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"Murder: Act One, Scene One" April 6, 2003 The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower
This morning we have another in a series of expositional messages looking at war- and peace-related issues. You remember two weeks ago we looked at the Old Testament prophecy about swords being turned into plowshares. And then last week we looked at New Testament passages having to do with such moral imperatives from Jesus as, "Turn the other cheek." And with all of these, and this morning as well, I'm asking us not because of what the Bible says to come to an agreement on the war against Iraq. That's not my purpose. I think that we can agree on what the Bible says and still disagree on this particular conflict--whether this is wise and right or not. I cite for you in the New York Times recently, Jimmy Carter wrote a commentary saying that this war is unjust. And Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush read the same Bible and would disagree, I think, on that point.
But I am asking us to look at broader issues and not allow some of the wrong-headed comments that are being set forward--just for instance, there are those at the present time who would say, "All Christians have to be doves, not just with respect to this conflict, but all conflicts." Now that, I think, is a mistake. That is a confusion to say that if you are a follower of Jesus you have to be a dove in that absolute sense. And that's the kind of thing that I'm asking us to sort of clear away some of the confusion. We're going to help in that effort looking this morning at the story of Cain and Abel. You may want to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 4. We're going to look at the first eight verses and, again, try and see if we can get a perspective that we can all admit, "Yes, this is what the Bible teaches about life," so that even though we may not agree on everything, nevertheless some of the extreme disagreements have been ruled out because we say, "Well, no. The Bible does not teach that." Now, this is Genesis chapter 4, beginning with the first verse:
Now the story continues, but we're just going to pause and look at what the Bible has for us here in these first eight verses about the animosity between these first two brothers. We want to understand what the Bible teaches us through this story.
And to introduce that, we're going to begin in the Old West, in the Dakota Territories. The date is August 2, 1876 and in the little town of Deadwood in the Dakota Territories, Wild Bill Hickok is playing cards in Sweeney's Saloon. Jack McCall comes up behind him, pretends to be watching the card game, pulls out a revolver, and shoots Wild Bill Hickok in the back. Why? Because Wild Bill Hickok is the most famous gunman of that day. There are probably several other reasons why he would want to kill him, but we don't even need to go there. If you are the fastest gunman in the West, if you are the most famous lawman of your day, somewhere someone is going to want to kill you just for that reason. (Incidentally, we do want to ask what did Wild Bill Hickok have in his hand? Raise your hand if you know the answer to this question. Very good. Some of us don't know. Aces and eights. History buffs, you need to know this: Two pair, aces and eights.) If you are the most famous lawman, if you are the fastest, if you are the best, if you are the strongest, just the fact that you are the fastest, the best, and the strongest will mean somebody will want to kill you.
Now you say, "Oh, but that only holds true of men of violence. You see, if you're a person of peace, that will not be true." So let's go from the Dakota Territories to another Dakota. Dakota Apartment building. New York City. December 8, 1980. Mark David Chapman sees John Lennon walking down the street. Mark David Chapman takes out a revolver and shoots John Lennon, killing him. Shoots him five times and then stands over to the side--doesn't run away and hide--stands there reading Catcher in the Rye, waiting to be arrested. And why did he do that? Not because John Lennon was the most famous person of violence of his day, but . . . allow me simply to say the most famous peacenik, the most famous peacechild of that generation. You know, John and Yoko were the advocates for giving peace a chance.
So it is not the case that if you're the fastest gun in the West somebody will want to kill you, but if you are a person of peace, that no one will. No. And we learn some important things about murderous jealousy by looking at the Bible's report of the very, very first murder. So let's look at it together, shall we?
We have the first pair of brothers--an older brother and a younger brother. The older brother, we're told, is a farmer. The younger brother is a shepherd. Each one is religious in their own way. Cain brings an offering to the Lord from the produce that he cultivates. And Abel, we are told (and the Bible seems to show us a little bit of a difference here). Abel, for his part, brought of the firstlings of his flock their fat portions. Now, are we being told that Abel was more devout in bringing the best, in not simply making a perfunctory religious gesture? It does seem like this story can be read that way--that Cain is going through the motions of presenting something to the Lord, but without his heart being engaged, without there being any devotion to it. Abel, instead of that, is making a heartfelt sacrifice to the Lord, bringing the best.
