Speech Mojo

Genesis 4:1  Now Adam had made love to his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, “With the Lord’s help, I have produced a man!” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel.

     

     When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. 3 When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, 5 but he did not accept Cain and his gift. 

This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.

6 “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? 7 You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master."

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    Imagine you are the first-born of Adam and Eve.  Because your parents had free will, gave in to temptation, and disobeyed God to become like a god themselves, a sinful nature was passed on to you and future generations.
    Now your brother has gotten the favor of God over you because his gift was better?!  Your anger and resentment grows and grows.  You’ve unleashed that anger before, and it lightened the load.  You want to unleash that anger now!

     So, what are your thoughts on Cain, or Abel, or God, at this point?

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8 One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.
9 Afterward the Lord asked Cain, “Where is your brother? Where is Abel?”
“I don’t know,” Cain responded. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

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      Imagine you are so driven by anger that you strike out at your sibling.  Extra hard.  So hard that the blow from that stone or stick or shove topples him.  Whether or not you meant to crush his skull or pierce his heart or just push him down, at his fall his life is over. His life is finished, his life is over.
      You may not have known with what force you struck him.  Maybe you’ve not killed many living things in such anger before.  But your anger this time was overpowering.  This anger is still simmering.  So when God asks where is Abel, you don’t just lie.  God’s omnipotent power you sarcastically deny!  Sin’s grip on you is total, until God again speaks.

       So, what do you think?  What do you feel?

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10 But the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! 11 Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother’s blood. 12 No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.”

13 Cain replied to the Lord, “My punishment is too great for me to bear! 14 You have banished me from the land and from your presence; you have made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me!”
15 The Lord replied, “No, for I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him. 

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       Imagine the tragedy of the world’s first murder!  Imagine the mercy given to the world’s first murderer!  Cain was given the mark of protection before Adam and Eve and their other children and their own grandchildren who must have numbered in the hundreds by this time.  Certainly, Cain feared their retribution, feared their own anger that may have been unleashed on him, but for the grace of God.
       Imagine way back, many years ago, to what your own original sin may have been, a sin treated with or without mercy, a sin that was probably far from murderous, but a sin just the same.  My earliest memory of sin was not so much a striking out in anger but in blackmail.  I didn’t know what that word even meant until my mom convicted me of it.
       My younger sister Paula had played ping pong at a neighbor’s house after she’d been told not to.  The next morning Paula wanted to go to store several blocks away on her bike.  That meant Mom wanted me to also go with Paula on my bike, and I didn’t want to.
        “Paula,” I said, “if you go to the store, I’ll tell Mom about your ping pong.” Well, Mom overheard me and made me go to the store on my bike with Paula, and then, when we returned, it wasn’t Paula she made sit on the chair.  It was me she made sit on that hard chair, for hours it seemed, until Dad came home from work.  Then the mercy I was shown was that I escaped from that chair without getting a spanking.

     So, do you have any stories of original sin or mercy you feel called upon to share?