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A Sermon by The Reverend Yvonne McLean tssf
Nelson Cathedral
6pm Sunday, 3 August 2008
Readings:
Genesis 4:1 - 10
Matthew 10:17 - 22
May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Amen
It’s the evening of our Foundation Day celebrations.
Many of us have just shared a lovely meal together and now we come to Evensong for peace and reflection at the end of the day, and get two very bloodthirsty readings!
Cain kills Abel
And believers are betrayed, flogged and put to death!
Today is in fact St Stephen′s day, the first Christian Martyr.
Often St Stephens is celebrated on the 26th December.
But when I looked at the readings for this evening, I decided to stick with them.
I don′t know about you but I have never understood why God rejected Cain′s offering! So I wanted to do some research.
Cain tended the soil and produced crops.
He took some of the fruits as an offering to God.
Abel brought the first lambs and sacrificed them, giving God their fat portions,
no 97% fat free in those days!
Genesis 4:4b - 5 tells us: "And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell."
Now the books I′ve read tell me that Cain′s heart attitude was not right.
Presumably it was the attitude he had, before God rejected his offering.
But the text doesn′t explain that.
The commentaries I read told me that the purpose of Genesis 4 was to show the rapid growth and increase in sin and that sin disrupts relations between God and human beings.
Sin destroys the bond between the brothers Cain and Able.
God warns Cain in verses 6 and 7 that if he doesn′t watch out, master his anger and his attitude to Abel, then sin, like a predatory animal is waiting to pounce.
And sure enough Cain doesn′t master himself.
He gives in to anger and kills his brother.
My research did tell me that the key lies in the words some of the fruits as compared with Abel′s "Firstborn".
Cain did not give the first and the best but just some as his offering to God.
Sacrifice is only acceptable to God if it is perfect and costly and God will not be satisfied with second best.
This seems very harsh but we have to put ourselves in the mindset of the context.
The Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the bible, were written by Moses.
Not every word was his of course, namely the parts after he dies,
but they were certainly written during that time.
The sacrificial system of worship was paramount. Leviticus is full of rules and regulations about what is acceptable and what is not.
We must all concede though that to kill your brother because God accepted his sacrifice and not yours is taking sibling rivalry a bit too far.
Cain allowed his anger full reign.
He did not master his wrong attitudes.
He did not give his best to God.
Let′s take a fast trip forward in time.
Jesus has died and risen again.
Thousands have become believers.
But they are being persecuted for their faith.
St Stephen was the first Christian Martyr.
He was stoned to death by the religious leaders of the day.
The Pharisees killed their brother Jew because Stephen believed that Jesus was God′s once and for all sacrificial lamb.
Jesus had died and paid the price for all sin, for all people, for all time.
The Pharisees wanted to continue on with their present system of belief.
They didn′t want their theologies challenged, their offerings questioned.
So they responded with anger and had Stephen put to death.
The pattern continued for a further 300 years.
Believers were betrayed by their families, flogged, and killed
in many gruesome ways.
Jesus knew that this is the way that the leaders of the day would respond to the gospel, the good news. The Jews would hand their own people over to the Gentile authorities and that they would have no hesitation in taking advantage of the position.
Any time people are divided, polarized into "us and them", family against family, believer against believer then the warning of Genesis is once again fulfilled.
Wrong attitudes and unrestrained anger are sin.
And sin does disrupts relations between God and between human beings.
I have just read the Archbishop of Canterbury′s second address to Lambeth.
Rowan Williams carefully sets out what he hopes has been heard at Lambeth. His aim is to present the concerns and fears of both the "innovators" and the "traditionalists" as he terms them, and the consequences each group envisages if forced to accept the opposite viewpoint.
But his main entreaty is for us all to be found in the centre.
Not the central political viewpoint, but in the centre of Christ.
Archbishop Rowan says: "To the innovator, can we say, ‘Don’t isolate yourself; don’t create facts on the ground that make the invitation to debate ring a bit hollow’? Can we say to the traditionalist, ‘Don’t invest everything in a church of pure and likeminded souls; try to understand the pastoral and human and theological issues that are urgent for those you are opposing, even if you think them deeply wrong’
I think we perhaps can, if and only if we are captured by the vision of the true Centre, the heart of God out of which flows the impulse of an eternal generosity which creates and heals and promises. It is this generosity which sustains our mission and service in Our Lord’s name. And it is this we are called to show to each other."
Isn′t this generosity the very quality that was lacking when Stephen was stoned to death?
When Cain harboured his bitter attitudes?
which again resulted in the death of his brother.
I do not believe that we are at the point of bloodshed but I do believe that we must cultivate generosity of spirit and seek to find ourselves in the true centre, in the heart of God.
This is something that is brought about through prayer and the work of the Spirit,
The prayer of those concerned, the prayers of the worldwide church supporting our leaders and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus has promised that he will always be with us, no matter what we face.
And he has promised that the Holy Spirit will give us the words to say when the time comes for us to speak.
Our reading from St Matthew V22 ends:
"But the one who endures to the end will be saved."
For Stephen and for the martyrs of the early church, that did not mean saved from death but that they will go onto eternal life with God.
Eternal life made possible through the generosity of God in Christ.
Abel lost his life, so did St Stephen and so did the many believers who came after him.
Faithful Christians today are still being persecuted, beaten and killed.
It just doesn′t make the headlines.
Today we are more likely to see verbal massacres.
People′s reputations sacrificed for the their ability to sell newspapers.
So what has all this got to say to us today?
Today is our foundation day. We are built on Christ, our faith and our lives are founded on Christ and all he does for us.
That faith was so strong in St Stephen that he could stand still while he was being stoned to death asking God to forgive those who were killing him.
That′s just incomprehensibly amazing.
That attitude of forgiveness, of generosity to those that opposed him,
is something for each one of us to emulate.
Christ must be central to our lives,
we must seek to live in the heart of God,
seek to pray for ourselves and others and hold them in the heart of God,
we must rely on the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and trust that God will give us the words to say when we are called upon to speak.
God is still saying to us today that if we have faith in him and honour God with the actions of our lives, he will be with us every step of the journey.
We must master our temptations, not give in to anger and definitely not resort to violence against our fellow human beings; physical, emotional or verbal violence.
And we must not excuse, rationalise, or postpone dealing with
the undisciplined areas of our lives.
We are the only ones who can choose to bring about these changes in our lives.
God does not step in and stop us behaving badly but he does try to dissuade us, to speak peace to us, to call us to generosity of spirit.
Since Jesus death and resurrection we now have the Holy Spirit to help us to master ourselves and to help us when we find ourselves in difficult situations.
Abel ′s offering was acceptable to God and he was killed because his brother′s wasn′t. St Stephen stood up for his belief and was killed for it.
Thousands of early Christian martyrs met the same end,
and today Christian Martyrs still suffer for their beliefs.
Faith in Christ is not a bed of roses!
But 2000 years later our foundation is still secure.
Christ is still there for us walking beside us.
May God bless and strengthen us as we continue to offer our lives in his service, may God give us generosity of spirit,
may we be found in the centre of Christ,
and may our lives be an acceptable offering, pleasing to God.
This I pray through Jesus Christ our Lord and our foundation.
Amen.
The Reverend Yvonne McLean tssf
This sermon was written and delivered by The Reverend Yvonne McLean tssf at Nelson Cathedral, 3 August 2008 at 6pm
