A Tale of Two Brothers (Genesis 4:1-16)

Scene 1: The Heart of the Matter (4:1-3)

Though exiled and kept from their original home — a paradise in the Garden of Eden — God did not forget Adam and Eve. We can imagine that in spite of the toil in working the fields, crops grew. In addition, God blessed the couple with a son. Regardless of the painful labor of bearing a child, Eve rejoiced, "I have made a male child with the Lord's help", a declaration of God's presence and blessing. And God didn't stop there: a second child — another son — was born. They named them Cain and Abel. Life was work, but it was good. Crops grew, the boys became young men, and went to work themselves. Cain worked the land, tilling, planting and harvesting . Abel became a shepherd, caring for flocks. All was good. Not as good as God originally designed but pretty good, at least. There's no hint of evil or disputes or major problems, only the brightest prospects of living under God's care and blessings.

But that was about to change.

The firstborn son does not fare too will in Genesis. Do you recall the stories of Ishmael and Isaac, and Jacob and Esau? The story of Cain and Abel is about to take a similar twist.

In the time of the year that crops are gathered and lambs are born, it was also the season for giving thanks to God for crops and lambs. Already baked into the life of this family was a tradition of worshiping Almighty Jehovah God. Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to God. Also, Abel presented to God an offering of his fattest new lambs. God accepted Abel and his offering: it was a worthy sacrifice of worship, acceptable in God's sight. But Cain's offering was not. God did not accept Cain nor his offering. And this is where the problem begins.

It's okay to wonder, and even ask, why did God receive the one and reject the other? Are lambs better than grain? Is God playing favorites? Is life unfair?

We’ve probably all been there, haven’t we. Why did he get the promotion? Why did she get the lead in the school play? Why does God give them so much wealth and we have to scratch out a living paycheck to paycheck?

It's not only okay to ask those questions, God wants us to ask them. If only Cain had asked. Instead, Cain was filled with rage. And his despondent face gave away his heart: it was a prideful heart of self-righteousness.

Just because he brought a gift to God, he thought himself acceptable. Apparently, there was no gratitude, no humility, no sincere worship of Jehovah; his offering was given out of duty, not worship and thanksgiving! There was no heart in it.

The rejection was not in the gift. God made accomodations and accepted both grain and sheep; even pigeons. No, the problem was not the gift, but the giver. More specifically, Cain’s heart. The furious anger and despondence was the proof. Apparently, Abel's heart was right, full of praise and thanksgiving to God, who blessed his flocks. Abel gave because he loved God. It seems that Cain gave because he wanted something from God. God’s rejection was a matter of Cain’s heart, not God’s.

You might recall that throughout Scripture a person's heart is truly the heart of the matter. To the prophet Samuel who was searching for a future king among Jesse's sons, God advised him, "Do not look at (Eliab's) appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart"(Samual 16:1). Here in this story, what we see are two brothers, bushels of grain and newborn lambs placed on an altar. What we do not see, right away at least, are their hearts. But God did.

Don't forget: God sees your heart too. What does he see? A heart that worships or a heart that fulfills a duty. Some of us, like the church in Ephesus to whom John wrote in Revelation, may need to return today to our first love. That church was full of activity but their hearts were not full of love for Jesus. So John prescribed to them a return: return to the love you had at first.

Is that what your heart needs today?

Scene 2: Master or Slave? (4:6-7)

When we are self-righteous and full of ourselves we are liable to act just like Cain. Who was the target of Cain’s anger? Toward whom was his face despondent and downcast? His brother Abel or his God Jehovah? According to Jesus, it doesn't really matter: both take us in the same wrong direction. Listen to Jesus in Matthew 5. “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift"(Matthew 5: 25-24).

Personally, I think Cain was jealous of Abel and angry at God. These are both symptoms of a self-righteous, prideful heart.

But God gave Cain a golden opportunity. As we've seen before, in spite of our sinful hearts, God comes calling. God is not intimidated by our fury, nor will He remain ignored by our despondence. He is not at all timid about crashing our pity party. He loves us way too much. He comes calling. God called to Cain with three questions: "Why are you furious? Why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? "(4: 4) God is gracious! He could have left Cain in furious despondence; left him to waller in his own muck, but God doesn’t do that. He comes calling with questions and with grace.

