Shame, Sin & the Mercy of God (New Beginnings UMC)

We are back in Genesis today and walking through the Bible,

Genesis chapter 4. And we've just as a reminder,

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

the last time we were in Genesis, we were in chapter 3,

which was the fall Adam and Eve deciding to ignore God's

instruction. God said there's one tree in the

garden you can't eat the fruit from.

That's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And they ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil. And just as God promised death

enter the world, God said you will surely die if you eat fruit

from this tree. And now we get to Genesis

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 and we see another way in which God's promise is being

fulfilled and carried out. Cain and Abel have been born,

Adam and Eve's first two children, and there is rivalry

between them. And thank you, John, for reading

that. We're going to read some more of

that story and some other portions of it as we go on here.

But we're going to focus today really on this aspect of shame,

mercy and shame, shame, sin and the mercy of God.

I want to review the story though, as we do it because this

is one of those stories that it's this is one of those

stories. Even folks that have no church

background have often heard something about Cain and Abel

and something about how Cain killed his brother Abel.

And it's easy to miss some significant things when we

overhear a story. Sometimes it's also easy to miss

some miss some significant things when we don't catch the

cultural nuances that are embedded in a story.

And those are the easiest to miss because our eyes don't even

see those sometimes unless we get help from people that have

those same eyes. And the ancient Near Eastern

culture and which these stories were first written down as very

different and it was told even before they were written down is

very different than 21st century American culture.

And so we're going to look at a couple of those things today.

But we know this. We know Cain was born and Eve

rejoiced. God has helped me make a man.

And then Abel was born and that's all we know about Abel

really. His name Abel and, and his name

means nothing. And well, his name means

something, but the something that his name means is nothing.

His name literally means nothing.

Imagine that legacy from your parents.

Here's Cain, this man, this fruit of this what?

Cain got all the honor, Cain got all of the glory, and Abel

literally was nothing to them. And then they reached a time, we

don't know how long it had passed, but at some point in the

course of time, Cain and and Abel brought an offering to God.

And God looked with favor upon Abel and his offering and did

not look with favor upon Cain and his offering.

And this, this notion of looking with favor on is anytime we see

in the Old Testament and much of the New Testament and we see

looking on someone or something, or a description of a person's

face being torn toward or away from someone or something, we're

in the realm of honor and shame. You've heard of saving face and,

and gaining face and keeping face.

And what people did with their faces was to give or deny honor

to another human being. So when God looked with favor

upon Abel and his offering, God was giving honor and glory to

Abel, sharing his own honor and his own glory with Abel.

And when God wouldn't even look at Cain's, and Cain and his

offering wouldn't even look at him, God was casting shame upon

Cain and his offering. He was dishonouring him.

He was denying Cain and his offering glory.

Why, why, why did God accept Abel and his offering and reject

Cain and His offering? We don't know for sure, but

there are and there are a number of different theories.

As I've looked and studied and prayed through this, I'm going

to give you the one that I think makes the most sense given what

the Scripture says. And what the scripture says is

this. And again, it's subtle, but I

think it's there. Now.

Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil.

In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of

the soil as an offering to the Lord.

So in the course of time, Cain brought some stuff that he grew

and gave it to God. That's the description of Cain's

offering. The description of Abel's

offering is very different. Abel also brought an offering

fat portions from some of the first born of his flock.

Now the law, later when we get the law hundreds of years after

this, when God gives the law to his people, the Israelites

through Moses, and God describes when you bring me offerings,

this is what you need to bring. None of that had happened yet.

That law was not the only rule that we even know of.

The only commandment that we even know of at this point is

God saying to Adam and Eve don't eat from the fruit of the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil.

That law, that command that already been broken, they were

cut off from that. That was done.

That was done and was still having its impact and continues

to have its impact. Yet Abel somehow, in his heart

and in his spirit and in his attitude, reflected the very

thing that God later said is what he wanted explicitly.

When you bring me an offering, bring me the best, Bring me the

first fruits. That was what the law became.

Whether it's a grain offering or an animal sacrifice, bring me

the 1st and the best of what you have.

And that's what Abel brought. He brought some of the first

born of his flocks and he brought the best portions of the

first born, the fat portions. Abel offered God the best that

he had. Cain offered God some of what he

grew. There's a very, there's a huge

gulf in difference between those those two things.

Abel was showing God had priority in his life, that

honoring God and worshiping God and glorifying God was central

and important. And so he gave to God some of

the best of what he had and the first of what he had received.

Cain at some point in time just gave God some of stuff that got

some of the stuff that he had received.

