First Presbyterian Church          Rev. James K. Teall

Salt Lake City, UT                March 14, 2004    

“It’s All About Me”

A Series on the Passion of the Christ: The People: Who Are We?

Genesis 4:1-16

Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion: Of The Christ continues to stun Hollywood movie critiques.  It is on course to be one of the highest-grossing films in cinematic history.  No one imagined that the masses would flock to the theaters pay $8.00 to see a movie for which they already knew the ending.  The movie, as you know, has not been short on controversy.  It has sparked heated debate that at times as gotten down right nasty. 

At the center of this controversy is the question. Who killed Jesus?  Now this question of who killed Jesus might make for interesting discussion, but the more important and more relevant question is why was Jesus killed?   We can spend our time trying to figure out the culpability of people who lived 2000 years ago, but what good will the answers do for us now?   It is clear that human beings killed Jesus and whether these human beings have the label of Jew, Roman, Egyptian, or Greek is irrelevant compared to the question of what is it in the heart of human beings that lead all of us, at time, to want to take the life of another human being?  Remember that Jesus said that murder is first committed in the heart before it is committed with the hand.  If we are truthful with ourselves, we know His statement to be true and at times we have all sought to destroy another human being---if not with our actions, then definitely in our thoughts and with our words of slander and malice.  Why do we do this?  What drives us to want to cut down or cut short the life of another human being? 

Well, to discover the motive that drives us to want to annihilate another’s life, there is no better place to look than the first recorded homicide; the murder of Abel at the hand of his brother Cain.  In discovering Cain’s true motive we will have an answer to why Jesus was killed.  More importantly, it will also shed light into our own lives as to why we all seek to hurt, harm, and even destroy the life of another in our thoughts, our words and even in our actions. 

Perhaps no other story in the Scriptures is more telling of who we are as fallen human beings than the story of Cain and Abel.  There is no other story in the Bible that is so often overlooked than this epic tale of betrayal that so accurately reveals what is at the core of our sinful human condition.  When reflecting on sin, we often stop after we read the story of Adam and Eve, but the story of Cain and Abel reveals to us more of what is at the core of our sin. 

Theologians have struggled to understand why God favored Abel’s sacrifice over his brother Cain’s.  This passage has some of the most difficult Hebrew syntax in all the Old Testament thus making it difficult to understand and translate into English. We do know that Abel was gifted by God to raise animals.  He was a rancher.  We also know that God gifted Cain to raise crops.  He was a farmer. Both brothers were given a talent but Abel seems to be more grateful for the talent he received from God since he is the one who offered the very best to God from his life’s work.  Cain, on the other hand, gave just some of the fruits of his labor back to God.  Abel trusted God to provide and knew that all that he had came from God.  Thus, he was free to give the best back to God.  In contrast, Cain seems to lack faith in God.  He does not seem to grasp that it is God who provided the sun and the rain to grow the crops.  He seems to fear letting go of what he had been give and only offers some of ‘his’ grain to God but not the best. 

So, it is no wonder that God favored Abel’s offering over Cain’s.  Imagine it is your birthday.  One of your daughters says to you, “I made you this gift.  I spent hours thinking about you and what you would like and I made this for you because I love you and trust you and know that you will always love me.”  Your other daughter says, “I ran by the mall and I saw this thing on sale so I bought it for you because I felt I had to because I know it is a custom to buy a gift for a parent on their birthday.  I did not want to spend much on you because even though my allowance comes from you I am not sure you will keep giving it to me.”  Both offer their gifts to you and say, “Happy Birthday!”  Now which gift would you favor?  The one offered in love.  Now, which child would you favor?  Neither, they are both your children and you love them just the same.  As it was and still is with God.  Though He might enjoy a certain act of devotion over another, His love remains the same and this is what Cain could not understand. 

