Genesis 4:1-8

Bible Study Lesson for Wednesday, April 8

Usually on Wednesday nights, some in our community get together to share prayer requests, we pray together, and I bring a Bible lesson for them. Last week, we covered Genesis 3:9-24, so I will pick up today where we left off. First I’d like to talk about prayer requests. Online communication being what it is, I would rather not get into specific requests in this space, and will leave that for the more private communications that the church has with each other. But I do want to remember a few general prayer requests: -our government, those making decisions on our behalf -those in the medical community -those in food service, grocery stores, and other essential businesses -teachers and students still figuring out what the closures of schools means for them -prisoners and prison guards -first responders -those whose life and income has been disrupted by the current crisis. I also want to remember all of those suffering from Covid-19 and the communities that it is affecting, including our own. Take a moment to pray for these folks now before we begin. Now I hope you will take a moment to read and reflect on Genesis 4:1-8 before I offer my thoughts. Previously in Genesis… -God made the world and everything in it. -God gave humans the task of tilling and keeping the land and set humans over all the rest of creation as stewards and caretakers. -God gave humans plants to eat, but told them not to eat from one tree in the midst of the garden: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. -Humans ate from the tree. -God punished the humans by expelling them from the garden and increasing the pain of childbirth and toil of producing food from the ground. -Humans are also no longer allowed to eat from the tree of Life, and therefore all humans will experience death. Introduction If you will recall, sin entered the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve. This sin, as we have mentioned in previous weeks, resulted in breaking the intimacy of humans with God and with each other. So far, we have only encountered two humans, but we have seen how this disruption of intimacy resulted in their shame at their nakedness, even within their marriage. In today’s lesson we will see how this disruption of intimacy by sin can affect our relationships in terrible ways. Before we “dig into” the text, I want to share an insight that one of my mentors shared with me a few years ago. There are three fundamental human relationships. Humans are built to relate to God, others, and themselves. We see this in the “Greatest Commandment” that Jesus shared with listeners when someone asked him what the most important commandment was: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.(Matt. 22:37–40 NRSV) As you can see, Jesus commands us to love others as a reflection of our love for God. What is less often pointed out is that in order for our “loving others like we love ourselves” to make a difference, we have to love ourselves. As we see in the early part of Genesis, sin has corrupted the three-fold love that we were created for. It takes the action of God, most fully realized in the life and work of Jesus, to enable us to resume the love that we are supposed to be embodying. In the story of Cain and Abel, if we read closely enough we can see the corruption of the three-fold love at work in every stage along the way. Genesis 4:1-5 - Sibling Rivalry Verse 1- This is the first record of childbirth in the Bible. Apparently, Eve never got to do it the easy way. For most of human history, the experience of childbearing has been something that each generation of women has accomplished with the help of the wisdom of previous generations. Eve doesn’t have that help with Cain’s birth, but perhaps God plays the midwife for her. She says that she has “produced a man with the help of the Lord.” Verse 2- After the birth of Cain, Eve also gives birth to Abel. We see a difference in vocation between the two brothers: Abel raises sheep and Cain tends cropland. When I was in middle and high school, I spent a lot of time helping my dad raise cattle, and my friend Sarah helped her dad with his produce farms in Virginia and New Jersey. We would often argue, usually in good humor, about whose work was harder. She would talk about the repetitive back breaking mundanity of tending individual plants and working low to the ground. I would complain of the unpredictability of animals, asking her “when was the last time you had to get your cabbages off the railroad tracks before the train came and ran them over?” What I have learned is that both horticulture and animal husbandry have their challenges.

I also have learned that historically there has often been animosity between those who tend to animals and those who grow plants. It was largely growers of crops who pushed for the closing of the open ranges that characterized the American West in the 1800s. They began putting up fences not so much to keep livestock in as to keep them out of their cropland. Cowboys for their part often referred to homesteaders as “sodbusters” and saw them as a nuisance to work around. This is just plain rivalry, as old as Cain and Abel.

