Your Brother's Brother
By Norman L. Parks
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Few Biblical stories from man's early history are so pregnant with meaning for divided Christendom today as the story of Cain and Abel, and perhaps no other is so generally misinterpreted. It is a story of faith versus force, of heart-centered religion, of the true nature of koinonia. But it has been used as a weapon to rationalize legalism and justify ostracism, exclusion and excommunication.
The popular interpretation begins with the perfectly sound proposition that God's will takes priority over man's preference. But it proceeds on the thesis that Cain earned God's disfavor when he substituted his own mode of worship for that fully specified by divine command--a thesis totally unsupported by the facts related in Genesis.
The thesis proceeds with this line of reasoning: "How is it that Cain could believe that God is and that he ought to be worshiped, and yet his offering was not by faith? It must have been that God had commanded an animal sacrifice,
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Only a legalist of the deepest dye could go through such intellectual contortions to bleach out the color and power of a great story and reduce the moving "Faith Chapter" of Hebrews to such mean dimensions. We can believe that Abel would have obeyed such a command had it been given. But he would be Abel, the faithful, if such a command had not been given. Hebrews was written to encourage Christians suffering imprisonment, property confiscation, and corporal punishment because of their faith. It said to them that under such difficulties the "just man is to live by his faith," with confidence that God's reward is worth every trial. Then it recites the names of the great heroes of the Hebrews, beginning with Abel, and the driving force of their lives--"for the man who draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he does reward those who seek him." This abiding faith made triumphant men, patient, courageous, who conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, from weakness won strength, endured scoffing and scourging, bore chains and imprisonment, and suffered death "that they might obtain a better resurrection."
That the story of Cain and Abel does deal with the problem of worship and that it does make the point that God must be worshiped as he authorizes is quite clear. If God had actually reprimanded Cain for making a grain or vegetable offering instead of an animal offering, the legalist would have a better case, and we would then know that Abel had made the only acceptable kind. But such is not the case. Instead, God lectured Cain about the unsound condition of his heart. It seems proper, therefore, to seek the meaning of the story, not by resorting to "musts" about which the Bible is silent,2 or by putting words into God's mouth, but by following the simple recital in Genesis.
We learn that "in the course of time" came harvest time for flock and field, a time for gratitude and gifts. Then it was that Cain, the farmer, brought some produce of the ground "as a present to the Eternal" (Moffatt). Abel, the shepherd, did likewise, presenting some "fat slices" from the firstborn of his flock. There is no hint in the story that these were sacrifices for the expiation of sin. Rather it is stated flatly they were offerings or gifts. Such method of honoring friends has always been a rural tradition, and what would seem more natural than for the farmer and shepherd to bring their gifts to God, with whom they walked and talked?
When God paid no heed to Cain's offering, Cain was furious and downcast. God prodded him for the reason and then answered his own question, "If your heart is honest you would surely look bright. If you are sullen, sin is lying in wait for you, eager to be at you, yet you ought to master it" (Moffatt).
Surely we have the explanation here. Something was wrong with Cain's heart, which exposed itself in an explosion of anger toward his brother. God's warning was in time to save Cain from the fruition of an evil heart, but he did not heed it. How long had this been going on? How long had this elder brother, who ought to have cherished his "baby brother" been less than a brother in his feelings? How long had sin been lying there, waiting to produce its external
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God has always been concerned with this matter of the heart. Regarding wayward Israel, he lamented that they worshiped him with their lips while their hearts were far from him. Repelled at sacrifice and observance devoid of spirit and faith, he cried out through his prophet, "Love I desire and not sacrifice." It was an old lesson Jesus stressed when he said we cannot be at peace with God and at war with man, and when we bring our gifts to the altar and remember that we have something between us and our brothers, we should leave our gifts, make things right with our brothers, and then make our offerings to God. Could Jesus have better stated the problem of Cain?
The world has almost invariably given the wrong answer to Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" History's first shepherd needed no keeper, no jailer, no guard. If Abel had needed a guard he could have hired one. Had God taken the trouble to answer the obvious, he would have said, "No, Cain, you are not your brother's keeper: you are your brother's brother!" Nothing that Cain could do would change that ordained relationship. He could only reject it. This he did, preferring force to faith. He founded the first city, which in the language of St. Augustine, "rested on force" as does all government. He bred generations of men who also relied on force, as is made cruelly clear by Lamech's boast.
Resort to power and force in the church today is to model after the City of Cain. In God's family we can no more prescribe the terms of our relationship to our brothers than could Cain. God's koinonia simply requires that we be our brother's brother because we bear the same relationship to God. It is the language of Cain to talk of "disfellowshipping." Letters of excommunication against an unorthodox brother constitute a species of murder on the model of Cain. It is an effort to usurp God's power, even as Cain sought to play God. Rather, we must accept fellow-Christians as God accepts us with all of our imperfections. In accepting a brother we do not condone his sins or share any erroneous beliefs he may have. We must never confuse acceptance with condoning, endorsement with fellowship, or unity with conformity. The great scriptural triad is acceptance, fellowship, and unity. He who enters the community of God enters a community whose boundaries he is not permitted to withdraw. Hence there is but one condition of fellowship, that of reconciliation to God, which automatically settles our relationships with his children.
What is the lesson of Cain? It goes deeper than the act of worship, to the heart of worship. The only kind of worship God has authorized, or can authorize, is worship from a heart that is right with both man and God. Early in the history of mankind this impressive truth was painted in the blood of the first martyr. Truly the measure of our love for God is the love we bear toward our brothers. And the limit of acceptability of our worship before God is the condition of our heart toward men.
1 "Am I A Legalist?" Gospel
Advocate, November 13, 1972.
2 The Restoration slogan, "We speak
where the Bible speaks, we are silent where the Bible is silent,
would be particularly applicable here.