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What is life like "east of Eden"? Hearing the distant music of paradise, but no longer being able to return. Having rebelled against the Creator, and yet knowing deep within that we are creatures. The creation stories help us to view our life in the presence of God. We tune into these stories by asking how our life is viewed from God's perspective. What does it mean for our living, that we did not just happen, and that we did not create ourselves, but that God is our creator and we are God's creatures?
The story about Cain and Abel and God is not a moral instruction that you should not murder your brother. We don't need the Bible to tell us that. We know that it is wrong to kill and to murder. At the same time, killing and murder is part of the human scene! And therefore this fact irresistibly raises the question why human brothers and sisters kill each other?
A few weeks ago happened the World Anti-Poverty Week. The statistics are mind boggling and embarrassing at the same time: 16.000 children under the age of five die every day of malnutrition and related diseases. 840.000 million people live in abject poverty, a poverty none of us can even imagine. It is one of the United Nations' internationally agreed Millennium Goals to halve "the proportion of people who suffer from hunger between 1990 and 2015." With the Micah Challenge the churches are tuning into this process.
Now my friends, last week I witnessed an example of the aberration of the human condition on our door steps. You would think that in light of these facts every one would commit themselves to urgently try to make a little difference in the right direction. One of the most powerful forces in our society is the media. When Anti-Poverty Week was introduced last week, do you know what the media was interested in? In the 16.000 children who would die that day? In the millions of women and men whose stomachs are turning like angry wolves? No! They were interested in whether the politicians would clap or stand up after President Bush's address to the joint houses of parliament. It is bizarre, absolutely bizarre! And there was laughter on the side of the journalists when someone pointed out this aberration of life.
The biblical creation stories invite us not to avoid but to face this bizarre attitude of the human spirit. We are asked to consider that the problems and ambiguities of human life have their origin in human disobedience. In human pride. In human arrogance. In the refusal of human beings to accept their place in the network of creation; and instead try to usurp the place of the creator.
The result of our self-assertion over against God is our life "east of Eden". Creation has been distorted, but not destroyed. Our relationship to God is estranged, but not abolished.
God does not give up on what God has created. Even east of Eden "the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, 'I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.'" So, although human disobedience has estranged us from God, God continues to be the well spring of life.
Therefore there is a longing within us for God. If that longing is not met, or not met by God, then there is the experience of a vacuum of meaning. Spiritually we are limping, but we are limping into the sunlight.
And since we are here, it is obvious that the human story continues. Adam and Eve bear a son and call his name Cain. And they bear another son and call his name Abel. It is their story and the story of their God that we are to consider today. More exactly, it is really only Cain's story, because Abel recedes right into the background. It is the story of a human person who fails to meet the challenge of living life within the complicated network of relationships to God and to his/her human brother/sister.
"Cain" and "Abel"
Cain and Abel are models, paradigms we would call them today.
In those days, when the story was written, society was made up of farmers and nomads, of people who till the land and of people who look after sheep. Accordingly, Abel is introduced to us as "a keeper of sheep", and Cain as "a tiller of the ground". Cain and Abel stand for the human race in its variety of life styles.
Besides God, Cain is the main character of our story. We hear that God does not look at Cain's offering. This makes Cain angry and jealous, und ultimately this estranged relationship with his God leads him to kill his brother.
Abel remains colourless. He never speaks. But his name reminds us that he is also a representative character. It means "breath of air", "shadow", "vanity", "nothingness" – it stands for the vulnerability of human existence.
In those days God was a natural part of life. So both, Cain and Abel, offer the valuable first fruits of their labour to God.
With that we come to the first topic that our text confronts us with:
"the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering,
but for Cain and his offering he had no regard."
Why did God do that?
God becomes a problem here. So my friends, before we turn to Cain, we have to talk a little about God in this story. We may have been too hard on Cain in days gone by.
Cain did his religious duty. He did what Abel did. He brought from the first fruits a sacrifice to God.
