CONSEQUENCES AND GRACE
Genesis 4:13-16
July 13, 2008
If you’ve noticed, throughout this five lesson series on the story of Cain and Abel we’ve make this statement over and over: “But there would be consequences”—and there were. Sometimes, though, consequences have a way of becoming blessings; so I’ve entitled this last lesson, “Consequences and Grace.”
I want us to read and tie in with our story three teachings I think are applicable; 1) a teaching from the old Hebrew law in Deuteronomy; 2) a teaching of Jesus; 3) and a later teaching from the Epistle, 1 John.
In Deuteronomy 30:11-20 we read: 11) Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12) It is not up in heaven…13) Nor is it beyond the sea…14) No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you [are able to obey it]. {Remember Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”} … 16) [So] I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands…then you will live and increase…17) But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them {such as the ones Cain refused to master}, 18) I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed… 19) This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20) and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…
Then in Luke 5:37-38 Jesus spoke this parable to the Pharisees to contrast the old order, personified by John the Baptist, with the coming new one in Jesus. 37) “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38) No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.” I want to borrow Jesus’ reasoning here and use it metaphorically to remember the old Cain (murderer, self-absorbed, and dishonest) and use that memory as the catalyst for him becoming the new Cain. This transformation must happen (if it is to happen) in a new place, with opportunities to repent and be redeemed, his past now behind him. Cain, due to both his geographical location (the place of the murder) and the state of his soul (in disobedience to God) would be unable to survive otherwise. The external and internal fallout from his guilt would be too great. So the situation calls for new wineskins, a new place, this time with God, if Cain chose to obey this time.
And we’ve all had times when we needed a fresh start, have we not? Some might say this is running away, but that would be true only if we leave things undone that we can make right. But there are times when events happen that can’t be made right. This was Cain’s situation. He was, as Jesus said, “…without honor…in his own country, and his own house.” Cain’s honor had been lost in his own country and couldn’t be regained. He had to leave to survive so God gave him a second chance.
And finally, a hundred or so years after Jesus, an inspired writer, historically thought to be the apostle John, but probably someone else using his name, wrote in 1 John 3:11-18: 11) “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12) Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one… {Remember God telling him, “sin is crouching at your door and it desires to have you”—well it did!} Cain murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his…actions were evil and his brother's were righteous… 15) Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. {Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount said, “…it was said to our people long ago, 'You must not murder anyone…if you murder you will be liable to judgment. But I tell you, if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be judged…” That means angry to the point of hating or harming the other, or of returning wrong for wrong.} 16) [So, John continues] this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. {We must die? No…} 17) If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18) Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” Later Jesus would add, in Matthew 25:39-40, “…as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
So there it is, the gospel, the good news from God’s earliest attempts to reach us, the essence of his word, what it means at its core. Jesus said it would live forever. WE know it as the law of love—to love God AND our brother. Our tendency to let love for our brother be suffocated by the world’s trinkets we allow to seduce us prompted Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, to write the following: “The daily estrangement of brother and brother has come to seem ordinary, routine, and accepted. Estrangement seems to be ‘our common lot.’ (Is it? Are any of us are estranged from someone?) … But (he continues) that [very]… estrangement is turned into the ultimate issue of life and death in the context of the [story we are studying]… By linking [hatred of one’s brother] to death, the issue of the brother is made the ultimate theological crisis…” Is hatred (and some may parse it to “intense dislike”), the burden you carry? Then that is your ultimate theological crisis? Do you hold one, or many, in unforgiveness? Then that becomes your ultimate theological challenge. If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, you are playing out a modern day sequel to Cain and Abel in your own life. And if their story was God’s revealed truth, then your story will be no less so.
And finally, God placed a mark on Cain, not to brand him as a perpetrator, but to protect him from those who would harm him in retaliation for the sin of which they, in their own hearts, were just as guilty. No one knows what that mark was, any more than they know what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was, but whatever it was, it carries an ageless warning: “Beware! Before you is my child who killed your brother. You may kill him, but if you do, you become just like him and will experience my wrath no less than he.” For guilty or not, he remains my child! You would react no differently if he were yours.
