Date: 7 June 2020 | Pre­a­cher:
Series: | Bible text: Gene­sis 4:1–15
Hint: This ser­mon has been machi­ne trans­la­ted. Plea­se note that we can­not accept any respon­si­bi­li­ty for the accu­ra­cy of the content.

Why is the­re so much inju­s­ti­ce in this world? Or is God even unjust? Cain felt set back and unapp­re­cia­ted com­pared to his brot­her Abel. Deep­ly offen­ded and con­su­med by envy, he gave free rein to vio­lence and kil­led his brot­her. God had shown him a bet­ter way to deal with his nega­ti­ve fee­lings. Nevert­hel­ess, God gave Cain a second chan­ce. He should live, a mark­ed man, but live.


 

Have mer­cy on us, Lord. Why does a per­son get dia­gno­sed with an incura­ble dise­a­se? Why does this traf­fic acci­dent hap­pen to her of all peo­p­le? Why does this child have to grow up in such dif­fi­cult fami­ly cir­cum­s­tances? Why does this stro­ke of fate hap­pen to this per­son of all peo­p­le, who is alre­a­dy on the dark side of life? Life is unfair. May­be we even have to say: God is unjust!? It makes things easy for some and unspeaka­b­ly dif­fi­cult for others.

God is unjust

The sto­ry of Cain and Abel is about such ques­ti­ons. It’s about you and me. The stuff of life, so to speak. «Adam slept with his wife Eve and she beca­me pregnant. And she gave birth to Cain (= gain, acqui­si­ti­on) and said: «With the help of the Lord I have given birth to a man». Later she gave birth to a second son and named him Abel (= cor­rup­ti­on, not­hing­ness). Abel beca­me a she­p­herd, Cain a far­mer. After some time, Cain sacri­fi­ced part of his har­ve­st to the Lord. And Abel also offe­red him of the first­born lambs from his flock and of their fat. The Lord loo­ked favour­a­b­ly on Abel and accept­ed his sacri­fice, but rejec­ted Cain and his sacri­fice» (Gene­sis 4:1–5a NL).

A bad expe­ri­ence, to put it very sim­ply. Two peo­p­le do the same thing: one arri­ves and gets noti­ced, the other is over­loo­ked, fails and does­n’t know why. Both want the same thing, name­ly to say thank you to God through the offe­ring and to make him hap­py. In doing so, they hope that he will in turn be kind to them again. That is the cycle of bles­sing. And now it is not Cain who inter­rupts it, but God. He accepts Abel’s gift and does not even look at Cain’s. We do not know what this gift is. We don’t know what this being seen or not seen was reflec­ted in, whe­ther they saw it, heard it – per­haps they only felt it. Per­haps Cain also noti­ces it in his who­le exis­tence: in the fact that the arduous work in the field remain­ed unsuc­cessful this year. It is bare­ly enough for a living, while Abel’s flock threw par­ti­cu­lar­ly well this year. A frigh­tening fee­ling creeps over Cain: My life is fai­ling and Abel is shi­ning with joy. It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble and almost unbe­ara­ble. Why does God make it easy for some and unspeaka­b­ly dif­fi­cult for others?

Com­pa­ring is a nasty thing. Eit­her a depres­sing fee­ling creeps over us becau­se the other per­son ear­ns more, has the more har­mo­nious mar­ria­ge, can show off the suc­cessful child­ren, owns the big­ger house, etc., or we feel ele­va­ted becau­se we are not as bad as the other per­son after all.

How do I deal with the­se dif­fe­ren­ces and the inju­s­ti­ce of life? In a para­ble, Jesus speaks open­ly of the fact that not ever­yo­ne recei­ves the same num­ber of talents from God: someone recei­ved five, ano­ther two and the next only one (Matthew 25:14ff). It is the same in life. The con­di­ti­ons are dif­fe­rent. What can a child do to grow up in an int­act fami­ly while his school­ma­te had dif­fe­rent fos­ter par­ents? Why is it that one Chris­ti­an is hea­led becau­se of pray­er, while ano­ther dies pre­ma­tu­re­ly or lives in gre­at pain? Why does one always find a good job imme­dia­te­ly, while the other gets rejec­tion after rejection?

Cain is envious

Our nar­ra­ti­ve descri­bes Cain’s reac­tion with a deep psy­cho­lo­gi­cal view. In a lite­ral trans­la­ti­on it says: «And Cain was very hot with anger, and his face fell down»(v.5b). He does­n’t do that, it assaults and over­w­helms him. Psy­cho­so­ma­tic. It takes hold of the body via the soul. Soon envy burns and makes the body hot, high­ly char­ged and wants to dischar­ge its­elf. It wants to res­to­re jus­ti­ce by force. His deep depres­si­on makes his face depres­sed. This is an expres­si­on for loss of love: with the down­cast face, cont­act with fel­low human beings is bro­ken off. A good rela­ti­onship needs a rai­sed face, so that you can look each other in the eye.

With Cain it took its cour­se unche­cked: «Later Cain sug­gested to his brot­her Abel: «Come, let’s go out into the field». When they were the­re, Cain fell upon his brot­her and struck him dead»(V.8 NL). The most important com­mandment is to love God with all your heart and your neigh­bour as yours­elf. Adam and Eve vio­la­ted the love of God, Cain was the first to vio­la­te the love of neigh­bour. This is a cau­sal chain: tho­se who do not love God will soon fail in loving their neigh­bour. Befo­re we point the fin­ger at Cain, we must remem­ber that he who com­mits mur­der alre­a­dy com­mits mur­der against ano­ther. raka says (Matthew 5:22). Raka is a com­mon word of con­tempt, so in the cur­ren­cy of Fool.