Why did God look on Abel's sacrifice, but not on Cain's sacrifice?
We don't know.
Life is unfair at times. We know this from our own experience. We try to be faithful to what we know to be right and yet misfortune strikes us. And others, who seem to live godless lives, who show no consideration for others, indeed, who exploit others, seem to do well.
This strangeness was also experienced by Moses of old.
What did God say to Moses when Moses asked God to see God's glory? He tells Moses, what we know from our own experience. It is this togetherness of God's presence and God's absence that makes life difficult and confusing at times.
"You have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name." We can celebrate that. By faith and baptism we celebrate God's acceptance of us.
But then there is the other side:
"I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." (Exod 33:17-19)
This unexplainable mystery is part of our life "east of Eden". It is part of our estrangement from God.
I think that we can understand that "Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell." It is difficult at times to understand God's ways and we must not try to explain that difficulty away.
At the same time, the other part is also true.
God takes the initiative
Cain may stop speaking. He remains silent. He simply does not talk. He is hot under the collar, but he refuses a conversation with God.
He does not complain that his sacrifice was not accepted.
He does not praise God that his brother has found favour with God..
And when he talks, he lies. When God asks, "Where is your brother Abel?" he answers: "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" (v.9b). But he knows and God knows that the blood of his brother, the soul of his brother, has spoiled the earth.
But God is not silent. God speaks. God tries, ever again, to make contact with Cain. To establish a relationship with Cain. God is in that he comes and speaks.
We are reminded of Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son. When the older son stands outside being angry at the festivities and joy at the return of his errant brother, the father leaves the party and invites his older son to come in and join the festivities.
So again and again God talks to Cain, but Cain refuses to talk.
Yet his unwillingness to respond is not his destiny, it is his choice.
The divine question "If you do well, will you not be accepted?" suggests that humanity "east of Eden" can do well! Anger and jealousy may rise within us, but that does no mean that we allow it to rule us and bear its own fruit.
This being Anti-Poverty Week, let us recall that the nations of the world, including our government, have set targets, for instance:
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
The biblical understanding of our human nature says that we can do it!
The other statement in our text makes that even clearer:
"… if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it." So the implication is that Cain is not fated. He is not a puppet in the hands of Satan. He can do well and he can resist and even master sin.
Cain made his choice! He did not master sin. Sin mastered him. He did not bridle his anger and jealousy and disappointment, but he allowed it room.
Jesus knew the human heart and he speaks about the togetherness of anger and murder.
"You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire." (Mt 5:21f.)
But even with his great refusal to respond to God, Cain could not escape God's presence. The only time when Cain showed some intimation that he was aware of God in his life is when he laments:
"My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me."
"…the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?'"
What Cain would have to learn and what we must never forget, is that we cannot relate to God while at the same time by-passing our human sister or brother.
To love God and to love your neighbour belong together. The rich man in Jesus' parable cannot relate to God by-passing Lazarus who is crouching at his door.
What Cain did to his brother affects God. God says:
"What have you done? Listen; your brother's blood (= soul, life) is crying out to me from the ground!"
God remains the guarantee in our world that killing and murder shall never be acceptable in a humane society.
At the same time we know that killing and murder goes on while we are sitting here. This raises the question whether there is any hope. We may even ask whether the murderer will ultimately triumph over his innocent victims.
Here we take comfort from the fact that neither Cain nor we are fated to sin. We can do what is right and good. We do not have to kill. One illustration is that by reducing poverty we can become part of the world wide movement to stop killing.
As Christians we have the added hope that is related to God's action in Jesus Christ.
"… where sin increased, grace abounded all the more".
In Christ we are assured that God's grace outlasts human sin.
It dawns in the fact that God "put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him." Can a mother forget the fruit of her womb? God cannot and God will not let God's creation go. Therefore even "east of Eden", even after the terrible and terrifying act of killing one's brother God protects Cain and allows human life to continue.