And one other point: it is to their everlasting shame that some in the church, including ordained ministers, have, in the past appropriated the meaning of the mark of Cain as a literal symbol supporting their hateful, unloving views regarding race. Such justification was not confined to the “old South”, but was a far-reaching evil engaged in by some elements of Christianity as a “run for cover” to be under the protective wing of a powerful but godless sentiment. In so doing, though, they willingly sacrificed the law of love. Sadly, this has not been uncommon over the entire life of the church. In Constantine’s Sword, a best selling book of a few years ago, James Carroll wrote, “That the first followers of Jesus violated his message by slandering their rivals, even demonizing them, establishes better than anything else that the Church, at its core, is as sinful as any other institution.” To the extent that any church teaches, even if subtly, 1) that we are better than they, whomever “they” happen to be; 2) that to be inside the church exempts us from the mark of Cain; 3) that only some rather than all are sinners; 4) that God is satisfied as long as we give our money and follow church dogma rather than what he generously wrote on our hearts, that church, too, bears the mark of Cain and lives in a foreign land.
Thankfully, the mark of Cain conveys a truth much brighter, though. For it was placed on one who deserved death, yet was allowed to live. The scars both we and Cain carry are a substitute for the death we so deserve. Notice, though, I said the mark was a substitute, not punishment. Archbishop Rowan Williams tells us that Jesus, while triumphant over the cross, still bears the scars. “Doubting Thomas” is a witness to that. We, too, like Cain will always bear our scars, though they aren’t intended as punishment. Their presence reminds us that “God’s grace will remake but not undo.”
And Cain’s future, even in a barren land, tells us that we too have hope. And if God commissions us to carry his love into a wounded world, and the hope that embodies, surely he intended for us to be the bearers of his mercy as well. The story of Cain and Abel tells us that mercy finally triumphs over justice, even if that mercy carries with it limitations brought about by the sin that has scarred us. The Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton wrote, “He is now the risen Christ. He [now] knows no suffering. He ‘dieth now no more.’ But He has wounds. Even though they be glorious, they are wounds.” Our wounds, too, can be glorious, for they can be the path to redemption—for us and our brother. God wanted as much for his child, Cain.
So it isn’t easy. The Cain and Abel story tells us that as Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, “punishment isn’t paramount; the restoration of relationships is.” And we can’t restore our relationship with God without first restoring the relationship that binds us to our brother.
Let me close our series with something Theologian, Ray Anderson wrote: “…The sin of [my brother] against God and … against me, is the obstacle over which I must leap…”
Genesis 4:13-16
July 13, 2008
If you’ve noticed, throughout this five lesson series on the story of Cain and Abel we’ve make this statement over and over: “But there would be consequences”—and there were. Sometimes, though, consequences have a way of becoming blessings; so I’ve entitled this last lesson, “Consequences and Grace.”
I want us to read and tie in with our story three teachings I think are applicable; 1) a teaching from the old Hebrew law in Deuteronomy; 2) a teaching of Jesus; 3) and a later teaching from the Epistle, 1 John.
In Deuteronomy 30:11-20 we read: 11) Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12) It is not up in heaven…13) Nor is it beyond the sea…14) No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you [are able to obey it]. {Remember Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”} … 16) [So] I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands…then you will live and increase…17) But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them {such as the ones Cain refused to master}, 18) I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed… 19) This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20) and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…
Then in Luke 5:37-38 Jesus spoke this parable to the Pharisees to contrast the old order, personified by John the Baptist, with the coming new one in Jesus. 37) “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38) No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.” I want to borrow Jesus’ reasoning here and use it metaphorically to remember the old Cain (murderer, self-absorbed, and dishonest) and use that memory as the catalyst for him becoming the new Cain. This transformation must happen (if it is to happen) in a new place, with opportunities to repent and be redeemed, his past now behind him. Cain, due to both his geographical location (the place of the murder) and the state of his soul (in disobedience to God) would be unable to survive otherwise. The external and internal fallout from his guilt would be too great. So the situation calls for new wineskins, a new place, this time with God, if Cain chose to obey this time.
And we’ve all had times when we needed a fresh start, have we not? Some might say this is running away, but that would be true only if we leave things undone that we can make right. But there are times when events happen that can’t be made right. This was Cain’s situation. He was, as Jesus said, “…without honor…in his own country, and his own house.” Cain’s honor had been lost in his own country and couldn’t be regained. He had to leave to survive so God gave him a second chance.
