If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.
(Genesis 4:7)

It might be said that the fourth chapter of Genesis is part of the preface to the Bible. A preface is, of course, that part of a book that explains what's to come. To put it another way, the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis is the essential framing of the context of rest of the story — where to start, and how to understand what follows. If you skip the preface of the a book, you will have trouble understanding what follows.

The first chapter of Genesis gives us the origins of the world we live in and that it was created by and belongs to God. It tells us that God has made us and not we ourselves and that life is not an accident but part of an orderly plan. Genesis 2 describes the uniqueness of man, being made in the image of God which sets us apart from the rest of the universe. Genesis 3 explains what went wrong and why the world we live in is so different than our wishes and dreams. Genesis 3 also analyzes the root of evil and man's rebellion and desire to be his own god. Genesis 4 pictures the fruits of that rebellion.. In chapter 4 we learn that disobeying God has a continuing chain of consequences . Not all of these are immediate. Sometimes children reap what their parents sow.

Our story begins with the birth of two brothers. Sin had already entered God's perfect world. It came into the world at the exact point where God's sovereign rule and man's free will meet. Both sides of the equation are true. God is in control. Yet God loves us enough that he allows us room to choose to love him in return or to reject that love. Adam and Eve chose poorly, seeking to usurp that which belongs to God alone — knowing (that is to say discerning for themselves) what is good and what is evil.

Because of this rebellion, Adam and Eve no longer lived in the paradise God made for them. As a result their children were born and raised where all subsequent human families live — outside of Eden. Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden but they didn't lose hope. God had promised that someday a child would be born (the seed of the woman) who would change the course of history. He would undo the evil that had been loosed (Gen 3:15) by crushing the head of the serpent.

So mankind was never without hope. We don't know all that was going through Eve's mind. But when her first child was born, she named him Cain, a word which meant "gift (literally acquisition of blessing) from God". Eve saw her first born son as God's gift and as her solution. Perhaps she hoped he was the promised "seed of the woman" who would be the deliverer. In any event Cain's name is one that is full of hope and joy.

By the time her second child was born, Eve no longer voices that same hope. She names her next son Abel, a name related to the word for vanity — itself related to the words for vapor or mist. Eve thus previews Ecclesiastes assessment of life's futility, "vanity, vanity, all is vanity." It is in the same sense that St. James writes : "whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away." Our earthly life is here for a little while and quickly gone. It would appear that for Eve, the hope that had accompanied the birth of Cain (gift from God) had dissipated by the time the second child, Able came along. Perhaps the realities of the hardships of life had set in.

It's that way for lots of families. Remember all those pictures of baby number one. The baby book records every little detail. Grandparents and other relatives fawn over the firstborn child. Number two comes along. There are often fewer pictures and there may sometimes be less excitement when the second child comes. Part of this is that each new child is born into a larger and more complex family unit with growing time demands. By the time child number three is born, mom and dad are older, and may be somewhat worn out. They work harder and try harder to love the children equally, but the relationships are of necessity spread thinner and the younger child may feel neglected even when parents try their best to love then all equally.

Psychologists know that birth order affects personality in both positive and negative ways. No family is alike and no child is ever born into exactly the same family. A family with five children will have a different dynamic than one with one or two children.

We can but wonder how Eve's change of attitude (evidenced by their very different names) might have affected her two boys. We will never know for sure. Perhaps Cain, firstborn, grew up pampered, proud, entitled and convinced he couldn't do anything wrong. Maybe Abel felt inferior as the little brother — who believed he couldn't do anything right — the object of his parents' frustrations. We do know from scripture that Cain worked the family farm. His younger brother ended up as the shepherd — tending the sheep, which by nature must roam to forage. So we have a picture of two brothers born of the same parents and raised in the same family yet so different! They were just as different on the inside. Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, the Prodigal Son and the Elder Brother — this is not the last time we hear variations of this story.

The biblical narrative jumps forward to a time when the two brothers are grown up. The day comes when the two sons offer God sacrifice, which is the fundamental aspect of worship. In the Old Testament context, they "go to church." Worship is a fundamental need of human beings. . The need to meet God started in the garden. Sin twisted but didn't eliminate it. Men and women are still driven to believe in something bigger than ourselves. We either worship the creator, the creation, or some pathetic substitute — such as humanism or, even worse, ourselves.. We cannot believe in nothing.

