Will God Give Up On Us?

The story of Cain and Abel is a familiar one to many, though I don't know that it is much appreciated. It is a very complicated story in which God precipitates a crisis between the two brothers by accepting one's offering and rejecting the other's. No reason is given. Both seem to have offered their best. But God does not act as one might expect, or even hope.

The crisis is of God's own making, but God offers Cain a way out. He can still do well. Sin may be lurking, but it can be mastered. As Walter Brueggemann has noted, God does not speak of Cain as under the curse of any "original sin." He still has the power to do well and master sin, but of course, he does not. And God's wonderful new creation seems to be spiraling out of control.

As had happened with his parents in the garden, Cain must now deal with God. He receives punishment for his crime, punishment he fears is too much to bear. His own life now seems in jeopardy.

At this point the story engages in a bit of absurdity. Cain fears others will kill him, but the story has told us the Cain and Abel are the first children born on earth. Exactly who is it that Cain fears? But the story uses this absurdity to speak beyond the issues of any primal humans, to wonder what happens when when we refuse to do the right, when we earn God's ire and threaten to engulf our world in conflict.

God puts a mark on Cain. The mark, no doubt, reminds him of his guilt, but it also serves to protect him. God will not allow Cain's crime to provide an excuse for others to do to him as he has done to his brother.

Will God give up on us? Will God finally leave us to sleep in the bed we have made and suffer the full consequences of living at odds with God's plans for us? The opening chapters of Genesis wrestle with such questions at some length. Cain receives a provisional answer, an answer that will become final following the Noah episode. God remains committed to Cain, to creation, and to the human creature.

That is something that needs recalling from time to time, perhaps most especially when we despair that things are spiraling out of control, that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. God is not done with us. God is not done with creation. God will bring this story to a good ending, even if we keep messing it up along the way.

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