Cain made a mistake. He did not trust God.  He did not understand the greatness of God’s love and God’s desire to always care for him.  In his ignorance Cain messed up.  What is God’s response to Cain’s sin?  As He does with His children, He offers him another chance.  The NIV reads, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted, but if you do not do right, sin is crouching at the door; it desires to have you.”  A more ancient English translation reads, “Is there not forgiveness of sin if you do well, if you do not do well, the crawler is at the door waiting to devour you.” 

Cain is angry and it has thrust him into a depression.  He is visibly upset, outraged and sad; so much so that he cannot keep his emotions from showing on his face.  God says, “My child, why are you angry and so sad?”  God is looking for a true confession from Cain as He did with Cain’s dad, Adam. God looks to pardon his children, but we look away.  Cain is angry and depressed.  Depression is really anger turned in on ourselves.  Could it be that Cain is angry at himself for not doing what was right by offering his very best to God?  Is it that God wants him to simply confess his mistake and his anger and find forgiveness? God offers a second chance but God did not force Cain to take it.  God clearly lays out Cain’s options.  The right thing would be to accept God’s forgiveness and grow from his mistake.  Cain could also choose to do the wrong thing by not accepting God’s forgiveness.  God explains the consequences  He tells Cain that evil is crouching at the door waiting to for him, to lead him down the path of destruction. 

Tragically, Cain chooses not to accept forgiveness.  Evil is there to convince Cain to project the anger he feels toward himself onto his brother Abel.  Evil clouds the mind of Cain so that he comes to believe that the real problem is with Abel and not with himself.   Evil, though, does not stop there, nor does it ever stop its relentless pursuit to destroy the human soul.  Playing on Cain’s fear that God does not accept him, evil convinces Cain that the solution to his problem is to get rid of his brother, so there will be no one else for God to love.  Evil convolutes Cain’s belief system.  The conclusion he comes to is that God will have no other choice to accept him, because once he kills Abel, he will have no other competition for God’s love.   

Every decision that Cain makes in this story is driven by fear.  Fear that God will not provide, fear that God will not accept him, and fear that his brother will receive more; more of everything from God.  Evil convinces Cain that his very own brother is his enemy and that the best way to deal with his enemy is to kill him. 

Fear, it has been said, is a killer.  This might be one of the best pieces of wisdom that you and I could ever adhere to.  Evil’s favorite emotion, the one that is used to get us to do the work of evil, is fear.  Jesus, evil’s greatest adversary, time and time again told his followers, “DO NOT FEAR.”  Jesus admonishes his disciples time and time again: Do Not Fear!  Why?  Jesus knows that before we do an evil action, the motivator for that evil action is fear, a deep-seated fear that God will not provide for all of our needs, including the love we so desperately seek.  Jesus’ apostle Paul says that perfect love drives out all fear.  Love is made perfect in mercy and grace and this is the love God offers to us. By accepting it, fear is driven away.  If we don’t accept it, fear remains and it is in fear that we sin. 

Fear is fuel that propels us to anger, and anger is the spark the lights the fire that destroys the life of another.  What is it that is in the human heart that drives us to destroy each other…fear!  Fear is the killer and it was fear that drove some Roman authorities and some Jewish leaders to take the life of an innocent man who preached and lived love.  It is true that some Roman authorities and Jewish leaders had Jesus crucified, but more importantly is to understand that it was what was in their hearts that was the real killer.  Cain feared he was losing to His brother and decided the best way to deal with his fear was to remove what he perceived was the cause of it; his own brother.  So too the fear of losing power, the fear of losing face, the fear of losing traditions, were the fuel for the fire of the death of the brother of all of mankind, Jesus the Christ.   