And then God graces human life with a promise. With a promise grounded in the resurrection of Christ: "… where sin increased, grace abounded all the more". Why? Because in Christ, God has launched a special mission to keep hope alive in the human story. We participate in this triumph of grace by believing in Jesus Christ and allow his life to determine ours:
We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death.
(1 John 3:14)
It's simple to understand this if we simply contrast the idea of being a living sacrifice to God with two other kinds of sacrifices: pagan sacrifices to false gods, and Old Testament sacrifices to God.
In the non-Christian religion of the Roman Empire, some of the temples to pagan deities included such “worship” practices as temple prostitution. Paul makes a number of references to this in his epistles, mentioning how the Christian converts came out of such worthless practices. With this in mind, we can see that being a living sacrifice to God would mean not taking part in the evil practices of pagan worship, which God hates, but rather doing those things which God wants us to do (some of which are included in Romans chapter 12).
In the Old Testament religion of the Bible, the priests of the Temple would sacrifice animals as part of the worship of God, cutting them up and offering them on the altar. However, Paul is telling us here that God would prefer that WE become a sacrifice, and a living one at that, which is more important to Him than animal sacrifices were.
It’s important to realize that even in Old Testament times God considered obedience to be of greater value than the sacrificing of animals. (See, for example, 1 Samuel 15:22-23, Psalm 40:6-8, and Amos 5:21-24.)
In fact, when God allowed the Temple to be destroyed in 70 A.D., that effectively ended the sacrificial system, since there was no temple, no altar, and the priests were scattered and forbidden to practice their religious sacrifices. (The modern-day Jewish system of rabbis and synagogues developed from the Pharisees who taught the scriptures in the synagogues, but who did not do any sacrificing of animals.)
God wants us to lay ourselves aside daily, dedicating ourselves to God and His way of life every day. Romans chapter 12 gives us some examples of how we can do that.
Paul wrote:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20, NIV).
This is an example of how we can live our lives daily as sacrifices to God. Quoting Romans 12:1 from the New Living Translation, Paul writes:
“…I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?”
We can see that God does not accept pagan sacrifices, and also that He would like to see us giving ourselves wholly to Him rather than sacrificing animals to Him.
The remainder of the chapter gives us some practical advice on how we are to live our daily lives as sacrifices to God: “Don’t copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. … Be honest in your estimate of yourselves We are all parts of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. … God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. … Don’t just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of the good. … Be patient in trouble, and always be prayerful. … Live in harmony with each other. … Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. … Dear friends, never avenge yourselves. … Don’t let evil get the best of you, but conquer evil by doing good.”
Of course, we also need to study His Word daily, to learn more of what He wants of us as we sacrifice ourselves every day for Him. Web sites can help us in many ways, but actually reading the Bible is the most important thing. I would suggest a modern translation in everyday English, such as the New International Version or the New Living Translation. You can compare these against the King James Version or whichever older version you may be using, and see more depth of meaning in the scriptures. Then, just as the animal sacrifices were consumed on the altar, you may find yourself being more consumed day by day with the Word of God and with living His Way.
When most people think of a church, they think of a building. But the church is not a building but rather a spiritual organism of true believers throughout the world. What did Jesus say about the church which He founded? He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon BarJona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." (Matt 16:15-18, RSV)
If you will look up the word "church" in the Greek you will find the following definition:
Strong’s Concordance #1577 - Greek: ekklhsia, ekklesia, which simply means "a calling out."
The word "church" really has little to do with people meeting in a "church building." Where true Christians meet, worship, fellowship and study God’s Word is of no consequence. It is man, and the Roman Catholic in particular, who came up with all of his forms of false worship, including elaborate church buildings, which God hates. Even though true Christians also met in the temple or in synagogues, the New Testament is filled with examples of true Christians meeting with each other in homes, or house churches. The trend is continuing today throughout the world. As the true God continues to lead His true people on this earth, more and more are getting back to the New Testament example of house churches. This is also happening in preparation for the persecution to come on true Christians.
