In the Middle

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

    Maybe you’ve heard this one. Stop me if you have.

     Two brothers came and presented themselves to the Lord. Each had an offering. The younger brother and his offering were regarded well by the Lord. For the older brother and his offering the Lord had no regard. The older brother got all honked off and his face fell. “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?” the Lord asked him. He gave no answer, but went to his brother to ask a few questions of his own.

    “Why did the Lord have regard for you and not me?”

    “I don’t know exactly,” the younger brother replied.

    “Well, how did you know what to take as an offering?”

    “It was the best I had,” little brother beamed, “I was hoping he’d like it… and he did!”

    “You know, that sounds like a great idea. I’ll go to the Lord again. Oh, and thanks!”

    So the older brother, his face lifting, gathered up the best of his goods and gladly offered it to the Lord, who regarded him well. On returning, he stopped by his brother’s place and suggested they throw a big party with all that was left.

     Good thing you didn’t stop me. You haven’t heard this one. It was the biblical account of Cain and Abel from Genesis 4 – until it wasn’t. It became a great and haunting What If? What if Cain hadn’t done what he actually did? In Cain’s case, what does it matter now? It doesn’t, but if we’re willing to take more than a passing glance at Cain-ish tendencies in ourselves, we would do well to study and learn from what really did happen.

     Earlier this week there was yet another mass shooting in a school. Experts are trying now to piece together the motive of the shooter, who died in a firefight with police. Motive – what an odd riddle. Is there an answer to it? Yes, but not the one we want to hear.

     Take a look. What letter lies smack in the middle of sin? The i in sin has the ability, left to its own devices, to rationalize anything. It’s only a matter of scale. One rationalization builds on the one before. A firecracker slight draws a bazooka response because i is driving the stampede along.

     Cain, firstborn of the original sinners, murdered his brother Abel. In the seventh generation after, Cain’s descendant Lamech became the second murderer. Of all the words Lamech may or may not have said, these are the only ones history records:

    Lamech said to his wives:

    “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
        you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
    I have killed a man for wounding me,
        a young man for striking me.
    If Cain's revenge is sevenfold,
        then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold” (Genesis 4:23-24).

    Count them up, the occurrences of “me” and “my”; note the arrogance of “listen to what I say,” the audacity of referring to himself twice in the third-person. Did I mention that Lamech was the first polygamist, as far as we know? Reckon it was his idea. What a sorry account: for seven generations, the i in the middle of sin had gone unchecked. Lamech killed a young man for simply striking him. A sorry account indeed, and yet…

     Today, this very day, you and I will do something self-centered – just like Cain, just like Lamech, just like the shooter in Nashville. It’s only a matter of scale.

     Take another look. What letter rests at the center of faith? Cradled, we find the same i.  Swaddled in letters more prominent, set in quiet spaces, i doesn’t even say its name.

     By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks (Hebrews 11:4).

     Will we listen? Will we get the heck out of our own heads? Will we, as Cain might have done, look to his brother’s faith – that unassuming and unexplainable faith by which Abel simply hoped to be blessed in God’s presence? Better still, let’s look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Though Abel never met Jesus in this walk-around world, he greeted him from afar (Hebrews 11:13). It’s the only escape from our own craniums.

     Someone, lamenting the heartbreaking loss in Nashville, will ask, “How did we get here?!” Answer: the same way we always have. Except in our day, the crush toward self-centeredness is almost irresistible. Forces combine, within and without, to make selfishness nearly the only option. The i in the middle of sin, poking its head up, will deliver the only valid manifesto. Almost. Nearly. But not really. “And if you do not do well,” the Lord said to Cain, “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). He wouldn’t have said “you must” if you couldn’t possibly.

     Keeping i on a short leash is key, recognizing the wild potential of self to hurt others in a hurry. In the garden of Eden, the first Adam chose his own way. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the last Adam said, “not my” – “yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42), and became a life-giving spirit (1Corinthians 15:45). Given the separate outcomes recorded in history, ours is to choose the way that brought about redemption.

     The old-timers position the believer standing with Christ to one side and sin to the other. Sin doesn’t go away, but the more resolutely the believer turns to Jesus, the less influence sin has. In his novel East of Eden, author John Steinbeck sets us wondering about the “you must” spoken by the Lord to Cain, rendered from the original Hebrew, timshel. Scholars are called in, who, after much deliberation, translate it “thou mayest.” If you’ll accept my homier rendition: “This won’t be what you want, and you won’t pull it off all the time, but you can.” Looking to Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, according to the will of the Father, ruling over sin is entirely possible.

     So now we’ve heard it, and it must not be unheard.

 Grace and Peace (in all the bright possibilities),

 

John