The Saga East of Eden
Genesis: From Eden to Eternity • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. 17 Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech. 19 Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. 21 His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. 22 Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain’s sister was Naamah. 23 Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. 24 If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.” 25 Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.
The story of Cain and Abel, the story of conflict between brothers or between families has played itself out many times, not only in actual history, but also in fiction and film.
I’m thinking about some relatively recent history. King Edward and his brother Albert, who later became King George....Edward fell in love with an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, and wanted to marry her, causing a crisis as head of Church of England…he chose freedom to love and walked away from duty and responsibility and obligation and loyalty....whereas his brother Albert, accepted the crown, though reluctantly, and thereby gave up his freedom and chose responsibilty and duty.
John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.....Steinbeck’s novel is one of the most famous retellings of the Cain and Abel story in modern literature. It follows the Trask family across generations, with the brothers Charles and Adam, and later Adam's sons, Cal and Aron, embodying Cain and Abel-like conflicts. Themes of inherited sin, jealousy, and the struggle between good and evil .....in effect, describing what life is like East of Eden, which in the book is the Salinas Valley in California.
Thor and Loki....
Mufasa and Scar in the Lion King film. Mufasa was king of the Pride Lands. and Scar was his jealous and coniving brother who wanted the throne for himself. Scar as you know hatched a plot to have his brother killed, which he was. .....The story of course continues with Mufasa’s son Simba exiled, cast way by Scar and though Scar hoped he would die, he finds himself in Cloud Forest, and encounters two new friends, Pumbaa and Timon, a warthog and meerkat and embarks on an adventure in a place we might call, east of Eden.
The story of Cain and Abel has played itself out in many ways both in history and fiction and film.
16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Out from the Lord’s presence....this was most significant for the mind of the ANE…being exiled from Eden meant being cast away from the Presence of God…this was the great penalty, the terrible sentence, that humanity would suffer...... So that’s once again being emphasized.
Nod - have no way of knowing if it was a real place.... but surely the writer wants us to know what kind of place East of Eden is.... “wandering” “homelessness” swaying of a reed or bulrush” a place where the winds of time and fate blow your life back and forth.... “homelessness, wandering... no home...
Cain and his descendants live East of Eden....
Now let’s pay attention to this East of Eden existence. Notice some of the things the writer says, that Cain made love to his wife and had a son
blessings of Gen. 1 and 2. are still present.... the cultural mandate of Gen. 1:26-28 is still in effect....
Cain and his wife had a son…they had sons.... be fruitful and multiply is still be experienced.
Rule, subdue, have dominion, cultivate....call forth potential from the chaos (remember that phrase?).... that’s all happening too.
Cain Builds a city.....
Lamech’s descendants, are farmers, tilling the soil and raising livestock, other descendants excel in the ARTS and are purveyors of culture, creating instruments and making music....and yet other descendants are metallurgists, mining minerals from the earth to forge copper and iron and bronze, excelling in a variety of trades....
But with all these advances comes growing pride and arrogance and accompanying violence. Cain names city after his son....wants a legacy, wants to create a name for himself..... Lamech you might say, seeks after global power and domination...
Remember his poem....Listen wives (Adah and Zillah).... I’ve killed a man for wounding me, or for injuring me....you so much as scratch me, I’ll kill you!
Seventy times seven vengeance and domination...... He claims himself to be even more powerful than God!!
DO YOU SEE how alongside God’s creational blessings is a growing spiral of darkness and vengence and human arrogance....a like a dark storm that is growing [See Marianne’s storm clouds]
And this quite frankly is us....this is the human experience...
This is US....our East of Eden existence. An existence where we live in the TENSION.... yes, we continue to experience Gods creational blessings, but also where we experience the growing spiral of human arrogance, and selfishness, and greed, and violence....
Andrew, I thought that when I came to church today, I’d hear good news!
Is this existence our destiny? How then shall we live??
Hakuna Matada - no worries, here for a good time not a long time....enjoy life…chill out, relax, have fun, life’s a party!
BUT this way of life is really no life....no sense of adventure, no sense of higher purpose or higher calling....and this way of life will do nothing to fortify you when the storm clouds come...
SO WHERE IS GOOD NEWS IN ALL OF THIS??? HOW CAN I BE SAVED OR RESCUED FROM THIS EAST OF EDEN EXISTENCE??
Well already in the closing verses of chapter 4 the writer wants to point the way towards a hopeful rescue.
25 Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.
Compare to Gen. 4:1
1 Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.”
The good news is that the solution to our EAST of EDEN existence is going to come because of something GOD will do, and not something that we can do.
Now we go to some other places outside of our text, down the road in the story of Genesis and then further down the road in the story of the OT.....why? because in some other very important moments in the Biblical story, GOD does some of his best work EAST OF EDEN.
Abram and Sarai.....lived East of Eden.....
God must open Sarai womb..... why? because Abram’s descendants will be children of the PROMISE that God made to Abraham and all his descendants....
As if God is saying, “The community that I am forming, the people that I am calling to live with me and for me, must be people who’s LIFE originates in me and not in the life and spirit of Cain.”
“My people are those who’s LIFE originates in me and not in the life and spirit of Cain.”
I did say God does some amazing work East of Eden
East of Eden - After delivering them from their bondage to the Egyptians, God led his people Israel into the wilderness, into an East of Eden place and he established them as his covenant people and taught them how to live according to the instruction of the Lord..... Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.... and of course at the end of the wilderness wanderings God’s people found themselves quite literally east of the Promised Land, on the eastern side of the Jordan river ready to enter the land.
But you know the story....centuries went by as they lived in the promised land and God’s people repeatedly failed to live according to the Lord’s instruction....Exile to Babylon
How would God restore us to his presence....
came through John the Baptist....he was calling people out of Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside to come east....to the Jordan river....on that day Jesus was declared by a voice from heaven that his is my beloved Son…listen to him....and Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus himself was born from above....conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.
Jesus meets us in our East of Eden existence and calls us to come and follow him....to be born again, born from above....not born of Adam, but of the second Adam.
We then are united to God himself, in Christ....restored to the presence of God....
Until that day when Christ returns and makes all things new....when the whole earth will be Eden....when the whole earth will be the temple of the Lord....when the whole earth will be the promised land.
NOTES
Leder, Pentateuch, 28-29.
Adam’s descendents.... vs. Abram’s
Abram travels from East of Eden…Eden is now the land of promise - Canaan.
Summarizing, by beginning with the garden of Eden and ending at the borders of the Promised Land the Pentateuch moves the reader from the expulsion from one place to the waiting for entry into another. And even though it is Israel that awaits entry into the land, and even though Israel is not a "natural" descendant of Adam, the links between Adam and Eve and Abram and Sarai and their descendants suggest that Israel represents the interests and needs of that community. "In Abram," then, "Adam" is awaiting entry to the land, and "in Abram" humanity's drift away from God has been turned around. But they are not yet in the land. The deficit of homelessness has not been completely canceled, for Adam's descendants "in Abram" continue in exile from the Promised Land as the place of God's presence. Nevertheless, by the end of the Pentateuch Israel is in a place that anticipates the land: the camp where she enjoys the reality of God's presence. (Leder, 28-29)