It is obvious that Cain and Abel both knew that worship is hollow and empty without giving. So they each brought offerings to the Lord. Cain the farmer brought the fruit of his harvest. Abel the herdsman killed and slaughtered the first born of his flocks. He brought the best he had in worship and offered it to God. We are not told many details. We know this much. God was pleased with Abel, but not with Cain. And most importantly, Cain knew that God disfavored his offering.

Why the difference in God's response? After all, isn't all religion the same? Isn't one expression of worship just as good as another? Apparently God doesn't think so! A few possible explanations have been suggested for God's displeasure.

First, the two offerings may have represented a difference in commitment. Cain offered the fruit of his labors — an "offering". Abel sacrificed a life. There is a qualitative difference in the cost of the offerings.

In a bacon and egg breakfast the chicken makes an offering, the pig makes a sacrifice.

Remember what King David said when the Jebusite offered to give him everything he needed to make an offering to God? "I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing" (2 Sam 24:24). God delights in committed worship, in the offering of time, treasure and talent — the full use of spiritual gifts..

Second, there's another related factor. The Old Testament insists that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins... The entire Old Testament system of sacrifices (the Passover, the Day of Atonement, and the rest) was in anticipation of the true Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Throughout history God was preparing a people who understood the seriousness of sin. Sin demands life-the sinners or a substitute. A bloodless sacrifice cheapens sin. Maybe Cain was the first to try that short cut.

But God's response may have been prompted by something else. The New Testament explains the difference between Cain and Abel this way. Hebrews 11:4 says, "By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings." God rejected Cain's character as well as his sacrifice. Abel's offering was the overflow of a believing life. Cain went through the motions. His heart wasn't in it. In fact, the Rabbinical commentaries suggest that Cain offered God not the first fruits, but rather the left-overs of his harvest. The shoddy fruit. The rabbis suggested that Cain's life didn't back up his actions. God knows the difference even when others don't. 1 John 3:12 warns, "Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous."

This brings us to the third act in our story. Cain knew that God wasn't pleased. What's a person do when that happens? One response is to can own up to the problem. A person can acknowledge the error, ask for forgiveness, and pledge to do better the next time. That's what we saw last week in the story of the prodigal son. But unfortunately there is another response. Confronted with sin a person can become angry and blame God. He can also blame the righteous and lash out at them because of envy and covetousness.

The Lord offers Cain some advice. "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

In our story, Cain does not listen to God. Cain's anger takes control. When we surrender to anger we bring greater sin and judgment into our lives. Instead of recognizing his sin, he is jealous and blames Able. He invites his brother to a secluded field and commits the first cold murder in a cold blooded and premeditated manner. There is nothing rational in this. It does not solve his problem. It does not make his offering more acceptable to God. It doesn't make sense. Sin and anger never do.

God confronts him. "Where's your brother?" (Like God asking Adam if he has eaten the forbidden fruit) As if God didn't already know! "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain pleads ignorance as if the problem will go away. That's a common human strategy that we all know well. It didn't work then. It doesn't work now. Cain eliminated his brother, but he couldn't eliminate the judgment of God. He was defiant to the end. God sentenced him to exile.

Cain is unrepentant to the end. Notice how in verse 13 he complains: "my punishment is more than I can bear" and with a degree of irony, Cain the murderer fears for his own life. It is still all about Cain.

The rest of Genesis 4 tells how Cain's children and his children's children continued to walk the path of rebellion against God that Cain had blazed. In the killing of Abel by Cain, Adam and Eve lost two sons. One the victim of murder and the other exiled and estranged — becoming history's first "marked man". That is the sad story of Cain and Abel. But there's another story. This other story is a story of one who reverses the story of Cain. Thousands of years later, God kept the promise make in Genesis 3. The deliverer did come. Born of the seed of the woman, for Jesus Christ had no human father.

In this other story, in another garden, in another place, he would reverse the stain of that first garden. Instead of Cain's "my will be done" Christ prayed, "not my will but thy will be done." On one very dark Friday he offered his own life as a perfect sacrifice of blood and redemption. Three days God later raised him from the dead. To all who follow him in faith, he offers something better than Eden.

Listen to how the Bible explains our future: "But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel" (Hebrews 12:22-24).

And we all called to gratefully offer the Lord the first fruits — not the left-overs — of our time, treasure and talents. This includes our substance (the tithe), our talents (spiritual gifts as in our New Testament lesson) and our time (worship and service.)

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.