And finally, a hundred or so years after Jesus, an inspired writer, historically thought to be the apostle John, but probably someone else using his name, wrote in 1 John 3:11-18: 11) “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12) Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one… {Remember God telling him, “sin is crouching at your door and it desires to have you”—well it did!} Cain murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his…actions were evil and his brother's were righteous… 15) Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. {Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount said, “…it was said to our people long ago, 'You must not murder anyone…if you murder you will be liable to judgment. But I tell you, if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be judged…” That means angry to the point of hating or harming the other, or of returning wrong for wrong.} 16) [So, John continues] this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. {We must die? No…} 17) If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18) Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” Later Jesus would add, in Matthew 25:39-40, “…as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
So there it is, the gospel, the good news from God’s earliest attempts to reach us, the essence of his word, what it means at its core. Jesus said it would live forever. WE know it as the law of love—to love God AND our brother. Our tendency to let love for our brother be suffocated by the world’s trinkets we allow to seduce us prompted Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, to write the following: “The daily estrangement of brother and brother has come to seem ordinary, routine, and accepted. Estrangement seems to be ‘our common lot.’ (Is it? Are any of us are estranged from someone?) … But (he continues) that [very]… estrangement is turned into the ultimate issue of life and death in the context of the [story we are studying]… By linking [hatred of one’s brother] to death, the issue of the brother is made the ultimate theological crisis…” Is hatred (and some may parse it to “intense dislike”), the burden you carry? Then that is your ultimate theological crisis? Do you hold one, or many, in unforgiveness? Then that becomes your ultimate theological challenge. If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, you are playing out a modern day sequel to Cain and Abel in your own life. And if their story was God’s revealed truth, then your story will be no less so.
And finally, God placed a mark on Cain, not to brand him as a perpetrator, but to protect him from those who would harm him in retaliation for the sin of which they, in their own hearts, were just as guilty. No one knows what that mark was, any more than they know what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was, but whatever it was, it carries an ageless warning: “Beware! Before you is my child who killed your brother. You may kill him, but if you do, you become just like him and will experience my wrath no less than he.” For guilty or not, he remains my child! You would react no differently if he were yours.
And one other point: it is to their everlasting shame that some in the church, including ordained ministers, have, in the past appropriated the meaning of the mark of Cain as a literal symbol supporting their hateful, unloving views regarding race. Such justification was not confined to the “old South”, but was a far-reaching evil engaged in by some elements of Christianity as a “run for cover” to be under the protective wing of a powerful but godless sentiment. In so doing, though, they willingly sacrificed the law of love. Sadly, this has not been uncommon over the entire life of the church. In Constantine’s Sword, a best selling book of a few years ago, James Carroll wrote, “That the first followers of Jesus violated his message by slandering their rivals, even demonizing them, establishes better than anything else that the Church, at its core, is as sinful as any other institution.” To the extent that any church teaches, even if subtly, 1) that we are better than they, whomever “they” happen to be; 2) that to be inside the church exempts us from the mark of Cain; 3) that only some rather than all are sinners; 4) that God is satisfied as long as we give our money and follow church dogma rather than what he generously wrote on our hearts, that church, too, bears the mark of Cain and lives in a foreign land.
Thankfully, the mark of Cain conveys a truth much brighter, though. For it was placed on one who deserved death, yet was allowed to live. The scars both we and Cain carry are a substitute for the death we so deserve. Notice, though, I said the mark was a substitute, not punishment. Archbishop Rowan Williams tells us that Jesus, while triumphant over the cross, still bears the scars. “Doubting Thomas” is a witness to that. We, too, like Cain will always bear our scars, though they aren’t intended as punishment. Their presence reminds us that “God’s grace will remake but not undo.”
And Cain’s future, even in a barren land, tells us that we too have hope. And if God commissions us to carry his love into a wounded world, and the hope that embodies, surely he intended for us to be the bearers of his mercy as well. The story of Cain and Abel tells us that mercy finally triumphs over justice, even if that mercy carries with it limitations brought about by the sin that has scarred us. The Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton wrote, “He is now the risen Christ. He [now] knows no suffering. He ‘dieth now no more.’ But He has wounds. Even though they be glorious, they are wounds.” Our wounds, too, can be glorious, for they can be the path to redemption—for us and our brother. God wanted as much for his child, Cain.
So it isn’t easy. The Cain and Abel story tells us that as Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, “punishment isn’t paramount; the restoration of relationships is.” And we can’t restore our relationship with God without first restoring the relationship that binds us to our brother.
Let me close our series with something Theologian, Ray Anderson wrote: “…The sin of [my brother] against God and … against me, is the obstacle over which I must leap…”
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