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The Disposition of Cain
Rebecca Clancy
Genesis 4:1-6 I John 3:11-18 Matthew 5:21-26
Shortly after the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that December 7, 1941 was a date that would “live in infamy.” Roosevelt was perceptive that certain dates indeed live in infamy, but the same could well be said of names. Certain names live in infamy. Hitler. Stalin. Mao. Cain is such a name; Cain – the first murderer, and it only adds to the infamy that one he murdered was his brother Abel.
Their start was promising enough, at least on the surface. Adam and Eve produced two sons, first Cain then Abel. Cain grew to be a farmer and Abel a shepherd, two respectable and mainstream professions -- almost as if to say today that one grew to be a doctor and the other a lawyer. But as life should have taught us all by now, things are seldom as they seem on the surface.
Cain was possessed of a low character. How do we know this? From the outcome, of course. He murdered his brother. People who murder anyone, much less their brother, very seldom do so in a way that is inconsistent with their character. No, it’s just the opposite. People who murder do so in a way consistent with their character.
In my community, for instance, a woman was murdered as the result of domestic violence. She left her husband, and he shot her to death. Now the murder was not inconsistent with his character. He was not a devoted husband and a model citizen who was driven in a sudden outbreak of insanity to murder his wife after she left him. She left him in the first place because he was the kind of man who would murder her. So it was with Cain. We may infer that Cain was possessed of a low character because he murdered his brother. We may safely read that back through the story. Despite how things seemed on the surface then, Cain was a scoundrel.
Doubtless Cain’s low character too had something to do with the fact that his offering was rejected. Both brothers made offerings to the Lord. Cain, as a farmer, naturally made his offering from the yield of the earth, and Abel as a shepherd made his from his flocks. But Cain’s offering was rejected. Most likely, the reason that his offering was rejected was because it was defective. Old Testament law amply warns against making defective offerings. You don’t, for instance, offer the Lord your ox that has grown too old to pull the plow, or your chicken that no longer lays, or your guard dog now gone in the teeth. You don’t attempt to kill, so to speak, two birds with one stone -- dumping your broken down old animals , while at the same time fulfilling your religious obligation. So Cain probably offered moldy grain or some such. Or perhaps his offering was rejected for a different reason. Perhaps he made his offering with unclean heart. This too is warned against in Scripture. Per the apostle Paul, for instance, “The Lord loves a cheerful giver.” The bottom line is that it was doubtless Cain’s own fault that his offering was rejected.
And in rejecting Cain’s offering, the Lord was taking a serious gamble with this man of low character. The Lord was in effect withholding his blessing from Cain as a way of compelling righteousness. Withholding one’s blessing as a way of compelling righteousness is, as I just said, risky business. Righteousness can’t always be compelled. Some people are simply not the stuff of it. They are in one way or another incapacitated. So you can’t force them to rise to the occasion. Often when one withholds one’s blessing as a way of compelling righteousness, it simply creates a deadlock. One continues to withhold one’s blessing, and the one from whom it is withheld continues in unrighteousness. But in this case it was even worse because, again, of Cain’s low character.
Cain was angry. More, Cain was enraged. If he were a different person, he might have apologized and made amends, but he wasn’t a different person. He was furious, and too he was ashamed and humiliated, not just before the Lord but also before his younger brother. The oldest brother in the Old Testament held a position of great authority. He stood to inherit everything – not just the property but too the family name and lineage. For Cain to have failed where his brother succeeded was simply too much for him to bear, and certainly too much for him to live down.
And so Cain led his brother to a field and rose up against him and struck him dead. But even that twisted act did not bring him to his senses. His response was nothing along the lines of, “Dear Lord, what have I done?” Even when the Lord interrogated him directly, he refused to acknowledge his guilt -- and this was because he felt no guilt. He was defiant, and this should not be particularly surprising. There are common traits among people of low character. They tend to act true to form. And one trait is an impairment of conscience.
Think for instance of Adolf Eichmann, the so called “architect of the Holocaust.” Eichmann once declared he would “leap in his grave laughing” for the millions of Jews he killed. During his trial in Israel after his capture, his guilt became undeniable – countless eyewitnesses offered testimony, there accrued a mountain of documentary proof. And yet, his final words before his execution were, “Long live Germany”.
