I am actually having a lot of trouble with this chapter. In it, Cain offers God the best he can, as does Able. God shows favor to Able, Cain gets angry and God seems to have no compassion for why.
The commentary I have claims that God has already established the blood sacrifice required by the covenant and that Cain didn't live up to that covenant, but it seems to me that Covenant was made with Abram, not Adam and it seems awfully unfair to me to have Cain be responsible to upholding a covenant of which he has no knowledge.
I personally believe that argument is to absolve a God that seems completely void of compassion from any wrong doing.
Much like in Chapter 3, where I feel like some of the curse could have been prevented with an ounce of responsibility, I feel like the God of this story really messed it up. He asked Cain why he was mad and hurt and then proceeds to tell him what sounds an awful lot like a set up. "If you have done well will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin waits at your door...you should rule over it."
God, in my opinion, set Cain up for failure. Cain was hurt because God showed favoritism (red flag one). Instead of showing compassion and explaining to Cain how to gain favor, God basically tells Cain he has done badly and told him to take hold of his sin (red flag two). Then Cain kills his brother and fails to take responsibility for his action. And yet again a curse comes from God.
Again, I wonder what would have happened if Cain had owned the responsibility for his rash reaction and his hurt instead of trying to hide it, but that to me is not the thing that stands out...
Christians preach a God of compassion, a God that understands failings, but this is not the God that exists in this story. The God in this story, chose a favorite, incited an unnecessary competition between the brothers and then punished when the competition he'd incited got out of control.
Cain is completely responsible for his anger and jealousy and his murder of his brother, and he should be punished for it. But I think God could have prevented it.
Cain was hurt and angry, and rightly so. God picked a favorite, and then instead of meeting Cain in his hurt and walking with him through it, God patronized him and said something that could very easily be heard to say, you shouldn't be hurt you know you failed me, now take hold of this jealousy and master it before it masters you.
If I were to choose a favorite among my children and then tell the other that they had failed me, get over it, I would be criticized mightily and told I was being a bad parent. I am human, I make mistakes, I don't have perfect clarity of understanding. God doesn't have that argument.
I think perhaps of God had talked with Cain about why his sacrifice was unacceptable, explained the situation and gave Cain some kind of moral support, the outcome of this story would have been different. But I guess, we needed some story of murder in the early days so that we could say, God is not okay with murder. I just sort of feel like perhaps God handled this whole thing badly. But I guess he was still new at this whole creation thing at this point, we can't really expect him to be very mature...right?
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2 comments:
Verse 3 says "...Cain brought an offering..." while verse 4 says "...Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat." This leads me to believe that Cain's offering was not acceptable not because of what it was, but because of his attitude in bringing it. Abel is recognized as bringing the firstborn but Cain is not identified as bringing the firstfruits of his garden. The first of something is in line with giving more respect and honor. The passage doesn't say this directly but it is implied. In my opinion, that is why Cain's offering was not acceptable to God and it wasn't favortism. How do we know that Cain brought his best?
--Morgan
I did not think of that, and I will have to consider that as a possibility, but I am not sure that it changes my feeling that God has some responsibility in inciting the problem. "implied" is a place for a lot of unnecessary hurt feelings and misunderstanding. I will have to mull it over.
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