My Brother’s Keeper?
Genesis 4:1-18
How many of you have a perfect family? Not a one huh? Then this message is for you and me. In our Scripture today, we see the first family, I mean, the very first family. Adam and Eve gave birth to their first son Cain and not long after, a second son, Abel. Cain became a farmer. Abel became a shepherd. Both came time to present an offering to God. Cain presented some fruits of the soil. Abel brought the first born, and thus the best, of his flock. God looked over these offerings, and rejected Cain’s and accepted Abel’s. Most scholars believe that Cain gave just some of his crop, but Abel gave the very best of his flock to God. And God knew the difference. As a result of this rejection, Cain got angry. Why? Because in the Hebrew world, when you accepted a gift from someone, you accepted the person. When you refused a gift, you refused the giver. Cain’s becomes angry and the Lord saw it and said, “Why is it your face is downcast and why are you angry? If you would do what is right, your offering would be accepted.” Filled with anger and jealousy, Cain invites Abel to meet him and murders him.
What do we learn today from the first family? First, all families have dysfunction and sin, and that’s usually passed down the generations. In this case, the sin of the Adam and Eve in the Garden falls to their children, Cain murders his brother. Cain and Abel grew up together, played together, learned together, fought together, as all brothers do, and became young men and then adults together. And what we see is that the very sin that seeped into the lives of Adam and Eve was passed on to Cain. We see it today in sins abuse, alcoholism, and drug use passed on from one generation to the next and it affects who the child becomes. The question isn’t whether there is dysfunction and sin in your family, but of how much and what impact it has?
We’ve seen sins of the family in River Ridge, a father abuses his wife, destroys her relationship to their son and then later kills his 16 year old son and himself. In Slidell, a woman gets mad at her elderly father so she kills him and then cuts up his body and puts it in a cooler and in a cousin who kidnaps and stabs to death Ahlitta North in Harvey. The very sin of Adam and Eve is impacting families all around us.
Why? The first is the Doctrine of Original Sin. Starting with Adam and Eve, sin entered the world and has been passed on from one generation to another, causing a continual battle in us between the spirit and the flesh. Second is the Doctrine of Free Will which says, God has given us the freedom to choose to say yes or no to God and to choose His will or ours.
Second, sin is lurching in our lives. James 1:13 says, “You are dragged away by your own evil desires and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, it gives birth to death." Sin is always around us and the struggle with it is always in us. The first step towards sin is Enticement which in the Greek is a fishing word meaning bait or lure. And there’s different bait for different fish, different sins which entice different people. When something entices you and you begin to contemplate the bait, that’s when sin begins to get its hold on us. The most important thing you can do is recognize the bait, be proactive and end the threat right then and there by refusing to contemplate the bait. From the moment of his anger and jealousy, Cain began to be enticed with the idea of getting even. As he considered it, sin took hold of his life. God tells Cain: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” You have to make the choice to not dwell or be enticed and it will have no power over you.
Third, take ownership over your part. When God confronted Adam and Eve about eating of the tree, Adam responded, “ “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” In other words, she made me do it. God then looked at Eve and said, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Each passed the buck rather than taking ownership of the sin in their lives. After the rejection of his offering, Cain became very angry, and blamed his brother for the rejection of Cain’s offering. He didn’t take ownership of his own sin which was holding back the best from God. He passed the buck. While there is dysfunction and sin in all of our families, we have to take ownership of our role in it, whether we are the perpetrator or sinner or we are sinned against.
Fourth, we are our brother’s keeper. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And God’s profound answer throughout Scripture is, “Yes, you are your brother’s keeper.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9UK03yV8oM God said to the Israelites not many generations after they entered the Holy Land, "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man (and woman) did what was right in his own eyes.” In other words, rather than being the people of God and a community where they cared for and looked after one another, they lived as individuals doing what they wanted without any consideration of others or what others were doing with their lives. When Joshua and the Israelites had easily defeated Jericho, they moved on to the city of Ai. But when they attacked, they were routed by the men of Ai, even though they outnumbered them. Joshua thought it was because he had sinned. But God said it was Israel. Now Achan, one of the Israelite soldiers, had gone against God’s command and kept for himself some of the loot of Jericho rather than destroying it as God commanded. As a result, God says, Israel had sinned and disobeyed God. The lesson is clear: if one sins, all sin. It’s not about the individual but about the communal.
