The Way of Cain
What is the “way of Cain”? Cain is infamous for killing his
brother, but largely ignored is what drove him to the killing. Abel presented
an offering of animal fat, which involved shedding the blood of animals. Cain
decided to make up an offering from what he did: produce an offering from the
fruits of the soil.
Philosophically, I sympathize with Cain. As a
one-generation-removed-farmer, I have spent my life sharing the sweet savors of
fruit from Northern California, providing abundant fruit to friends and casual
acquaintances. I love my fruit with a passion! And I enjoy teasing my
daughters, reminding them that Revelation does talk about the fruits of the
Tree of Life, 12 to be exact, but there is no future world of vegetables. Mom’s
favorite edict: “Eat your vegetables” is not to be found in our future world. Thankfully,
says this old fella who never learned to eat vegetables for their own sake.
But Cain was evidently unaware of the insufficiency of his
offering. God accepted the offering of Abel, but that of Cain he rejected. Cain
transferred his hatred of rejection to Abel himself, whom he eventually killed.
He defended himself most infamously with the question, “Am I my brother’s
keeper?”.
So the way of Cain is the generation of people wanting to
devise their own offering to God. They compose the offering their way, with
whatever suits them, and never-mind what God wants. And it is always doomed to
failure. Anytime we rewrite the commands of God to favor ourselves, and base
our offering of worship on that basis, it is the way of Cain.
As a young Christian I used to wonder about idol worship so
prominent in the old and new testaments. I used to speculate that at last
mankind had seemed to depart from idol worship, even if they did not worship my
God.
But I came to realize it is not so. Idol worship is stronger
than ever, and many who profess Christ are guilty. Humans are quite clever.
They take the picture of God from the Bible, and find it does not quite suit
them. So they proceed to ditch the parts of the Bible they disagree with and
add the commands that they feel are warranted by a “civilized God”.
In effect they take the image of my beloved Creator and
change it to one that suits them better. Idol worship? Yes, most definitely! A
God of our making is not the I-am-God who so clearly presents himself in the
Bible. The way of Cain is a large and growing movement in our world today, making idol worship bigger than ever.