We don't know that it was the best, probably wasn't, or we

would have been told that like we were told that of Abel's.

There is with Cain a sense that there's no real priority here.

There's no real importance here. Maybe he was giving to God out

of a sense of duty rather than a sense of love.

Maybe it was an obligation that he felt he had to do and he

resented it. So well, if I've got to give

something to God, you know, I'm just going to give enough to get

by, but not enough to really be a sacrifice for me.

I think that's what was going on here.

Abel was honoring God by giving the best of what he had to God.

And so God honored Abel with his favor, with his glory, and Cain

dishonored God, so God dishonored Cain.

Now here's the thing. Shame in our culture.

Shame in our culture has become an incredibly toxic thing, and

it's used almost exclusively to punish.

It's used punitively. We talk and hear a lot about

cancel culture these days, and cancel culture is all about

shame. You find one shameful thing that

a person has done in their past, and you pummel them with it.

You cut them out of any influence.

You cut them out of any status. You cut them out of any group

where they might receive honor and respect.

You humiliate them and degrade them.

And you just keep doing that. And there's no recovering from

it now. Millennials aren't the people

and you know, aren't they didn't invent shame.

And the the term cancel culture is new, but this process is not

new. Human beings have been doing

this for generations, using shame punitively to punish

people and cut them out and, and, and shun them sometimes for

the rest of their lives. God never uses shame that way.

God only ever uses shame to restore people, to say to

people, look, this is not good. This violates the standards of

community that I want to create. And so if you're going to behave

this way, I'm going to turn away from you.

But it's always with the invitation to come and be

restored. And that's what God did for

Cain. Cain, when God rejected him,

when God shamed him, dishonored him, Cain then received that

with anger. We're told Cain was angry and

his face was downcast. This is a sign of shame.

A downcast face in the Scripture is a sign of shame.

And God, Cain, it's as if Cain is saying, God, if you're not

going to look at me, I'm not going to look at you.

You're going to turn away from me.

I'm going to turn away from you. But God wouldn't turn away from

Cain, not completely. And he came.

God's heart was for Cain to come to him, Say, God, what have I

done? How can I be restored to your

honor, restored to your grace, restored to the right status in

my relationship with you? But Cain just got angry and

turned away, and God went to Cain.

Why are you angry? Why are you downcast?

Why are you refusing to look to me?

All you have to do is do what's right and it will go well for

you. You'll be restored to honor.

You too will receive my glory. But if you do, what's wrong?

Sin is right there, and it wants to rule over you.

It wants to master you. It wants to dominate and control

your life. But you must master it and

control it. It was invitation came come back

to me, do things my way. But this doing what's right,

this doing what's right. The key thing here is that that

doing what's right in this context is not following the

rules. It's not there.

As far as we know, there are no rules for him to follow it.

We don't know what if God gave any rules about offerings?

We don't we, we were not told about it at this point.

So God isn't saying to Cain, if you be a good boy and follow the

rules, then I will be nice to you.

But if you're a bad boy and don't follow the rules, then I'm

not going to be nice to you. That's not what God is saying

the word right here. The root of that is

righteousness. And righteousness is not

primarily or even mostly about following moral or religious

rules. Righteousness is about right

relationship. Got to say, Cain, if you will

live in right relationship with me and right relationship with

others, then things will go well with you.

But you haven't been living in right relationship with me.

You've been treating me like a duty, like an obligation, like I

don't really matter and the first and most important thing

in your life God is saying is to have right relationship with me.

Cain had had all of the glory and his family.

He'd had all the glory and Abel had nothing.

Abel was nothing. And now Abel had the glory and

Cain was feeling like nothing and he was angry and he wanted

his glory back. And God was saying the best way

for you to get glory is from me. Just come to me, honor me, and I

will share my glory with you. I will share my honor with you,

live and write relationship with me and others, and I will give

you all the glory you need. But Cain had a different plan.

He was not interested in being restored by God.

He was not interested in receiving glory from God.

He wanted to achieve his own glory.

That was King's plan. He wanted to do it his way.

Does that sound familiar? Adam and Eve wanted to do it

their way. Now their son Cain wants to do

it his way. And his way to gain glory for

himself was to defeat his rival, his brother Abel.

If I kill Abel, then I've overthrown my enemy.

His glory is now my glory. And that's what he did.

I think that's extreme. People don't do that.

Yes, they do. Yes, we do.

We do. We do.

We do. We try as hard as we can so

often to achieve glory in our own lives.

The easiest place to see this is in sports.