The Bible story begins in a garden.  God made Adam and Eve and said work the land and guard the garden.  Who were Adam and Eve to guard the garden from?  The Evil One.  But they failed.  In the opening scene of The Passion, we find Jesus in a garden.  He goes to his friends whom he told to watch and pray but they fell asleep on the job and evil entered into the garden.  In the movie we see the Evil One crouching next to Jesus whispering in his ear saying, “Who is your Father?  Who are you?  You can’t do this thing God has asked you to do?”  Mel shows that evil is crouching at the door desiring to have Jesus by playing on his doubts.  Unlike Adam, unlike Cain, unlike all of humanity, Jesus is the only one who has not fallen asleep on job.  He did not choose fear, but faith in His Father.  When Jesus is able to say in the garden, “Father not my will but your will,” the fear is gone and so are the evil one’s temptations.  Gibson shows the evil crouching before Jesus tempting him, and from the body of the Evil One comes a snake, reminiscent of the snake that tempted Adam and Eve.  Instead of listening to the serpent’s lies, Jesus crushes its head.  Mel is using the old literary tool of foreshadowing the fate of evil before it actually happens.  “Master it,” is what God told Cain, but he failed.  Jesus did master evil by His faith in His Father.  If we are to defeat sin we to must do it by faith, not by fear. 

Cain chose fear, and fear led to making an enemy out of a brother and eventually led to his brother’s death!  After Cain’s premeditative vicious attack that drained the life blood out of his brother, God asks Cain, “Where is your brother?”  Cain’s answer defined the rest of human history.  “I don’t know - am I my brother’s keeper?”  What do you think God’s answer was and still is?  Cain claims ignorance.  Cain wants to live in denial.  Cain tries to relinquish any responsibility for his fellow human being.  Cain did not believe he was his brother’s keeper because his brother was no longer in his mind a brother, rather, an enemy who posed a threat to his existence.  He lived in fear and fear led him to not keep his brother, but kill him.

Has anything changed in the human race?  Doesn’t fear continue to motivate us to destroy our brothers, those who we perceive as enemies when the true enemy is really evil?  Are we not more like Cain, choosing to live in denial and shirk responsibility as opposed to having the courage to stand up to evil and the fear that it creates?  Do we not say, “It’s not my responsibility to care for the poor?”  Do we not claim ignorance in saying, “I did not know how many innocent lives have been lost in wars?” What a different world we might have if Cain would have accepted forgiveness instead of accepting fear and shirking his responsibility.  How much longer will we live in fear and believe that lie that we are not our brother’s keepers?

         

You would think that since Cain has killed, God would have given up on him.  Not so.  Though God doesn’t prevent the consequences of his sin, God does not condemn him.  The consequence is that Cain will now live in Nod, which means wandering.  Cain has let evil into his heart and now he is restless and finds no purpose or direction in his life.  He has become a restless wanderer, and once again fear rears its ugly head.  Cain tells God that his punishment is too much, and that if people know he killed his brother they will kill him in the land of wandering.  God now offers a third chance.  He says, not so.  God put a mark on Cain.  The mark was sign that Cain still belonged to God and that no one was to harm him.  How could God do such a thing?  Did not the blood that Cain spilt on the ground need to be avenged?  Should not Cain have given his life to redeem the life of his brother?  It was impossible for Cain to do; only one man could shed truly innocent blood to redeem the blood of Abel that cried out from the ground for justice.  The blood could only come from the Son of God and it is by the blood of Christ that we are set free from the curse of Cain;  wandering through life full of anxiety and fear.  Only the blood of Christ can set us free from our sin.  Only by accepting his death on the cross and receiving his forgiveness for our sin can we be delivered.  Only by receiving His perfect love will we be delivered from fear.  Only by trusting Christ and having faith in Him will we actually be able to keep our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, and our enemies instead of killing them in our thoughts, words and deeds.  Fear is a killer but the good news in Jesus Christ is that His perfect love drives out all fear.  “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said, “for I am with you even until the end of time.”  You and I have to make the same decision Cain had to make.  We know the consequences.  Will we choose to live by fear or by faith?  Forgiveness is made available, do the right thing; accept His grace.