Notice that the terms "true God" and "true Christians" are being used here. This is in contrast to the false God and the false Christians which permeate our society of pagan Christianity. Jesus Christ stated that He would build His church, which He has been doing over the past 2000 years. Men have also built their own churches, complete with their own false, pagan teachings and rituals, which are contrary to God. God only has one true church on this earth. And up to this point, about 99.999% of all peoples who have ever lived have never received that special invitation or calling to salvation given by God the Father down through history to this present day. And that includes the vast majority of professing Christianity, most of whom have had false conversions and really don’t know the true God or understand His word in the Bible.
As a believer, you need to find out where God’s true church is and where God is working on this earth. Then and only then will you be able to understand the true meaning of the church.
"Therefore, using the sins of professing Christians to reject the Bible is illogical, since the sins of others don't cancel out God's law as it applies to us individually, and the truth or falsity of the Bible (or God's existence) is logically independent of the sins of anyone believing in it (or Him)."
To separate Bible worship from the results of that worship is like separating the nature of the tree from the nature of the fruit. How about this: If you knew any history at all you know the Middle (Dark) Ages was a time of the absolute establishment of the Christian Bible and the Christian religion. You know it was a time of the greatest poverty, ignorance, oppression and superstition, and you know there was never a more evil and immoral age. You know the torture and burning of heretics was justified by the Bible. You know the Bible was the excuse for the Holy Inquisition, for the torture and burning of witches, and for robbing orphans and widows. You know the Bible has caused more hate and persecution than any other book; more suffering than any other disease. And you know the Bible has always been the greatest enemy of human progress, of science, of culture and learning; the greatest enemy of morality, liberty, and justice in the world.
If you know any history at all you know America was a refuge for those who were persecuted by the Bible, and the established church in Europe. You know Bible-believing Christians have never had any concept of freedom. They have always thought freedom was their right to force their belief upon others. And you know the first concern of the Founding Fathers was to separate religion from government, and to establish a free nation, and a free people. And you know also that most of the Founding Fathers were Deists, not Christians. Do you really think that your Bible worship is any more enlightened than that of the Middle Ages? It's sad that you have to justify your belief through convoluted arguments.
It's important to realize that during the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic church normally kept average people from having access to the Bible. It was kept in a dead language (Latin usually), and most people couldn't read then anyway (since the West hadn't yet invented moveable type for printing, few books existed, and so there was little need to teach most people how to read). To blame the Bible here for the errors of the Catholic church (which I maintain was prophesied in Rev. 13:3-18 as the false church) is an error. If the Bible says to love your neighbor as your self (Lev. 19:18), and to love you enemies (Matt. 5:38-48), but people who believe in it fail to practice those commands, whose fault is that? It's the fault of the people, not the fault of the Bible.
Consider this analogy: How many communists, Marxists, and socialists have given up their "faith" in communism, Marxism, or socialism due to the atrocities committed by the Soviet Union under Stalin? Stalin killed more people than Adolf Hitler, such as approximately 15 million Ukrainian peasants during the "Terror famine." There's two and a half "Holocausts" right there. I could argue, given the body count of Communism in this past century (it could be 100 million people) that the "Darkest Ages" for the world was the last century in countries dominated by some form of socialism (International, e.g., communist, or National, e.g., Nazi). I don't hear about many socialist or communists giving up their faith in either, at least in non-communist (i.e., non-experienced) countries. Here's a question to ponder: I suspect that even if Babylon the Great (i.e., Roman Catholicism) has her fangs, she still didn't kill in a period of one thousand years the number of people the communists killed in a single century. This is especially the case if the witchcraft trials are excluded, which may well have occurred (e.g., a rough pagan equivalent) if Christianity had never existed.
Additionally, I recommend you read my research paper that argues that science would never have existed without Christian theology opposing certain pagan ideas, especially the eternal cycle idea. I challenge you to refute Stanley Jaki's work, "Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe." He has also authored other such books such as "The Savior of Science," and "The Origins of Science and the Science of Its Origin."