It's easiest place. Who gets all the glory?

The teams that win. Who gets all the shame?

The teams that lose. Sadly, I'm a Browns fan.

I've learned a lot about shame over the past decades of my life

and a Reds fan. Also a lot of shame over the

past decades. Every year.

Every year, I wish I I stopped short of praying for it.

Even at a young age, I kind of knew God isn't interested in

hearing my prayers for the Browns or the Reds to win, but I

wish for the Browns to humiliate the Steelers every year.

Every year. It's so seldom happens.

It's so seldom happens. I was on.

I played sports in high school. Our teams were terrible. 8th

grade, my basketball team lost every game.

We got beat 66 to 16 in one game.

I missed 14 free throws that game, which was all of the free

throws I took. We were terrible.

It was embarrassing. We were humiliated.

We were humiliated. The way to get honor, the way to

get glory. You win it by beating your

opponents. And in the world of sports now,

even college sports, that brings honor, it brings glory, it

brings wealth, it brings power, it brings influence, It brings

more wealth that glory of winning, of defeating your

opponents. And we know with all of that

money at stake, even when there's not even down at Youth

League sports, we see people cheating, we see people bending

the rules, we see people doing just so they can so that their

kid can win glory over someone else's kid out on a baseball

diamond or a basketball court or a football field someplace.

You get up to the pro level sports and it just gets worse.

It just people cheat people like people bend to the rules.

We sometimes we hear about it and we know about it and then we

fingers get shaken and nothing really changes because they're

making a lot of money and they're winning a lot of glory.

And yes, I'll say it right here. The ball was deflated.

It's true. People cheat.

People cheat. John got that joke.

Thank you, John. Even violence, we don't hear

about it as much. I don't know how often we know

what occurs. The clearest example is in the

sport. We are the least likely to ever

imagine it being there as women's figure skating.

Some folks here are old enough to remember Nancy Kerrigan.

And I just drew a blank. Tonya Harding.

Thank you. I wanted to never mind who.

I wanted to say another person. Tonya Harding and they were

rivals. Nancy was always a little bit

better or seemed to be doing a little bit better.

And they were heading into the US Championships to see who

would have the highest rank going into the Olympics.

And Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Galuli partnered up and

conspired with Tonya Harding's trainer, and they hired a hitman

to injure Nancy Kerrigan to keep her from competing so that Tonya

Harding would carry all the glory and all of the status and

all the favor and hope of America into the Olympics.

Didn't quite work out the way they planned, but that's Kane's

way. I'm going to get glory for

myself. Forget God's glory.

I'm going to get glory. I'm going to achieve it for

myself by defeating my enemy, no matter what the cost.

I'll stand on my brother's shoulder shoulders.

I'll stand in his blood on the ground to achieve glory for

myself. That's Cain's way.

Cain's way is the way of death. When we strive to achieve glory

and honor and respect for ourselves, we're following in

Cain's path. And that's the way of death,

because the way to achieve glory for ourselves is by conquering

our enemies. If we want to achieve glory for

ourselves, we have to take it from someone else.

We have to stand on someone else's back, put our boot on

someone else's neck to lift ourselves up and say we are

better, we are more honorable, we are more glorious than those

that are beneath me. And that's pervasive not just in

American culture, but culture throughout the world.

To achieve glory on the backs of those weaker and more

vulnerable, at any cost and at any means.

That's Cain's way, and it's the way of death.

God's way is completely different.

God's way for us to receive glory is to come to Him for us

to give our glory and our honor, our praise, our allegiance to

God, and then God will share His glory with us.

We get glory not by achieving it, but by receiving it from

God, by being adopted into His family, by being in right

relationship with Him. And God gives us His glory, and

the glory that we have is not something we've earned, not

something we've achieved, but something we've received by

being in right relationship with God.

And to be in right relationship with God, we also have to be in

right relationship with others under the old covenant, the

covenant of the New Testament, that covenant relationship with

God. God said give me the sacrifices,

show me the honor, show me the glory that I have.

That I have earned as the one who has created you, the one who

has sustained you, the one that delivered you from slavery in

Egypt, has given you this promised land.

Give me the honor and glory and praise that I have shown that I

deserve. I'm worthy of for because of all

of that. And I will give you my peace and

my prosperity and my justice. Well, my justice.

That's a partnership because part of being in right

relationship with God then as now, is in how we treat those

around us. And part of the way we honor God

is not just by the sacrifices, not just by the offerings, but

by how we treat others, particularly the weak and the

vulnerable who live among us and near us and around us.

