hope that every child and adult at both Trinity Church and School learns. Yes, we will face hardships and trials. Yes, Trinity Church and School will face challenges again – there will be more storms, more pandemics, more leadership changes, more turmoil. That’s simply part of life on this earth. So we should not be teaching our children how to avoid hard things, but how to live through hard things. We should not be coddling them, afraid of letting them fail. We should hold them graciously, allowing them to learn how to make mistakes within a loving community, so that we when they fail, we can pick them back up and help them try again. So that we adults can make mistakes, and pick each other up. To be helpers and partners. Just as God created us.

So consider this a sermon of liberation. Because you can stop looking. I know all the things that you look on a daily basis, the idea, the job title, the token, the political party, the salary, the shiny little toy – like the parade of animals in Genesis. And you think that things will complete your life, that they will make you happy. But they won’t. Because God has already given you what you need. It’s each other. It’s a community. It’s other humans, helpers and partners. This is God’s gift to humanity, second only to life itself. God gifted us with each other.

See also

Chemaly, Soraya. The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma. Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2024.

Morgan, William. Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church: Galveston, Texas. The Anson Jones Press, 1954.