But the really the striking thing in all this is neither Cain’s low character nor the murder. It is that the Lord let him off with so light a sentence. The Lord, who, for a piece of fruit he ate, had cursed the ground beneath Adam’s feet so that only by the sweat of his brow would he earn his bread, cursed the ground beneath Cain’s feet also. It would yield him nothing, leaving Cain a fugitive and wanderer upon the earth. A pretty light sentence, if you ask me. Yet, Cain had the temerity to protest it, hypocritically because it would place him at risk of being murdered. And so, the Lord lightened his already light sentence. He put a mark on Cain that would serve to protect him. Cain eventually resettled and bore a slew of sons, all of whom turned out to be men of their father’s ilk. Yes, Cain is a name that lives in infamy, as well it should. Scoundrel is too kind a description for him.
So infamous is Cain’s name that the evangelist John warns us against his example. “We must not be like Cain,” writes John, “who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous….” And John warns us well. We must not be like Cain. Of course not. But, then, how could we be? We bear him no likeness, no likeness whatsoever. John then continues… “And all who hate a brother or sister are murderers.” Uh, oh. In these words we may find trouble.
And come to think of it, someone else said something very similar to that. His name was Jesus of Nazareth – “You have heard it was said as of old, ‘You shall not kill’ and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother or sister shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother or sister shall be liable to Council.”
John writes that all who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and Jesus goes an extra mile. He declares that all who are angry at a brother or sister, who even insult a brother or sister are murderers. But how could this be? Surely anger and insult, even hatred are not so bad as murder; and so much may be true, but it’s only a matter of degree. Hatred, anger, and insult all arise from a like inward disposition, a murderous disposition, a disposition we could call the Disposition of Cain.
What Jesus is saying may be difficult to accept, but he is undeniably right. When we act hatefully towards others, when we act in anger towards others, when we insult others -- whether we rise up against them and strike them dead, whether we murder them or not -- we are on the spectrum of murder. We are of the Disposition of Cain. We don’t enhance life, we diminish it. We don’t up-build life, we tear it down. We don’t give life, we take it. We don’t create life, we destroy it. We do violence unto another.
And hatred, anger, and insult take a profusion of forms. They include the sabotage of others’ hopes, aspirations, or self-realization. They include rumor mongering and gossip, or any words that fall from our lips that defame others. They include the discouragement or disregard of others out of selfish motives or insecurity or cowardice. They include the collection and perpetuation of grievances. They include the harboring of bigotry over others’ religion, the coddling of phobia over their sexual orientation, and the fanning of racism over the color of their skin. In all these ways we are of the disposition of Cain.
What Jesus instead commends, and indeed offers us, is another disposition, his own disposition, what we could call the Disposition of Christ -- a disposition of divine love, which by some unfathomable mystery that lies at the very heart of the Godhead, extended even to those who hated and persecuted him.
Jesus, you know, was very canny, to my mind the canniest man ever to live. He was anything but naive or sentimental or idealist or Utopian. He knew what life is. He knew that life is a rat race. He knew it’s a jungle out there. He knew it’s a dog eat dog world. He knew that it’s a struggle to survive. He knew that everyone is out to get you. He knew the cauldron of malice that is human society, for he knew that human society is peopled by those of the Disposition of Cain. Jesus, in short, was a realist, and like all realists, Jesus was a pragmatist. Jesus knew that human society will never be transformed if we respond to the Disposition of Cain with the Disposition of Cain. To the contrary, he knew that if we respond to the force of murder with the force of murder, human society would only degenerate, as did Cain’s society down to Noah’s. You can’t fix problems, after all, with the same mentality that created them. You can’t achieve a new morality within the confines of the old moral order. Jesus knew that the Disposition of Cain could only be transformed by the Disposition of Christ, could only be transformed by divine love. There was no other way.
If then we want to transform our world, if we want to make Christ’s difference in it, this is how we must proceed – in his spirit, by his spirit, and for his spirit – the spirit with which he has gifted everyone one of us. Amen.
