“The LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’”
I wish I didn’t understand this passage. So much has gone so wrong so quickly. With passion and delight, God made this beautiful Creation. God entered into partnership with humanity, and now look. So much possibility, and this is what we do.
I cannot help but read this tale as a sort of parable for who we are. I watch my two oldest daughters at each other’s throats, behaving as if there isn’t enough love to go around. How could they think there isn’t enough love to go around? One moment they are devoted to each other, sharing clothes, laughing at the dinner table, being family. Suddenly, everything shifts, and venom flies. Distrust, blame, bitter resentment, envy in all its glory – they’re all there, these dark streams of the human heart.
The streams are in my heart, too – and they turn into oceans when you consider all the wars and battles of various sorts going on right now, as I write and as you read.
This seems to be the crux of the story to me: Cain feels rejected, feels not good enough. He could acknowledge that pain, the empty feeling. He could ask if there is some lack within him. Or, he could trust that he is loved despite how he feels in the moment. God warns Cain that he is in a dangerous place. But anger and blaming seem to be the easiest path for him. Let it be Abel’s fault.
In Grace (Eventually), Annie Lamott writes, “I seems to hang on to my hates because they help take my mind off the cracked reflection in the mirror.” Richard Rohr, in Jesus’ Plan for a New World, writes, “The ‘evil’ one must always be killed so that ‘I’ can be worthy, loved and moral. Another group, nationality, class or religion has to be named wrong so that ‘I’ can feel right.” It’s what we do. We assign blame somewhere outside ourselves, and we turn our hate there, and somehow we think that makes us safer. We worry about the speck in someone else’s eye rather than the log in our own. We judge others so that we do not have to judge ourselves.
Oh, Lord, give me the strength to recognize what is within me. Let me lay it out before you and trust that you will love me anyway. Don’t let me be pulled apart by how I feel today, but keep me held together in your abundant and steadfast love. If I can know myself beloved by you, I will have what I need to keep myself from the sin lurking at the door. Help me not turn my anger outward. Let me be free to love others as you love them. This is my prayer and my hope.
Forgive me when I am Cain, and heal me when I am Abel. Make me new in Christ, so I can be free in your love, free to love boldly and love well.
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The Jerusalem Bible has a footnote to the Cain and Able story that I find interesting.
ReplyDelete"This narrative presupposes a developed civilisation, an established form of worship, the existence of men who might attempt Cain's life, the existence of a clan that would rally to him. It may be that the narrative originally referred not to the children of the first man but to the eponymous ancestor of the Cainites. The 'Yahwistic' tradition has moved the story back to the period of man's beginning, thus giving it a universal significance: after man's revolt against God we now have man's war on man; against these two evils is directed the double command that sums up to whole Law - the love of God and of neighour Mt 22:40."
It is in this context that we read the query by God to Cain you cited (the footnote again from the Jerusalem Bible).
"Approximate translation of a corrupted text. Lit. 'If you do well, is it not elevation? And if you do not well, sin (feminine) is crouching (masculine) at your door and unto you its (masculine) desire, and you shall rule over it.'"
To me, this is less about blame (though it can be) but the consequence of making decisions about what is good or evil as people separated from God. Separated from God, we tend to view events from a human perspective. "How unfair that God should prefer Able's sacrifice! Especially as Cain is the elder son?" But God's ways are not our ways, and when we lose that perspective, we get "sin crouching at the door" and have to "rule over it." It is only through Christ that we can obtain God's grace to abandon the human desire and perspective to declare what is good or evil and instead to hear God's will for us, which is to love God first and love our neighour.
Like you say, we are renewed in Christ, so we can be free in love.