Genesis 4:1-16 Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have produced a man with the help of the Lord. Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 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. Cain said to his brother Abel, Let us go out to the field. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel? He said, I do not know; am I my brother s keeper? And the Lord said, What have you done? Listen; your brother s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, 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. Then the Lord said to him, Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Ephesians 6:10-17 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of
these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This is the word of the Lord, (Thanks be to God)
The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind And another His mother called him WILD THING! And Max said I LL EAT YOU UP! So he was sent to bed without eating anything 1 We ve all been there haven t we? Either as the actor or the observer, we have all experienced the effect of giving into the sin lurking at our doorsteps when we are discontented with someone or something like a child who did not get his or her own way like Max, making one kind or mischief or another, devolving into a WILD THING because he wasn t getting his own way. God warns us that in our discontentment and failure we are tempted to give into the sin that is always lurking at our door, but that God gives us the tools and the power to master that sin if we so choose. Today is week three in our creation series. For the last two weeks we have stayed securely within the bounds of the first creation account as we explore together what it means to be offered the gift of participating in the ongoing reality of God s creating and re-creating in the world. We have said again and again that the most important example of this ongoing creative process is God s process of redeeming a sinful humanity through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. Until now we ve only talked about the positive aspects of God s gift of partnering with us in ministry we ve said so far that God created us and gives us the unbelievable gift of being co-creators with Christ in ministry and that we can start the process of embracing and accepting the unbelievable gift of being cocreators with Christ in ministry, by embracing and accepting the gift of the Sabbath. By embracing and accepting Sabbath rest, God can feed our souls 1 Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, (USA:HarperCollinsPublishers, 1963)
and refill our creative juices empowering us to be the people we were created to be. That s all well and good but it seems that at this moment in time we need to talk about the reason that accepting God s gifts is so hard: the presence and temptation of sin. Today we re going to in step away from the creation account (don t worry, we ll come back to it again next week..) in order to examine the threat and presence of sin in the creative process of building relationships and partnering with God in ministry. God created us and gives us the gift of being creators as we populate the world and build our own families, communities, and civilizations. As we accept the freedom to build our own families, communities, and civilizations we must be aware of the sin that is lurking at our doorsteps and intentionally choose to use the tools God gives us to master that sin. You may notice that we ve skipped over the initial sin story of Adam and Eve and went straight for the sin story of their offspring Cain and Able. I ve done this because I think the relationship dynamics present in the story of Cain and Able are more relatable and relevant to our discussion of sin in our families and in this community today. That first story is quite important however, and I empower you to read chapters of Genesis 2 and 3 on your own to fill in the gaps in the narrative. You have all heard the story of Cain and Able before it is the ancient story of two brothers competing for acceptance and praise and the sin of jealousy and violence that enters into their relationship when one does not get what he believes he deserves. Listen to the story again with fresh ears. Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have produced a man with the help of the Lord. Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
The story begins with the birth of the two brothers with God s help the humans God created in Genesis 1 and 2 are given the gift of creating offspring themselves: first Cain then Able. Now we learn that as they grow up Cain and Able are differently gifted and are given different tasks; Cain is in charge of tending the agricultural needs of the family and Able is put in charge of tending the sheep. When the time comes to offer the first fruits of their respective yields, both brothers bring their offering to God; Cain brings the first fruits of his crops and Able brings the firstlings of his flock. This is where things get tricky. The story says that The Lord had regard for Able and his offering, but for Cain and his offering God had no regard. The infuriating part of this statement for us as the reader is that the story gives no explanation for why God preferred Abel s offering over Cain s. Perhaps God preferred meat offering over agricultural offering or perhaps Cain didn t bring as much as his brother Able or perhaps it had something to do with the posture of Cain s heart in giving the offering or perhaps its not important to the meaning of the story. Either way the text gives us no further clue of the reason for God s preference. Presumably God did not give Cain any further explanation than given to us as the reader for the story tells us that Cain was very angry at God and his brother and his anger changed his entire demeanor his coutenance. Can any of you relate to that? Let s pause for a moment for a commercial break of introspection. Think of a time when you did not get the recognition or praise that you felt you were due. or perhaps a time when somebody ELSE got the praise or recognition you felt you deserved How did that make you feel? How did that effect your demeanor your countenance? Did it change the way you spoke or acted toward other people? Cain felt like he was experiencing injustice he was the older brother after all, and (presumably) he was presenting the best he had to God as his offering. Yet God