Whether they are friends, whether they are enemies,

whether their skin is our color or another color, whether they

speak our language or another language, regardless of their

status, where we show them justice and respect and dignity

as God has shown us. And that's part of the covenant.

God says live in that right relationship with one another,

and I will share my glory with you.

You will be a light. You will be a city on a hill.

You will be glorious in this world if you honor me and treat

those around you with dignity and respect and humility.

Jesus clarified that and emphasized that there were a lot

of rules that God gave Moses for the Israelites in those days,

and Jesus narrowed it down. He said, let's keep it simple to

fulfill all the law and the prophets.

Here's what you need to do. Love God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your

strength. And love your neighbor as

yourself. Someone asked Jesus, well, who's

my neighbor? Who am I required to love in

order to receive the peace and prosperity and glory of God?

And Jesus said, well, let's think about that.

And he told a story. You know the story, you know the

story. The man was traveling from

Jericho to Jerusalem, and bandits came upon him and they

stole, they, they beat him. They left him for dead.

And they took all he had. And then the priest came by and

the Levite came by, and they didn't want to have anything to

do with this man. And then the Samaritan came by.

The Samaritan was the man's enemy.

He was a cultural enemy. He was religiously different,

culturally different, ethnically different, politically

different, morally different. The Samaritans and the Jews were

enemies. But this Samaritan stopped and

he cleaned the man's wounds and he poured wine on them to

disinfect them, and he bandaged him and he put the man on his

own beast and he took him to Jerusalem and he took him to an

end and he put him up in the end.

And he said, here, care for this man, here's the money you need.

I'll come back later. If you've spent more money than

I've given you, then I'll pay you back then, but care for him.

And Jesus said to the guy that asked him, who's my neighbor?

He said, who was that man's neighbor?

Who was neighbor to that man? The guy couldn't bring himself

to say the word Samaritan. He hated the Samaritans.

All he could bring himself to say was the one who showed him

mercy. And Jesus said, yes, you go and

do the same. Stop worrying about who is my

neighbor. Stop asking that question, Jesus

said, and start asking your question.

The question who out there can I be a neighbor too?

Who out there who do I have not? Who do I have to love, but who

is in need of love that I can share love with?

Not who do I have to show mercy, but who is in need of mercy that

I can show mercy to? Who can I be a neighbor to?

That's God's way. That's the doing right that God

was talking to Cain about honoring God above all.

And the best way to show honor to God is, is to treat others

with dignity and honor and respect.

Then we'll be doing the right thing and things will go well

for us because that's God's way, and God's way is the way of

life. God's promise to the Israelites

was Shalom, peace and prosperity.

Follow my way and I will bless you with peace and prosperity,

and you will be a light to all the nations, a blessing to all

the world. And Jesus expanded it to

everybody, not just the Israelites.

Do it God's way, do it my way. Love God with everything you

have, and your neighbor is yourself, and you will be a

light to the world. You'll be a light to the world.

My glory will make you shine. The question we then have to ask

is which way will we choose? Which way will we choose?

And that choice matters, and it matters more than just for us.

Now this is Father's Day and this, believe it or not, I

haven't said Father's yet, but this is a Father's Day sermon

and I don't want to talk to the fathers here other folks can

listen to. That's fine.

It's it's for you as well. Like the Mother's Day sermon was

for everybody, but I was kind of talking to the moms Father's Day

sermon. It's for everybody when I'm

going to talk to the dad. We leave a legacy by whether we

do right or do wrong as God defines those things.

Adam and Eve abandoned their right relationship with God and

did things their way, and they left a legacy to Cain that he

was carrying on God. Even as God was punishing Cain

for murdering his brother, God was casting him out of his

presence, was denying him the fruit of the land.

And Cain said anyone who finds me will know that I'm no longer

under your protection and they will kill me.

And God said, no, you forfeited your right to be in my presence,

but you are still mine. I will put my mark on you so

that folks will know you're still under my protection.

You still belong to me. Cain.

Even at that point, God was showing mercy.

Cain left a very different kind of legacy, the legacy of his own

way, the way of death. We read a few verses down in

Genesis chapter 4 and we come to 1 of Cain's descendants.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

Lamech. I counted it out the other day.

I should have written it down. I thought I'll remember.

I don't remember. He's either Cain's great, great,

great grandson or great, great, great, great grandson.

I don't remember. It's a few greats in there,

maybe 5 greats, 3 to 5 greats. It's in there that range

someplace. We read this about Lamech.