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, enslaved the People of Israel. It was not out, as you might assume, out of cruelty. It was, rather, out of judiciousness. The People of Israel were not Egyptians. They were foreigners. They were the rough equivalent of what we today would call the undocumented. So now as then they were deemed to be threats. Add to this that the People of Israel grew increasingly numerous, as numerous even as the Egyptians themselves. This intensified the threat. In those numbers they could simply take over. Or Egypt’s enemies could induce them to fight for them, as a kind of built in fifth column. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had to act. And so he enslaved the People of Israel. It was the judicious thing to do. But his judiciousness was not rewarded. In slavery, unpredictably, their numbers only increased. Pharaoh’s patience with the People of Israel grew thin. Judiciousness then crossed over to cruelty. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to murder the infant boys as they delivered them. That would thin their ranks. But the Hebrew midwives refused to do so, and with their refusal, civil disobedience was born. They chose to heed God not man. But Pharaoh King of Egypt was not so easily undone. He ordered his army to search out the infant boys and throw them into the Nile. Thereafter, cruelty no doubt took on a life of its own. Pharaoh King of Egypt rightly ranks with the likes of Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. One wonders why it is that so many who rise to power become murderous and maniacal tyrants. The human cost - the suffering and misery and despair and tragedy -- are unimaginable and incalculable. Against this backdrop, a woman from the house of Levi gave birth to a healthy and beautiful infant boy. It would normally be the occasion for celebration and joy, but it was for her the occasion for anguish. When a child is born, a mother’s first instinct is protectiveness. But how could she possibly protect him? She thought desperately at first that she could hide him, and she did so for several months, but that could not go on forever. He could any day be discovered. The lesser of two evils was to abandon him to his fate. So she plastered a reed basket with bitumen and pitch, and she cast her hope upon the water. Low and behold, the daughter of Pharaoh happened upon the basket. She peered into it, beheld the crying infant, and she had compassion. The daughter of Pharaoh has never received the appreciation and respect she deserves. She is, inexplicably, overlooked. What she did was exemplary. Normally when people enslave others, they find justification for it. The enslaved are not deemed the equal of their enslavers. They are deemed subhuman. Slavery, therefore, is a necessity. More than this, it is morally right. That’s what the South advanced in this country, after all. But the daughter of Pharaoh did not fall prey to justification. She had compassion. And she acted upon that compassion. Here is an important reminder. It is not enough to have compassion. To have compassion, or any other altruistic emotion for that matter, does not make you a good person. You must act upon it. If you have compassion and you do not act upon it, that makes you decidedly less than a good person. As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And here is something truly astounding. Her act was to adopt him. That was, to say at the least, a courageous thing to do. It certainly would not have put her in good stead with her father. I can just imagine it. “Father, I have a surprise for you. You have a new grandson.” Such an announcement could only have dumbfounded him, but his confusion would have given way to horror as she went on, “I have adopted an infant boy from among your slaves.” If nothing else, we can now set the record straight. We can give Pharaoh’s daughter the appreciation and respect that she deserves. But we can do more than that. As I said, she is exemplary, and so we can follow her example. We can show compassion to those who have cast their hope upon the water. Yes, a mother forced by dire circumstance to give her child up for adoption, hoping that her child will be loved and cherished. But too, one with an atypical identity, hoping to be accepted for who he or she really is. One of a different race, creed, or income level seeking to relocate, hoping not that she will be welcomed, for that would be too high a hope; but hoping she will be at least be tolerated. One who has transgressed, hoping he will be forgiven. One who has something difficult to impart, hoping she will be understood. We can show compassion for those who have cast their hope upon the water. For someone greater, much greater than Pharaoh’s daughter did the same. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” “My daughter has just died. Come and lay your hand on her, that she may live.” “Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” “Jesus, come before my son dies.” “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, for my daughter is tormented by a demon.” “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers terribly.” “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” They cast their hope on him. And he showed compassion for them all. And when we cast our hope on him, he will show compassion for us -- unlimited even by a cross. Amen.