The sto­ry could have taken a dif­fe­rent cour­se. How can we deal with our nega­ti­ve fee­lings like envy and anger? «Why are you so angry?» the Lord asked him. «Why do you look so grim­ly at the ground? Is it not so: If you have good in mind, you can look around free­ly. But when you plan evil, sin lies in wait for you. It wants to bring you down. But you shall reign over it!» «(V.6+7 NL). God sees Cain, even if it feels very dif­fe­rent to Cain. Cain no lon­ger sees any­thing else, only his degra­da­ti­on and insult. Ever­y­thing else around him sinks into the secon­da­ry, so fix­a­ted is he on his ter­ri­ble expe­ri­ence. He shuts hims­elf off and hides hims­elf away. Yet God has long sin­ce tur­ned his gaze back to him and is loo­king at him. It can hap­pen that the birds of envy fly over our heads, we can’t chan­ge that. But you can pre­vent them from buil­ding nests in your hair. To do this, we should lift our gaze and come to God or even to other peo­p­le with our com­plaints. For tho­se who accept God’s love can endu­re living in a divi­ded world. If we remain alo­ne with our bad fee­lings, we give them tre­men­dous power.

The important mes­sa­ge for Cain is: You shall rule over sin! No one is hel­p­less­ly at the mer­cy of sin, even though it can be very per­sis­tent. The balan­ce of power is cla­ri­fied for us all the more. Paul says: «Our for­mer life was cru­ci­fied with Christ so that sin loses its power in our lives. Now we are no lon­ger slaves to sin»(Romans 6:6 NL). That is exact­ly what we do in bap­tism! We no lon­ger have to sin, but we still can. This is a good mes­sa­ge for all of us – espe­ci­al­ly for peo­p­le for whom cer­tain habits have taken on an addic­ti­ve character.

God is merciful

Cain did not lift his gaze, but con­tin­ued on the cho­sen path of anger to the bit­ter end. He lures Abel to the field with a pre­text and kills him the­re. Cain then pre­tends to know not­hing about it: «And the LORD said unto Cain, Whe­re is Abel thy brot­her? And he said: I know not; shall I be my brother’s kee­per?»(v.9 Lut). Cain was the first to offer this world a memo­rable quo­te. God does not go into it at all. Cain knows very well that this is what he is sup­po­sed to be: His brother’s kee­per and his own kee­per. Once again it beco­mes clear that the abili­ty to rela­te is mas­si­ve­ly disturbed.

Cain was not too proud to ask for miti­ga­ti­on of his punish­ment when he knew he had lost: «Cain repli­ed to the Lord: My punish­ment is too seve­re, I can­not bear it»(V.13 NL). This is the first request for for­gi­ve­ness in the Bible! God then makes him a sign to pro­tect him and keep him ali­ve. The sign of Cain. It is a sign that reminds us of the mur­der. But it is also a sign to live and to go on living. God gives Cain a second chan­ce: you shall live, a mark­ed man, but you shall live. It will not be the same life as it was befo­re. You shall be unste­ady and flee­ting on earth – a life in the land of Nod, i.e. in the land of unrest, bey­ond Eden (v.16). In his love and mer­cy, God seeks to reach peo­p­le who do not deser­ve it, who­se natu­re is har­den­ed and reluc­tant. God never gives up on anyo­ne. And again it cries out in us: this is unjust! It can­not and must not be that such a per­son sim­ply recei­ves forgiveness.

This act is a refe­rence to Jesus Christ, who paid for all the guilt of huma­ni­ty many years later on the cross. In doing so, he laid the legal foun­da­ti­on for the for­gi­ve­ness of all guilt and trans­gres­si­ons. All sin can be for­gi­ven – all sin – pro­vi­ded the per­son accepts for­gi­ve­ness. That is so real­ly unfair! But let’s be honest; if it weren’t so, we would all be at the mer­cy. Thanks be to God, who gives us a second chan­ce. Not as mark­ed, but as per­fec­ted, we may later return to Eden, to the pre­sence of God!

 

With Karl-Heinz Ron­ecker we could pray:
We are not Cain, Lord.
We did not slay our brother.
But our words are often as sharp as knives.
We are not Cain, Lord.
We have not thrown a stone against others.
But in our minds we have writ­ten them off and humi­lia­ted them with looks.
We are not Cain, Lord.
The­re is no blood on our hands.
But out of indif­fe­rence and blind­ness we have aban­do­ned them,
who nee­ded our help.

 

 

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Gene­sis 4:1–15

  1. How do you deal with the fact that the­re is so much inju­s­ti­ce in this world? Is God unjust?
  2. Why did Cain feel that God did not accept his sacrifice?
  3. Whe­re do you see the con­nec­tion bet­ween the sin of Adam and Eve and that of Cain? (Key­word: Most important com­mandment [Luke 10:27]).
  4. What kind of beha­viour would be hel­pful in such a bad and depres­si­ve pha­se as Cain experienced?
  5. What has chan­ged through Jesus in the topic of forgiveness?