Lamech had two wives, Ada and Zilla, and Lamech said to his

wives Adah and Zilla, listen to me wives of Lamech, hear my

words. I have killed a man for wounding

me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged 7 times, then

Lamech 77 times. Cain left his descendants a

legacy of death, a legacy that says if you want honor and

glory, you achieve it by overthrowing your enemies.

Someone hurts that you, you kill them.

Someone wounds you, you kill them.

You never take second place. You never accept dishonor or

disgrace. You achieve for yourself the

honor and glory, all the honor and glory that you can,

regardless of the cost to those around you.

This was a legacy. This is not an accident.

Friend of mine, a woman I very much respect, name is Kimberly

Butler, taught me about what some people call generational

curses. Have you heard of that before?

You can use a lot of different language to describe it, but

look in your own family trees and your own family histories up

and down and look for repeated broken, dysfunctional behavior,

things that you know, my grandparents struggled with that

and my parents did that and doggone and I'd do it and I'm

seeing it my kids now. I can see that stuff in my

family worrying is one of mine. I wear my mom was a warrior, my

grandmother was a warrior. I have parents, grandparents on

both sides that are warriors. There's some more in city.

Well, that's pretty insidious where he does a lot of damage.

I can look through some of my family history and see alcohol

and drug addiction repeated in one generation after another.

I can see that that's not an accident.

That's how sin works. It it it once it gets a hold of

us, we pass it on. God described it for us this way

in Exodus chapter 20 when he was trying to instruct his children,

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

his people, on what a high priority they needed to keep God

in their lives to make God the first priority.

And one of the things that God said was this.

He said, for I the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing

children for the sin of their parents.

To the third and 4th generation of those who hate me now, this

is not God being petty. This is not God saying you broke

the rules and I'm mad at you and I'm going to punish you and I'm

going to punish your kids and your grandkids and your great

grandkids and your great, great grandkids.

God is saying that sin gets passed on when we choose,

particularly when we choose to deliberately go our own way

rather than God's way in whatever aspect of our lives.

We pass that on to our children and our grandchildren and our

great grandchildren and so on. And it just keeps repeating

itself. And it can go way beyond 3 or 4

generations because every generation that repeats it, it

bumps it out more generations after that.

We can leave a legacy of sin, men, women to but it's Father's

Day. Amen to our children.

We can leave a legacy of sin that lasts for generations, or

we can leave a legacy of righteousness.

And this is what God says about that.

Punishing children for the sin of their parents.

To the third and 4th generations of those who hate me but showing

love to 1000 generations of those who love me and keep my

commandments When we choose, and this is the God said to Cain,

you've got a choice. You can choose to go your own

way to a try to achieve your own glory, or you can choose my way.

If you choose my way, that's the way of life.

If you choose the other way, that's the way of death.

And you're going to pass that on.

And generation after, choose my way, choose life.

Choose this way of life where you're not striving to achieve

your own glory, but instead you're striving to love me, and

you're striving to show dignity and honor and respect to

everyone you encounter. And I will give you my glory.

I will share that with you. And you will shine like a city

on a hill. You'll have so much glory.

And that blessing, that blessing will go for 1000 generations.

God's life always overwhelms and overshadows any curse, any

legacy of sin and death. Always.

So which will we choose? Spoiler alert, the best we can

do is mix it. You know, we all mess up.

We all have legacies of sin from our parents.

We all have broken and dysfunctional behavior that we

repeat. And because I'm convinced that I

would be a much better dad now than I was in my 20s and in my

30s, that ain't going to happen. That ain't going to happen.

I still wouldn't be a perfect dad though.

I still have things that are things that I do poorly and do

wrong that I would pass on. But I see my boneheadedness and

some of my kids decisions and behaviors and attitudes and

actions and they recognize it too.

They have they're more aware of it than I was at their age and

and they know where it came from and they tell me we got this

from you, Dad. Yeah, my fault.

But we can choose good as well. We can choose righteousness as

well with the promise and the hope that the righteousness that

we live by being in right relationship with God and others

will be a blessing to our kids and our grandkids for 1000

generations, which sometimes in Scripture, when we see that

#1000 it just means forever. Which way will we choose?

Let's choose the mercy of God, the way of God showing love.

And I, instead of looking at our brothers and saying I'm not my

brother's keeper, they're nothing to me.

They don't matter to me, they're nothing to me.

We look at our brothers and our sisters and our neighbors both

near and far, and our friends and our enemies, and we say I

have a responsibility to love them and show them, to show them

compassion and mercy and give them dignity.

That's God's way, that's God's way, and that's the way of life

in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.