Well, if that's true, if we can read this that way, we might as well go ahead and say a perfunctory religion is always uncomfortable with heartfelt religion, amen? Religion that just wants to go through the motions is always antagonistic toward religion that arises up out of a true faith of the heart. But I would say it's possible to so make Cain "bad" in his religious response and Abel "good" in his religious response that all mystery to the story is taken away, and I would rather not have us do that. Let's just leave some mystery and say, "You know, we don't have enough information about the status about the one heart before God and the status of the other heart. We don't know for sure."
What we do know for sure is that the Lord (we're told in verse 4) the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, He had no regard. The Lord had regard. God responds differently. I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but I do know this. The Hebrew word that is translated "regard" here in some of our other translations is translated, "looked with favor on," or the Lord "accepted," something like that. The actual Hebrew word is "shah- AAH." Lets say that together: "shah-AAH." Very good. Hebrew is a very simple language, perfect for story telling. That Hebrew word just means "gaze." What's literally said here is just very simply, "The Lord gazed on Abel and his offering. The Lord did not gaze on Cain and his offering."
And one of the things that we want to stop and ask ourselves about is, is there a lesson for us all as we look at this and we realize that there have been times when someone else has been honored in some particular way and I have not, and you have not. When someone else gets the promotion. When someone else receives the compliment. When someone else earns the "A." Those are always times where we sort of arrive at a fork in the road and I can choose, "OK. Someone else is getting the 'plus' and I'm not." I can choose at that moment to trust God more and say, "Lord, even though I kind of wanted that signal (whatever it is), and even though it went to someone else . . ." (I am kind of upset that I've never gotten to be Pope. That does bother me. They keep giving it to these other people and . . . you know what I mean? I'm trying to work that through . . .) What do you do when the promotion, or the spotlight, goes to someone else--not you? Well, that's a chance either to say, "Well, Lord, I'm going to trust you in this." We choose to trust God more or we choose to trust God less.
God does not disregard Cain. It's just that because Cain becomes hostile, now God's communications with Cain have to sort of come through, have to penetrate through, the animosity. So the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen? If you do right . . .") See, it is not the case that God has turned His back on Cain. You know, God is hanging in there with Cain, but because of Cain's response to the fact that favor has fallen to his brother and not to him, his suspicious, and hostile, and resentful attitude has to be dealt with by God. So God says, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? Hang in there. And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door. You have to master it. You're about to go out of control." Well, the next verse: Cain says, "Let's go out to the field." And while they're out in the field, Cain kills his brother Abel--the first recorded murder in Scripture.
And let me simply say that we want to understand that in as much as verse 17 (several verses later) verse 17 tells us Cain built a city, that Cain went out into the world, he receives God's judgment. The first mention of building a city goes to the first murderer, and this is a fascinating point and a very important one in Western Civilization's political thought. Our tradition of political philosophy, of political science down through Western Civilization, has always made a lot of the fact that first there was a murder, and then a city was founded. If you'll let me, Hannah Arendt, in her book On Revolution, sums up that entire tradition in this way:
That is, she's just saying that within Western tradition, the understanding has been that civilization rests on murder. You know--that first there was the killing and then after that a civil society came into be.
Now let's apply that to America at the present time. America is the world's one superpower at the present time. America has no rivals whatsoever at the present time. And I would just submit to you that once we get to this place--once we get to the place where we are now the world's one superpower--it's too late to try to pretend that we're Switzerland. We can fool ourselves into thinking that we're Switzerland if we want to, but we're not. It's too late for America to go the way that Switzerland has gone. We are far, far, far too powerful for that. You might want to fool yourself into thinking, "America could be like Switzerland . . ." None of our enemies think that we're like Switzerland! They know that we're not. They know that we are the world's one superpower. We're talking in some cases . . . And, excuse me. Let me say I would never say that America does not have room for improvement. And because of the double-negative, let me restate that: I would say that America does have room for improvement. We have made terrible blunders, and if we simply start talking about foreign policy gestures with respect to the Middle East in the last 50 years, we have made some terrible blunders.