One has to get past Galileo vs. the Inquisition, and ask oneself this question: Why did modern science, e.g., that of Galileo, first appear in Christian Europe rather than in China, India, Islamic Arabia, etc.? Those who developed it were Christians of some type, such as Galileo himself. Certain ideas in Aristotle's physics simply had to be junked before modern physics could be developed, and for these insights Galileo built upon the work of Buridan and Oresme. He (and Da Vinci) didn't just get there ideas out of thin air. True, without Aristotle (and the Hindu-Arabic numbering system), modern science wouldn't have existed either. But one needed certain crucial ideas from the Judeo-Christian worldview before modern science could exist. This may oppose all you have heard on this subject, but I challenge you to be open-minded, which is what skeptics about Christianity usually say they are when attacking their fundamentalist opposition.
Now as for the Founding Fathers of the U.S. being Christian or Deist or both, I would challenge you to read this book at least some: Benjamin Hart's, "Faith & Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty." James Madison wrote the first amendment in the Bill of Rights, as well as the other nine. Did he or others believe that it prohibited the freedom of religion on government property? Since Massachusetts had an established church into the 1830's, they clearly did not believe the First Amendment applied to schools or other units of government. Remember, it starts out, "Congress shall make no law..." It didn't say anything about the states or public schools.
Sure, you could reply about the 14th amendment and the incorporation clause argument, etc., and say this means the Bill of Rights was applied to all the states starting some time after the Civil War. But here you'd have to quote for me people when debating and passing this amendment whether they had that result in mind (which I suspect they didn't, but I haven't researched the issue myself, so I'm open to refutation here). Jefferson may have believed in the separation of the church and state, but he had little use for the Constitution before it was passed, and wasn't even in the U.S. when it was passed (He was the ambassador to France then). The term, "separation of church and state," appears nowhere in the constitution. True, it prohibits an "establishment of religion," but this concerns setting up a church like in England where the king or queen is the head of the church and it is supported directly by tax dollars. Kids praying in school wouldn't have been considered an "establishment of religion" by the Founding Fathers.
Two of the key Founding Fathers of America often cited as Deists really weren't consistently so. Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, said he pulled back from this some (if I recall correctly). He did believe in the immortality of the soul, which I suspect Voltaire didn't. Jefferson can be quoted on both sides of the fence since he wasn't consistent (which is no surprise, since he wasn't on slavery either).
When we look at the history of the world more generally, the conditions you see and deplore in the Middle Ages were the way most of the human race has lived and even still lives today, e.g., subsistence agriculture and the poverty connected with that way of life. You'll notice that the nations that developed the industrial revolution and rescued the masses from poverty, and raised them above mere subsistence (which meant many were in continual malnourished states) professed Christianity (e.g., England, Belgium, France, Germany, the U.S., etc.) Only then could one educate the masses and have universal primary (and later secondary) schooling when the productivity of labor rose high enough that one could pull the kids out of labor on the farm (or workshop) and put them into school and still kept them fed. The desire to read the Bible was an enormous prod to learn how to read. This was especially clear in Protestant countries influenced by Puritanism or Calvinism, such as in Britain and the colonial U.S. For it was reasoned that the illiterate simply weren't as effective at being Christians. And with the invention of the printing press with moveable type, c. 1440, it became possible to print up mass quantities of the Bible.
The period you deplore as dominated by so many bad things had very few Bibles actually in existence then since all of them had to be hand written laboriously. So how much did the Bible have to do with what was done then? And remember, the inquisition was a creation of the late Middle Ages. The worst aspects of it, such as in Spain, were motivated in part by the monarchy's desire for control and (if I remember right) money from those convicted of heresy. Again, I maintain that as a matter of epistemology you can't prove God to not have inspired the Bible based upon the sins of believers in it. If the Bible successfully predicted the future, and it happened, I would suggest you should worry far more about whether the events described in the book of Revelation may occur in your lifetime than about the history of Catholicism in the Middle Ages. You can change your future; you can't change the past.