preferred his brother s offering over his. From Cain s perspective, it was not fair that God did not give Cain the praise and regard that God gave to Able. Cain s feeling of injustice and anger changed him. His anger gave way to jealousy which effected is countenance- the way he felt on the inside and interacted with others on the outside. God noticed and addressed it directly: 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. God essentially tells Cain to put his big-boy pants on and deal with his feelings in a constructive way. Whether it was fair or not-fair that God chose not to accept Cain s offering God tells him to do better next time if he wants a different result. God gives Cain warning: God says when you fail or feel like you ve been treated unfairly you will be more tempted to give into sin. You can choose to continue to be angry and let sin rule your life, or you can choose to get over it and master the sin that is tempting you. God gives Cain a choice: he can get over himself and his disappointment regarding his offering to God and move on in his relationship to his brother, family, and God OR he can let his disappointment and anger tempt him to sinful behavior which will negatively effect his relationship toward his brother, family and God. Have you ever had a choice like that? What did you do? Here is what Cain chose to do:
Cain said to his brother Abel, Let us go out to the field. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Cain chose the let his disappointment, anger, and jealousy take over, and he yielded to a sinful expression of violent retribution against his brother. This expression of sin killing his brother because of jealousy- effects not only their relationship as brothers, but Cain s relationship to his mother and father and to his God as he is cast away from the community with a curse. God created us and gives us the gift of being creators as we populate the world and build our own families, communities, and civilizations. As we accept the freedom to build our own families, communities, and civilizations we must be aware of the sin lurking at our doorsteps and intentionally choose to use the tools God gives us to master that sin. In many respects this is a gloomy story; the very first family created and chosen by God devolves into a manipulative, angry, jealous and violent people, rising up against each other because of pride and jealousy. While this is true, that is not the point of the story. We all know that sin lurks at our door continuously and we have all experienced both actively and passively the affects of what happens when people choose to let sin rule their words and actions. While we must be aware that these expressions are sin we must be equally aware that God gives us the tools to master that sin. God reminded Cain that he had the power to master the sin lurking at the door. God reminded Cain in the midst of his anger that the disappointment and jealousy that gave way to murderous thoughts against his brother were feelings he could control master. Cain had a choice either to let his angry feelings rule his actions, or let his actions rule his angry feelings. We too have that choice. Every time we interact with others in our family, our faith community, or in the society at large we run the risk of having our feelings hurt. Others will hurt us by their words or actions, others will be recognized for things that we feel we should be recognized for, others won t aways recognize our hard work or give us the
praise we think we deserve. At times these sorts of things will make us feel hurt, and angry and jealous. When we feel this way God reminds us, we have a choice. We can choose to give in to our anger and act out in with expressions of sin, or we can choose to master that sin that tempts us. How do we master our sin? (Gosh I feel like a broken record) We master our sin by steeping ourselves in our relationship with God and using the tools God gives us. How do we steep ourselves in our relationship with God? By praying, joining together with the community in worship on a weekly basis, and reading scripture. By doing these simple, yet time consuming things, you will allow God to give you the courage and strength to resist the temptation to act out in sinful anger at any number of the difficult situations you will experience in your lifetime. Disciplining yourself to talk to God, actively participate in the community of faith, and interact with holy scripture will enable you to arm yourselves with the things described by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: I love this imagery listen again! Paul writes: Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Like bundling up against the harshness of winter, or arming one s self before going into battle we can protect ourselves from the power of sin by using the tools God gives us to resist it. God created us and gives us the gift of being creators as we populate the world and build our own families, communities, and civilizations. As we accept the freedom to build our own families, communities, and civilizations we must be aware of the sin lurking at our doorsteps and intentionally choose to use the tools God gives us to master that sin.
Let us chose to master our sin using the tools God gives us, in order that we may live in families, communities, and civilizations ruled by God s peace. Amen.