But if you think that's sufficient for explaining 9/11, for instance, the Bible has a word for you. There are some jealousies, and hatreds, and antagonisms that are deserved, it's true. However, there are also jealousies, antagonisms, hatreds, and murders that are not deserved. That the other person did not bring on himself. Would you be comfortable if I said, "Your Honor, Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon, and it's all John Lennon's fault. Because of the bad things John Lennon did, that's why my client Mark David Chapman had to shoot him five times on the sidewalk in New York City." You'd think I was nuts if I said that! (Or you'd think I was an attorney . . . but that's another matter . . . We won't go there right now . . .)
By the same token, there are times where a person, a group, or a nation is hated and that hatred is not deserved. And what the Bible offers us is a perspective with more nuance than I think some of the perspectives abroad at the present time. The Bible gives us a perspective with more colors on the palette, so that we are able to make finer distinctions, and we're able to approach making a distinction between hatreds that are deserved and hatreds that are not deserved. And I submit to you that one major reality that America is facing at the present time is that just as Cain hated Abel for no reason other than Abel was receiving God's favor and Cain hated it. He hated it enough that he killed his brother.
Just as that is true, there are people today who hate you and me for no reason other than that we are the recipients, as a nation, of incredible blessings from the Lord's hand. And they hate that. (Now, again, we could all agree on this and say, "Nevertheless, the war against Iraq is wrong." You could say, "We can't afford it." I mean, there's all sorts of discussions that need to go on with respect to particular conflicts.) But let's not be so naive as to say somehow or other we brought this all on ourselves.
Why would I even say that? Well, it's because very quickly after 9/11--we all know this--educational institutions and teachers associations began recommending that American students take a crash-course on Islam and on Middle Eastern studies. It's like, "Obviously, if people in the Middle East hate us enough to steal our airplanes and crash them into our buildings, obviously we have a misunderstanding. So we need to learn more about the religion of Islam, then after we know more, then we won't have misunderstandings like this." I'm sorry. There are hatreds that have to do with misunderstanding. There are hatreds that have nothing to do with misunderstanding.
And in the same way, some of our media outlets right after 9/11 began putting on programs that said, "What did we do wrong to make them hate us so much?" Did you hear any of those programs? Yes? "How is America at fault that we brought on this murderous hatred against us?" I'm submitting to you that there is an incredible moral insensitivity to ask such a question, and that what reading the Scripture helps us understand is: Yes, we've got faults that we need to admit. Yes, we've made mistakes that we need to stop making. But that doesn't explain the situation that we're in right now. The situation that we're in right now is the result of murderous jealousy because people who want--and let me just be very precise--Islamic extremists that want to take over the world and remake the world in their image (like the Taliban was able to do for a while in Afghanistan)--that group looks at all our power and they hate it that we have that power and they don't, and so they want to kill us.
So here's what I'm saying: Once you become the world's one superpower, it's too late to be a dove in the maximum meaning of the term, which is to say, "Oh, we're going to be Switzerland. We're not going to participate in any conflicts." By the time you get this much power, that is not an option. America right now has two options. Not a dove. If you want a bird, let me tell you one, OK? We're either going to be a soaring eagle or we're going to be a sitting duck.
Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your Word which is our light in darkness. Lord, we ask that yes, indeed, your Word would increase our moral sensitivity, Lord, that you would cause us to have your sense about the challenges we face. Lord, we ask that you would cure us of the naivete and the confusion that we hear espoused in some quarters. Lord, we ask that you would make us realistic as your Word to us is realistic. And it's in the strong name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Interim Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota
[Transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship service on April 6, 2003.] |
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