Grace calls our motives into question. "Why?” is a deep question. It requires us to reflect and evaluate. It points us beneath the action to the real source of it. In Cain's case, "Why?” revealed to him that there was no justification for the hardness of his heart —neither toward God or his brother. "Why? "is the question of a loving father discipling, correcting, mentoring his son. The why questions challenged Cain to have a change of heart. The third question was a promise; it looked forward to what would become of Cain if his heart was transformed: righteousness and acceptance.

I'm reminded of God's promise to Jeremiah: "I will certainly gather (Israel) from all the lands where I have banished them, and I will return them to this place, and I will be their God. I will give them integrity of heart and action so that They will fear me always, for their good, and for the good of their descendants after them"(Jeremiah 32: 37-38). God really desires us to be in a right relationship with Him. He desires to bless us and accept us. He doesn't need our worship, but He loves us and longs for us to love and worship him. So in the middle of our fury and depression, even though we have blatantly sinned against Him, He comes calling; and He challenges us and invites us to be transformed, at the heart of who we are.

What grace! What love! What a God!

God also warns us. He warned Cain of a worse peril that would take place without a changer of heart. God personified sin as a hungry lion poised to leap on its prey. And Cain is the prey sin is stalking.

“Wake up Cain! Take note, son!” God says to him.

Cain needed to understand — and so do we — that sin is not simply breaking the rules. Sin is an aggressive force ready to ambush us. Sin is lethal.

This is not the first time that sin is personified by a deadly animal, is it? And it is appropriate for it (sin) to be personified. For there is a person behind the force: Satan. Peter wrote that Satan, our adversary, "is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour"(1 Peter 5: 8). Not only is sin “crouching at the door", sin desires Cain (and us). Walter Brueggemann describes sin as an animal yearning for destruction. It desires to tear us apart.

Yet, listen to the promise: Sin can be mastered! "It's desire is for you, but you must rule over it" (4: 7). This takes me back to what Peter wrote. After describing Satan as a prowling, devouring lion, he said this: "Resist him, firm in the faith... "(Peter 5: 9a). Sin, a hungry, wild animal, waiting to pounce on us and tear us apart, need not devour us. Sin can be ruled! God comes calling to Cain, in the heat of his self-righteous anger, and not only warns him of impending doom, but offers him hope. Take charge of your heart. Be master over sin. You don't have to be sin’s slave. This is exactly what Paul teaches in Romans 6: "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires … For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace"(Romans 6: 12, 14. God gave Cain a remarkable choice: be sin's master, or become sin's slave.

And God gives each one of us the same choice, and the grace to act upon it in the appropriate way.

I am impressed by what John Steinbeck wrote about this in his novel, East of Eden: "Think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there." Created in His image, God bestowed upon us a will: a heart and mind to consider, to choose, and then to experience the consequences of our choices, good or bad.

Steinbeck gets the profound significance of God's word to Cain. It is an invitation, a challenge, a promise, an opportunity.

Every day, such opportunities come our way. In the heat of temptation, even in the heat of sin, the Holy Spirit offers us the same invitation, the same challenge, the same promise: master sin that seeks to destroy you. And the key is obedience. “If you do right,” God said, “won’t you be accepted?” This reminds me of what Jesus said in John 14:23. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

But if there's one thing we learn from Cain, we cannot master sin on our own. To master it is our choice, but it's not our strength to do so. Not only that, there must be the desire, the passion, to master sin.

Scene 3: The Lion Rules (4:8)

Cain did not want to master sin. In Cain, we see the calloused disobedience of the human heart. No sooner had God finished speaking than Cain set out to murder his brother. "Come brother, let's go out to the field." I can just hear him … "You've spent enough time with those stinking sheep. You need some fresh air. And by the way, have you seen my beautiful grain fields lately? My, they are a sight to see!”

Why would Abel refuse? This is his brother. Of course he wants to spend time with his brother, get some fresh air, see his golden fields of grain. Or perhaps Cain put it this way: "Hey, I'd like to see those fat sheep of yours. You must be proud. Let's go out to the pasture so I can get a look at them.”

However it went, Abel simply saw a brother; he could not see —he had no idea — what was in his brother's heart. Cain killed him and did who knows what with his body.

