CAIN AND ABEL

CAIN AND ABEL
Genesis 4:1-16
June 15, 2008

The story of Cain and Abel is one of the best known of all Bible stories. It is a story that ranges from sibling rivalry, murder and fratricide to punishment, fear and grace. It captivates us, not only by mirroring our own lives, often uncomfortably, but by its spectacular backdrop, harkening us back to our primal ancestors, Adam and Eve. As we read and ponder the words of this powerful narrative 1) I ask that you forgo too much debate in your mind about its factuality. Simply hear it. In its own way, it is factual. 2) But did it really happen? Some say yes, some, no; but neither answer diminishes the truths that are embodied therein.

I would be less than honest if I failed to give credit for most of these thoughts to Miroslav Volf, a great theologian currently at Yale. He is unexcelled, in my opinion, at explaining and differentiating 1) fallen-ness, 2) repentance, 3) forgiveness and 4) redemption. Volf is a naturalized citizen from Croatia, and as such, has had to actually grapple with his subject firsthand due to the ethnic cleansing that ravaged his native land for so long. His most important book, Exclusion and Embrace, written in 1996, became a theological classic in a very short period of time.

Since we will probably spend five weeks studying this story, allow me to begin with some generalized statements about it. First of all, this is not a story about “us” and “them”; it is, rather, a story about “us” and “us”. Most of us instinctively want to see ourselves as Abel, for we can’t imagine being the murderous Cain. But this simply isn’t the case. Yes, we are Abel; but we are Cain too. The hateful, injurious impulses that course through our hearts from time to time and often presage our actions are indigenous to humankind. Had this not been the case, Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, stressing the danger of even pondering in our hearts such violence as anger, murder and adultery, would have been unnecessary. So even the most innocent among us, if indeed it is possible to quantify innocence, have a healthy dose of Cain in them.

Secondly, this is as much a story about man and man as about man and God. It cautions us to be wary of Christians who are overbearingly holy in the presence of God, but oblivious to the worth of those with whom they live. They strive in vein to touch the God they can’t, and refuse to touch the neighbor they can. Surely this was what got Cain into trouble. He acknowledged a responsibility to God, but not to Abel, and the end result of his myopia turned out to be nothing less than murder.

I remember the summer (now forty years ago) that I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer (and it did take me a whole summer to read). It had a powerful impact on me and several times I had to place the book aside as my tears prevented me from reading further the grizzly details describing what a suppose-ed Christian nation did to its Jews. I could not allow that pain to die with me; so thereafter, never did a semester of my World History class pass that I didn’t use what I learned from Shirer to illustrate the end result of hatred, of prejudice, or even more, of just turning a blind eye to injustice. The story of Cain and Abel is an equally powerful narrative, and with the identical consequence.

And finally, despite his horrific deed, Cain was given a measure of God’s grace. That is undisputed. What may be disputed, though, is how Cain found grace (through an act of capital murder) and the surprising form of God’s grace (banishment from the community, but ongoing life), Considering, then, what brought Cain to God’s grace, and what form that grace eventually took, this story seems to make a powerful argument against capital punishment. Consider this sequence of events: 1) God condemns a wanton murderer, 2) separates him from society, placing him in a faraway place, 3) and there God protects his life from any who would harm him. Hopefully, this act of mercy will result in Cain’s redemption. Yet it should not escape notice of the reportedly seventy-five percent who support the death penalty that Cain was never allowed to leave the land of Nod to which he was banished. But a life banished is still life, and the hope of redemption is still hope.

And, I might point out, too, that it wasn’t some so-called “bleeding heart” liberal judge, but God who didn’t give up on Cain. God didn’t give up on Cain; and neither does he give up on the inmates to whom this class ministers in a modern land of Nod, nor on you and me in our own land of Nod; and he could have. 1) But life is always more precious to God than death; 2) mercy more desired than vindictiveness; 3) and grace more likely than judgment to result in redemption.

Let’s talk about THE BIRTH OF TWO SONS (vv. 1-2a)

When we speak of Cain and Abel we speak of them as a pair. Formally, this is how siblings are looked upon. Yet, the story reveals a tension from the start, for Cain was the first son, and as such, the one who would, at that time, be most welcomed and treasured by his parents. The narrative, which is exceedingly sparse in detail, reveals this inequality by having our common mother, Eve, when Cain was born, say, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” Abel’s birth, by contrast, was mentioned only in passing, and then in conjunction with Cain, relating to us that, “Later she gave birth to his brother Abel”, as if only in this way could Abel’s birth have context. The meaning of the names also reveals a differentiation between them, as Volf writes, “[Eve] inscribed her exuberance in the name of her firstborn: Cain, the name of honor which means ‘to produce,’ ‘to bring forth’; the birth of the second was a matter of course and he received a name whose meaning marked him as inferior: Abel, [meaning] ‘breath,’ ‘vapor,’…‘worthlessness,’ ‘nothingness”…

Many theologians, by carefully vetting the story, believe it implies Cain to have become a successful, wealthy land owner while Abel was no more than a lowly sheepherder who may even have tended the flocks of his brother. The upshot of this is that it was Cain who was far superior to his brother in all things measurable. But lest we forget, that also means Cain had the most to lose. Isn’t it interesting how a backdrop is beginning to take shape as we approach the central act of the story, the offering? The implication is difficult to miss, that Cain was self-possessed, thinking he had “pulled himself up by his bootstraps” so to speak, while the humble Abel, living close to the edge, learned out of necessity that he could depend only on God for safe keeping. This, folks, is a real story; it happens all too often for us not to recognize that. Two people, born with similar proclivities, wade into adult life. One finds it easy because the deck seems to be stacked in his favor, while the other struggles with everything. But the first, in his success, forgets the source of his blessings, while the second, struggling against seemingly impossible odds, learns there is no other choice but to lean entirely on the God he learns to trust.

So what makes the story of Cain and Abel so captivating? It draws us close through Cain’s intense rivalry with his brother, his sheer unfathomable violence for little or no cause that we can discern. But having been drawn close, we learn from the story when we recognize ourselves in it, that the story is about us, that we are not just the innocent Abel, but the guilty Cain as well. It reveals what we, too, are capable of, and so, for the wise and discerning, places us before God in desperate need of a savior, someone to save us, not from God, but from the evil that lurks within us waiting to pounce.

Further, the story of Cain and Abel tells me that my petty rivalries 1) with my brother, 2) or my neighbor nearby, 3) or with a people far off, are rooted in my desire to keep God’s blessings for myself. And not only that, this same desire inexplicably covets my brother’s blessings as well, as acted out by Cain. It ignores God as the source of all blessings which he gives generously, as well as our responsibility to be a conduit, passing them along, rather than a dead sea where they collect and stagnate. Once there in our understanding, we are ready to accept the perfect relationship God offers us.