We need others to care for us, to nurture us, to speak truth to us and to hold us accountable for our faith and the lives we lead. The body of Christ is only as strong as its weakest link. I have responsibility for you, not as a pastor but as a fellow follower of Christ. And whether you like it or not, you have responsibility for me. We’re a family and family members look out after one another. The only way we can be the people of God and fulfill God’s purpose for our life is with each other. We need a little help from my friends and family. Bands starts playing, “Little Help from my Friends.”
So when evil enters our family, how are we to respond to it, even when we’re the victim of it? First, no matter what a family member does, they’re still family! God answers Cain’s denial with one of the most profound statements in scripture, “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” Your brother!” It’s your brother, your family member. No matter what they do. No matter how they may have hurt you or done you wrong, they’re still family. They are of the same substance as you, your brother, the one who has the same mother and father as you, your brother, the one who has the same Creator as you, your brother, the one who is of the same race, the same heritage, the same history, your brother. They are and forever will be YOUR brother. They’re FAMILY!
Second, extend grace. Though God punished Abel, He didn’t get retribution. God didn’t kill him, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. God gave him a second chance. We don’t like this part. We want justice. We want retribution. Instead, God gave him a second chance. But didn’t let him go scott free. There was a price to pay, but he gave him a second chance. God said to Cain, “You are under a curse and you will be driven from the ground.” A farmer lives by the ground. Without the ground, you cannot stay put and survive. Now he must become a hunter and gatherer or a shepherd like the brother you killed. When you are a wanderer, you are a nomad, going from place to place and in danger from bandits everywhere. Cain knows this when he says, “I will be a restless wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me.” But then comes even more grace! God says puts a mark on Cain to protect him, so no one will harm him.
Third, give them a second chance. God gave Cain a second chance. He showed no mercy to his brother, but he received mercy from God. He did not protect his brother, but he was protected by God. The story of Cain is one of grace, love and mercy of God and the second chances He gives. The God that we serve does not throw anybody away. There is always room for grace and another chance. A lot of us want payback. You committed murder, you deserve to be murdered. For a lot of us, it’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But instead, Cain gets to leave, have a new life and eventually find a wife and have a family? What kind of God are we talking about here that gives this kind of grace to a murderer? A God of love, grace and mercy. We have received grace too and are expected to offer the same to our family members. And in that, there is the possibility of healing for the sinner.
I know this is hard, and particularly from the victim’s perspective. We don’t live in perfect families. We have sexual molesters, thieves, abusers, liars, addicts and bad folks in some of our families. Stuff has happened. When it is found out, we want them to pay. And when it is done over and over again, we want them to pay even more! So what are we to do? Forgive. Jesus told Peter we are to forgive 70 x 7 times, in other words, as long as it takes. God’s grace is wider and deeper than ours and while God has forgiven us repeatedly, we are called to do the same. This is why we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgiven those who trespass against us.”
Lastly, God’s grace and comfort come to the offended. God gave Adam and Eve another child named Seth and in that gift of God comes healing. The blood of Abel cried out and God heard it. But he also heard the pain of Adam and Eve. God knows and has heard your pain and suffering. God has grace for the victim, and grace for the perpetrator…love for the perpetrator and love for the victim. This is the kind of God we serve. This is how high and how wide and how deep is the grace and the love of God. It is almost beyond human comprehension. I thank God for it, because in truth, I am both victim and perpetrator. I am Cain, and I am Abel, and the grace of God is sufficient to cover me on both sides and we are called to share that grace we have received with others who have offended us. Amen.