When sin becomes our master, it not only devours us, but it also destroys those close to us.

What sin is crouching at your door? Will you be the prey, or will you be a lion killer?

Scene 4: God Comes Calling... Again! (4:9-14)

Just as God did in verse 6, and just as he did with Adam and Eve in the garden, God came calling to Cain once again. Notice even the similarities of the questions:

To Adam: “Where we you?”

To Cain: "Where is your brother?”

To Eve: "What have you done?"

And to Cain, the very same question: "What have you done?"

This was not an investigation. God knew exactly what Cain had done and where his brother was, just as He knew exactly what Adam and Eve had done and that they were hiding in the bushes. This was an interrogation designed to draw out of Cain's heart a confession. And just like his parents, Cain refused to take responsibility for his sin and confess it. "Am I my brother's keeper?” is a pretty lame response. It's about as lame as the lawyer's response to Jesus: "Who is my neighbor?" Remember, he was self-righteous too.

Of course we are the keepers, the guardians, of our brothers and sisters, and even our neighbors. In John's first Epistle, he reflected on Cain. He wrote: "We should love one another, unlike Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother … This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. "(1 John 3: 11a-12b, 14)

God did not place us on our individual islands to survive on our own. He placed us in families, and communities, and cultures, where we learn how to live with others, love others, keep each other. One of the lessons of this story is the destructive power sin has in families, communities, and cultures. It deconstructs God's image in which we were created. Specifically, to love and cherish others over self.

Well, God could not — and cannot — be duped. "I know what you've done, Cain; and I know exactly where your brother is. His blood cries out to me from the ground where you murdered him. It cries out for justice.”

The tiller of the ground was betrayed by the very ground he worked; and also the family blood he shared with his brother. After Cain's hard-hearted refusal to own up to his sin — and I think too, because of it — God began to pronounce Cain's punishment: estrangement. From now on he would feel alienated from the fields that once produced fruit. In spite of his labor, it will never again be fertile. And worse, he will live like a prairie tumbleweed: estranged from family, community, and culture; a restless wanderer. Estrangement from God was the worse. "I must hide from your presence"(4: 14)

Apparently, Cain came to his senses. Perhaps he asked of himself God's question: "What have I done? "But the hard heart of unbelief refuses to accept discipline. "This punishment is too hard. I cannot bear such a sentence!” (4:13). Interestingly, the word Cain used can be translated "punishment” or "iniquity”, one of the biblical words for intentional sin. Perhaps the writer, Moses, intended a play on words. For sin is a punishment. And there is, I see, a foreshadowing of Jesus our need for Jesus in Cain’s cry. Sin is definitely not something we can bear. We cannot bear the guilt, and an eternity of punishment can never pay the price for forgiveness. Only Jesus!

There may be some of us today who we uttering the same words. God, my sin is too great. My shame and guilt is more than I can bear. Well, unlike Cain, you need to take ownership of your sin, confess it, and ask for God's forgiveness. His grace is sufficient.

Abel's blood cried out for justice. Christ's blood cries out with grace to forgive the vilest of sinners.

Scene 5: The Mark of Grace (4:15-16)

With remarkable, perhaps surprising grace, God responded to Cain's cry for mercy. The killer was fearful of being killed. He would expect revenge for killing his brother. "Eye for an eye" was the law of the land. God granted Cain's request: He put a mark on him. Moses didn't reveal how, or where, or what, the mark was. I think, the mark was placed on Cain by God for two reasons: as a reminder of both Cain's guilt and God's grace. And it marked Cain as safe in God's protection. That is an uncommon grace.

Cain had a choice of embracing a brother preferred over him. But he yielded to the waiting rage. He chose his own destiny for time to come. He is protected, but far from home and without the prospect of a homecoming.

But, hopefully, we are not Cain; or at least we don’t have to be. We can give God our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving because we love Him and worship Him. We can daily seek the renewal of our minds and the ongoing transformation of our hearts. We can own up to our sin and cry out to God for forgiveness. We can love Jesus by obeying His commands. And when God blesses another, we can rejoice and give thanks with them, rather than pout and fume in jealous rage.

We are neither cats or bees. We can choose life. Choose today who you will serve.