Sermon - Trinity XI 2023 - Genesis 4:1-15

Cain and Abel make their Sacrifices to God; Cain kills Abel. Engraving by F. Villamena after Raphael. 1626. 

Faith in the Heart

1. Cain’s god complex and Abel as extraneous

2. God remembers the Abels of this world

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and that’s true! Sometimes you pick up a book with a colorful jacket and an interesting title, and it’s a major snoozefest. Other times a book with a bland gray cover and a simple boring title may end up being a powerful book you remember for the rest of your life. This same principle also applies to people, especially in regards to their standing before God. A person’s righteousness before God isn’t just what you can see, but it comes down to the faith in the heart.

We see this exemplified in the story of Cain and Abel. Immediately preceding Cain’s birth Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and plunged themselves and all of their descendents into sin and death. Yet the Lord gave Adam and Eve a promise that one of her offspring would crush the serpent’s head. So when Eve gave birth to her firstborn son, she thought that he was the Savior! The Hebrew simply says: “I have gotten a man with/of the Lord.” Cain’s name means “gotten,” so Adam and Eve thought they got the one who was going to save them!

So when they have another son they name him Abel, meaning vanity, or worthless. It’s possible that Cain and Abel were twins, maybe not, but for the moment and for the sake of explaining this let’s just say they were. Imagine Adam and Eve having Cain and Abel. First comes Cain, and they assume he’s the savior, so Eve cries out “I have gotten a man of the Lord!” and names him Cain because they got the one they wanted. Then comes out this second one, Abel, and since they had just gotten the one they wanted this one is extra, he’s vanity and worthless, so they name him Abel.

This favoritism of Cain and neglect of Abel is seen even in the jobs given to each one. Cain is a worker of the ground, just like his father Adam; in a sense he’s given his father’s business. Abel is just given the job of watching the sheep. Remember, they don’t eat meat and they live in a climate where they don’t even need to wear clothes except for modesty, so it’s not the most important job in the world. It’s very similar to King David as a boy watching the sheep while his brothers went off to do the important work in the military.

Cain is the obvious favorite. So if you will, he’s the homecoming king, the star athlete, the class president, the guy voted most likely to succeed. Abel is just the forgotten extra. He’s the quiet kid, the loser, the one people forget about.

It should be noted that both of them are brought up in the fear and instruction of the Lord. “Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.” Not everything is recorded in the Bible, but apparently God told Adam and Eve how to worship, and Adam and Eve must’ve passed on the faith to their kids since they both brought offerings to God. So at least externally both of them look like they’re decent God-fearing people. Both of them go to church regularly, but everyone likes Cain and everyone forgets Abel.

However, God sees not as man sees. “The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.” Both brothers were taught the faith, both brothers worshiped God, both brothers offered sacrifices from their labors. But Cain’s sacrifice was rejected, and Abel’s was accepted. It’s not that Cain’s offerings were objectively worse than Abel’s or less valuable. St. Paul explains in the book of Hebrews: “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.”

The important differences between Cain and Abel weren’t external, but in the heart. Cain with his god-complex thought too highly of himself, and so placed his faith and trust in his own works. The sacrifice that God wants from us is one of the heart. So lowly Abel offered his sacrifices with faith and trust in God. That faith of the heart is what God desires.

So when everybody’s favorite Cain is rejected because of his lack of faith, Cain became very angry. And here God teaches Cain and us a very important lesson about temptation and sin. “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” First God tells Cain that if you do well, you will be accepted. What did Abel do well? He had faith. So the first part of dealing with temptation and sin is to have faith in God to help and save. 

For without faith, sin is lying at the door. I know our translation has crouching, but that makes it sound like a cat ready to pounce on its prey. The word is simply to be lying down. Instead of an angry cat ready to pounce, sin is a cat lying down looking soft and cuddly. This is how sin works on us, right? It looks like a cute sleep kitty that you want to pet and hold. Sin looks attractive and harmless, it looks pleasant and even fun and exciting! It’s like the forbidden fruit that looks good to the eyes.

But remember, sin is lying in a doorway. That’s not a place to sleep. The cat is lying there with one eye cracked open just waiting to attack whoever is foolish enough to come close. Although that sin may appear harmless and pleasant, it is vicious and will tear you apart. Therefore, you must rule over it, or at least put up a fight. Sin is in the doorway, so you can’t help but pass by it. We’re all poor miserable sinners, we’re all going to face temptation, we’re all going to sin. But how are we going to face it? Are we going to be lulled into a false sense of security and embrace it? Or are we going to be on our guard and fight against it?

Unfortunately Cain gave into his temptation and rose up against his brother Abel, one who shared a womb with him, and killed him. Then when confronted with his sin, Cain denied it and refused to repent. When the Lord told him his punishment, Cain still wasn’t sorry for what he had done, but was only sorry about his punishment. Cain could’ve repented of murder and God would’ve forgiven him, but no, Cain refused repentance and thus refused forgiveness.

But turning our attention back to Abel, I do wonder how long it took for Abel’s family to realize he was even missing. Did they remember him right away or did it take them a few days to start looking into his disappearance? Either way, God remembered Abel. “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” Although Abel was largely forgotten and ignored in his earthly life, even given the name of vanity, God never forgot him. God never forgets those who call on Him in faith.

The poor little Christians who are nobodies in the eyes of this world, the Christians who are mocked and teased for their beliefs, the Christians who are murdered in cold blood, are always remembered by God. He doesn’t forget us or forsake us. Instead of sending a bigshot like Cain to save us, the Father sent Jesus, a man who was poor and rejected by many. Like Abel and King David, Jesus came as the Good Shepherd, and He offered up Himself as the sacrificial Lamb in our place. His sprinkled blood speaks an even better and louder word than the blood of Abel, since Jesus’ blood washes all of our sins away.

It’s true that we cannot judge a book, or a person, by its cover. At least God doesn’t. He searches hearts and He looks for faith in Him. And if you ever feel forgotten, God sets His seal upon you. Not like the mark made on Cain, in which Cain wasn’t killed on earth but suffers forever in hell. No, God marks you as His own in the waters of baptism with the sign of the cross. No guarantee that you won’t suffer on earth or be martyred like Abel, but it’s God’s promise that He will never forget you and one day you will live forever with Him in His kingdom.