I attended a funeral recently. It was for my high school math teacher. He was one great guy. Everyone loved him. He taught math at my high school for forty years, and he also coached wrestling. By the time he retired, he had become something of a legend in his own time. The funeral was upbeat, not like so many funerals that are so very sad. He lived a full and long life, and we gathered to celebrate that. But for one man – a classmate of mine who wrestled for him. He was absolutely devastated. I approached him in the parking lot after the funeral and asked if he was okay. He broke down. “That man was everything to me,” he said. “I was O.K. so long as he was in the world.” Then he shared his story. His mother died when he was very young. His father was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. By the time he was in high school, he was far down a bad road. He hadn’t the support to do well at school, so he didn’t. He was very angry, so he was a behavior problem. The only friends he could make were kids like himself, so he hung out with a tough crowd. And he had begun to dabble in drugs. He was pretty much a lost cause at the age of sixteen. Enter my math teacher. He approached him one day out of the blue and told him he could tell by his gait that he was born to wrestle. This could only have been a ruse to intervene. Even I, who knows nothing about wrestling, am suspicious that you can identify one born to wrestle by his gait. At any rate, the ruse worked. He intervened. And he made him into a great wrestler. On top of that, he made him into a great young man. His advice, understanding, and support were unwavering. He helped him to deal with his past in such a way that it didn’t destroy him. He filled his present with new found responsibility, purpose, structure, and discipline. And he paved his way to a future. After graduation he went to college on a wrestling scholarship and eventually became a doctor. “I feel so lost,” he concluded his story. “What am I going to do now?” While he was sharing his story, I could not help but think how hard life can be. We here are generally prosperous and privileged, so we can afford to put up a front. But behind that front life can be hard. Because it’s out there -- loss, abuse, addiction, and a host of other afflictions. It’s enough to make you lose your way. And as I said, we here are generally prosperous and privileged. What if the loss, abuse, and addiction are compounded by poverty or racism? Then it’s all but a foregone conclusion. Your way is lost. Yes, life can be hard. Life takes casualties. Lots of them. It can make us feel helpless and overwhelmed. We want to make things better, but what could we possibly do? The answer is no farther away than my late math teacher. What could we possibly do to make things better? We could reach out, like he did. And what is in view here is not merely a good example, although we must never underestimate the power of a good example and must always strive to be one. But there’s more in view than that. It has to do with the Bible. The Bible may seem like a forbidding book. For one thing it’s thousands of pages long. It makes War and Peace look like a short story. For another thing, it’s unimaginably ancient. The Bible’s story begins 2,000 years before the Common Era. I just read that a sizable portion of millennials don’t know what the Holocaust was. To them that’s ancient history - a mere 75 years back. The Bible is more than 4,000 years back. That’s unimaginably ancient. For yet another thing, it traffics in extremely complicated and sophisticated theology, plumbing in its unfolding the depths of such mysteries as our nature, the predicament that our nature has landed us in, and the means of our redemption. And it does so all the while purging itself of false starts or conclusions. So it may seem forbidding. But at the same time, ironically, the Bible lends itself to succinct summaries. Here’s one: God lives. Here’s another: Good triumphs over evil. And another: Love triumphs over fear. And another: Practice universal justice. And another: Love one another. And here’s one that’s right on point: Reach out. The Bible can be summarized in just two words. Reach out. Think about it. That’s what God did. God reached out. God reached out to Abraham and told him that from him would one day issue a nation, and not just any nation, but a nation that would somehow bless all the nations by bestowing upon them redemption. God reached out to Moses and bequeathed him an ethical law so that God’s people could bear his righteousness. God reached out to David and told him that from his descendants would emerge one who would embody that redemption. And that one in the fullness of time emerged. God reach out to his son. He told him that if he would make a great sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, it would be the means for all people to reach out to one another. In a real way. A way that advanced God’s own being and cause. And his son made that sacrifice. And in his brief ministry that preceded that sacrifice, he reached out to everyone. And I mean everyone. Lepers. Prostitutes. Beggars. Even a bitter little man perched up in a sycamore tree. So reaching out is not just a good example. It is nothing less the mechanism that God that employs to bestow redemption. Yes, life can be hard. Paul knew this. “We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” But Paul goes on. “So we must make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” And this means reaching out. “I feel so lost now. What am I going to do?” asked my grieving classmate. I told him that his coach had already showed him what to do. I told him to reach out. Amen.