One thing to note is that at this point in the Genesis story, humans still don’t have permission to eat animals. Abel is apparently mostly raising sheep for clothing; perhaps the first family has already learned to spin wool into yarn. The narrator isn’t particularly interested in “why” Abel is tending his flocks and leaves us to make our own assumptions. Verses 3-5- Just like Eve gave God credit for helping her bear a son, Cain and Abel decide to do the same by making sacrifices from the fruits of their labor. They were giving something back to the God that provided them with their opportunities and blessed the work of their hands. Both brothers offer sacrifices to God and for some reason God prefers Abel’s sacrifices to Cain’s. Cain responds with visible anger and disappointment. Central to this story is the fact that God “regards” Abel’s offering (and Abel) and does not regard Cain’s offering (or Cain). The reason for God’s regard of Abel over Cain has been the subject of much interpretation throughout the thousands of years that people have been telling this story. The New Testament mentions Cain two times. Hebrews 11:4 says: “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith he still speaks.”(Heb. 11:4 NRSV) Here, Abel’s faith is emphasized, but beyond that the author doesn’t say much. In 1 John 3:12, John writes: “We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.”(1 John 3:12 NRSV) Again, we aren’t given a lot to go on. I think the idea is more that the fact that Cain winds up murdering his brother reveals something about his character that may have already been known to God in accepting or rejecting his offering. Some possibilities for interpretation are, in order of likeliness: 1) God prefers animal sacrifices to plants. 2) God prefers whom God prefers. (See Exodus 33:19, Romans 9:15) 3) The text itself may give us a hint: Cain gives “some of” his fruit, while Abel brought the “firstlings of the flock.” In this interpretation, Abel gives the best while Cain just gives the rest. While I grant that this third solution is the best common solution, I think it is often overblown and preached with a bit too much certainty. First, the ambiguity of the term “firstling” does not necessarily imply quality. It could just mean the first animal of each lambing, as the lambing of a flock would take days or weeks to happen. Meanwhile, Cain’s produce would have come in more or less around the same day; he would have harvested and perhaps set aside a portion for God. Now, I will grant the possibility that Abel gave a higher quality from the fullness of his heart, while Cain gave an inferior offering out of a begrudging sense of obligation. But another possibility has captured my imagination, partly because of what God does next. Genesis 4:6-7 - God and Cain Verses 6-7-God sees Cain’s disappointment and reaches out to him. Graciously, God tries to step in and give Cain an opportunity to reflect on his reactions. I wonder if God isn’t telling Cain that he is doing the right thing, and his test will be in continuing to do the right thing as he waits to receive the blessing that his brother receives. Without getting too deep into grammar, I think the key phrase in verse 7 is “If you do well.” Because Hebrew is a very imprecise language, this phrase has a lot of possible interpretations. One idea it could convey is that Cain is doing fine, but he is comparing himself and his blessings to Abel and his blessings. One other muddy part of the story is that it doesn’t unpack what it means that God “regarded” Abel’s offering and not Cain’s. What form did this “regard” take? How often in church do we notice other people getting a lot more out of something than we get? I grew up in an era when a lot of Baptists, and especially younger ones, were experimenting with more charismatic forms of worship. Popular Praise and Worship songs talked a lot about “raising your hands” and emphasized the emotional components of worship. Folks would walk away from a worship service talking about “feeling” the Lord’s presence and they would express those feelings in worship by raising their hands, dancing, praying out loud, and other responses. One thing I learned pretty quickly is that you don’t always feel the same way in every moment of worship. You can’t chase a feeling or control how God shows up. And if you aren’t careful, you might find yourself resenting someone else for having the experience that you crave. What if that is Cain’s experience? What if God just isn’t showing up for him “right now” in the same way that God is showing up for Abel? What if God is promising Cain that if he keeps on doing the right thing, God will eventually bless him? What if Cain’s calling in this moment is to wait upon God even if he doesn’t know for how long? God makes the stakes clear: Cain is starting down a bad road. God tells Cain that sin is lurking at the door. Ever since Adam and Eve fell into temptation, sin has been an active presence in the world. This is the first time the word “sin” is mentioned in the Bible. The Hebrew word means “missing the mark.”

I remember seeing someone illustrate this point one time by shooting an arrow at a dot on a piece of paper. He was a skillful archer, and he shot about an inch from the mark. He asked us if that was good enough and we said, yes, of course! He then pointed out that he had still missed. Anything off of the point he was aiming for constituted a miss. The stakes of even small mistakes can have disastrous consequences. Author James Clear makes this point early in his book Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results: Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington, D.C., instead of New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff—the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet—but when magnified across the entire United States, you end up hundreds of miles apart. (page 17) This is a crucial point. A little change in attitude can have disastrous results. God offers Cain the insight that he needs to adjust his heading, much like God offers us the same opportunity. Today, we call this an opportunity for repentance. But how often do we think, like Cain may have before us, “Don’t worry God, I’ll never let it get that far.” Genesis 1:8 - That Escalated Quickly For us reading the story today, it seems like it takes place in one day: Cain and Abel sacrifice, God confronts Cain, Cain kills Abel. More likely, this type of story unfolds over an undisclosed amount of time. And so we actually pick up on another day with “Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out into the field.’” The narration gives us sparse details. I don’t know if Cain’s invitation is part of a premeditated plan. Perhaps Cain just isn’t thinking about where his next action will take him. Regardless, one thing leads to another and Cain kills his brother. Conclusion Look at how sin has taken hold of the human story! The intimacy of humans with God and with each other has been fatally compromised. Not all humans have the same relationship with and experience of God and it leaves room for resentment, first between Cain and Abel and then between us today. The three fundamental relationships—between us and God, us and each other, and us and ourselves—are absolutely corrupted and rotted by sin. Next week we will look at the consequences of Cain’s killing his brother, but for now I want to sit with the question: how did we get here? Think about these questions this week: -What are the possible motivations for Cain breaking his relationship with his brother in this brutal way? -What would the response of Adam and Eve be? -How do we see similar patterns of sin in our own lives? -If nothing in your life changes, what might you do in five years, ten years, fifteen years? -What thought pattern or attitude of yours does this story invite you to reflect on? -Where in your life is sin “lurking at the door” and how with the grace of Jesus will you overcome it?