Of God and the Sinner

The question is: does sin destroy our relationship with God?

That is what we were taught.

I want to examine another way of looking at this. I go to the first book of the Bible, Genesis, to the story of Cain and Abel. Who or what is this God who speaks inside Cain?

In the background of this story are these two brothers, Cain and Abel, who were living close to each other, but they had different ways of making a living. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. And that created competition and conflict. That is the age-old formula for misunderstanding, even violence: the cowboy rancher and the nomad Indian, the rancher who wants an open range and the farmer who wants to fence the land, the oilman and the environmentalist.

Both Cain and Abel made plans to thank God for their success. Their tradition was to select the best things they had, build an altar, and burn the gifts. The smell of the smoke wafting upward would be a sign that God was pleased with their gifts.

Smoke from Abel’s altar, fuelled by the fat of a yearling lamb, went straight up into the sky. Cain’s offering of vegetation was not so fortunate. The smoke stayed on the ground, burned Cain’s eyes and choked him.

Cain was more than disappointed. He was angry. His best was just not good enough. He resented Abel. Resentment turned to anger, then into bloody thoughts. God spoke inside Cain. “Cain, what is the problem? That smoke has nothing at all to do with how pleased I am with your offering. Don’t let it eat at you. Your thoughts against your brother are not right. Get over it.”

But Cain could not get rid of the wicked thoughts, and when opportunity offered, he killed his brother, thinking that getting rid of the sight of him would make him feel better. Not so. God did not let Cain off the hook.

“Hey, Cain, where is your brother?”

“How should I know? I am not his nurse.”

“Come on, Cain. Own up to it. I know perfectly well what you have done. Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the place in the field where you buried him.”

What does this tell us? Did God write Cain off the good book? Did God abandon Cain? Not at all. God still considered Cain worth loving. God is still there, talking to him. In fact, nowhere in the story is there any reference to God speaking inside Abel!

The story illustrates that sin, even a wicked thing like cold-blooded murder, does not break our relationship with God. God still loves and cares for the sinner. But it does change things. Cain has to face his sin, admit his wrongdoing, and he can no longer stay in his place of comfort. He has to change, to move.

The story goes on to say that Cain was the ancestor of many generations. The story does not tell us how many of his progeny learned Cain’s lesson, and how many did not.

So what can we take away from this way of reading the Cain and Abel account? First of all, it is a story, not necessarily a factual account of any incident that really happened. The story is universal in its truth, in its teaching about our relationship with God, however we think of God, whether as a personal being somewhere outside us, or whether God is anything like a superhuman being who rewards us for our good deeds and punishes us when we falter.

Whatever. The idea behind the story is that God loves us come what may, do what we might, is always present. The difficult thing is to recognize the voice of God from an unexpected direction. God speaks to us in many ways, most clearly and personally right inside each one of us. Some might want to call it conscience, but it is bigger than that. Conscience can be formed and trained and misguided through education. The voice of God inside is much, much deeper.

Cain heard it and acted against what he clearly heard. The voice of God did not disappear. We can choose to ignore the voice. We can try to silence it by cluttering our minds with other thoughts. But it can never be completely silenced.

What signs do we use to tell us that we are good people? Money? Like “God gave me my money.” Whether we have money or some other external sign of success has nothing to do with our relationship with God. It is how we feel deeply inside about our personal worth before God. There, and only there, is personal salvation.