Jesus was always one to bring the party. All he had to do was show up, and lots of others showed up too -- eager for engagement, eager for excitement, eager for something new. It was little wonder. Here at last was someone who had something to say. Something different. Something provocative. Something truthful. Jesus had a way of uttering truths that had never been uttered before, but at the same time, were strangely recognizable. And it was happening once again. Once again, Jesus had brought the party. He showed up at the house of Mary and Martha, and suddenly the place was filled with men who immediately took their place at his feet. This gesture was an indicator that they were ready and willing disciples. They wanted him to teach them. And so he began to teach. That was Martha’s cue. She sprang into action. After Jesus’ teaching, it would be fellowship hour, and as we all know, fellowship hour is predicated upon food. And in ancient times, you couldn’t rely on your reserves from Costco. Feeding a room full of men was labor intensive. Animals had to be slaughtered and dressed. Bread had to be baked. Water had to hauled. Martha went directly to work, expecting Mary to fall in place behind her. But what did Mary do? She went and sat at Jesus’ feet with the men -- shirking her role, defying expectations, and leaving Martha to shoulder the burden alone. I can imagine Martha’s frustration. I can imagine her passive aggressive attempts to get Mary back in the kitchen. Staring daggers at her from the threshold. Uttering loud sighs as indicators of her strain. Dropping pottery on the floor to startle Mary to awareness. But Mary took no notice. None whatsoever. Martha should have counted to ten. How much strife could be averted if we could all just remember to count to ten, or perhaps twenty. Martha for her part shot like a rocket from outrage to outburst. “I’m doing all the work in here Jesus, while Mary has yet to raise a finger. It’s hardly fair. And have you even noticed? Do you even care?” And there was doubtless more to it than the fact that Martha had to provide all the hospitality on her own. There too was the fact of what Mary was doing. She not day dreaming or singing idly out the window. She was sitting at Jesus’ feet. She was in there with the men. Martha was doubtless chagrined and embarrassed that Mary did not know her place. It certainly did not reflect well on the family. But Jesus did not vindicate Martha. Jesus chastised her, “Martha, Martha,” (and when someone says your name twice, wait for some kind of a correction to follow) “Why are you so distracted and stressed and scattered? Let it go. Mary’s right where she should be.” We’re left to wonder how Martha felt at that point. I bet she wasn’t happy. She simply didn’t get it or she would not have reacted that way in the first place. Now normally this text is interpreted as a caution against busyness. Martha with all her busyness is a prototype that we should avoid. Not that productivity is a bad thing. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all. But there’s a certain kind of busyness that’s not good. It’s when we become enmeshed with worldly or personal concerns and address them with obsessive application – application that mixes with pride, competition, insecurity. It becomes a kind of self-perpetuating force. And it causes us to lose all perspective. It causes us to become disoriented. We forget that we’re supposed to be at Jesus’ feet – his disciples, listening to him. And this is a fair enough interpretation, but I think there’s something else here. An elephant in the living room. Mary was right where she should be. She was at Jesus’ feet, his disciple, listening to him. But Mary was, obviously, a woman. Women did not seat themselves at the feet of rabbis. Women were not disciples. All they needed to know was taught to them by their mothers. Women did not sit side by side with men learning. It was unheard of. It was forbidden. And yet Jesus told Martha that Mary was right where she should be. Her place was with the men. Really Jesus? A woman’s place is with the men? Really Jesus? In first century Judaism? Jesus was a revolutionary and a radical, and don’t ever forget it. All down through history and even to this day there has an unspoken and inviolable code. It could be expressed as a variant of a line from the wedding ceremony. What society has divided, let no one unite. And Jesus was saying the polar opposite. A women’s place is with the men. Think about what this means by extension. Women, your place is with the men. Men, your place is with the women. Whites, your place is with blacks. Blacks your place is with whites. The wealthy, your place is with the poor, and the poor, your place is with the wealthy. The powerful, your place is with the powerless. The powerless, your place is with the powerful. The old, your place is with the young. The young, your place is with the old. Jesus was smashing down all dividing walls. His disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated. This is simply too radical, simply too revolutionary. But that’s who Jesus was. This is why he brought the party. It’s because he spoke God’s truth. Disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated, and this in service to humankind that is to be completely and utterly integrated. That all should be one. But this is so radical and revolutionary that it is very seldom approximated. It’s too hard. But is it really? Is it really that hard to forge the way? Is it really that hard to reach out? Is it really that hard to cross the aisle? To be vulnerable? To be risky? To be open? To be accepting? To be understanding? One thing’s for sure. It’s a lot easier than hanging on a cross in faith it could be so. Amen.
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