“Where is Your Brother?”
Adapted from a sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church of Memphis, April 23, 2023.
I have three daughters, ages 5, 4 and 3. Having an almost 6 year-old with two younger sisters has taught me a lot about the perceived privilege that comes with birth order. Even though we try out best at equitable practices, there is no denying that my oldest lives in a world of firsts, and her sisters in a world of hand-me-downs.
Birth order is an interesting thing. In the early 1900s, Alfred Adler, the founder of the field of Individual Psychology, noted how birth order correlates to particular personality traits, many of which I've observed in my own family and friends. For much of the history of humanity, birth order also had significant political implications. Birth order was one determinant of your worth and your inheritance and we can see the legacy of this perpetuated even in modern day – just think about the British Royals. We know that Prince William is heir to the British throne while Prince Harry the second born is not. Prince Harry even released a book earlier this year about the politics and dynamics of birth order and how they have impacted his life entitled “Spare.”
Birth order was a big deal in in the ancient world we encounter in the Book of Genesis as well. Scholars believe that the stories in Genesis, like the one about Cain and Abel read this morning, were written during the time of King Solomon. At that time in history, birth order determined a great deal about one's lot in life. First born sons were greatly privileged, so it is significant that Cain is the older son. It tells us how he understood himself in relationship to his brother Abel. He knew he was more important.
The other thing that is important in the relationship of these two brothers is to look at their jobs. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a herdsman. At that time, Cain represented the more advanced way of life – the new world of agriculture and the mastering of the land. Abel as a herdsman or shepherd represented the life of the past, which was being displaced at the time that this story first would have been told. To quote Rabbi David Zaslow, “Cain represents humanity's first experiment at cultural advancement through the conquest of nature and private ownership of land.”
Even the young men's names have significance in the story. Cain means “acquire, create, erect or found.” Abel means “breath, air or vapor.” In reading these two names together and in looking at their jobs, we more clearly understand the relationship between these two brothers. On one hand, we have Cain – a first born son, beloved by his mother, a farmer who acquires and creates. On the other hand, we have Abel - the second born, as transient on this planet as air or vapor. We have the Cain, the privileged, and Abel, the lesser. And God looks favorably upon the offering of the lesser – a theme that we see again and again throughout our Bible.
In light of this context, we can begin to understand why Cain was so upset. He was bred and acculturated to believe in his own exceptionalism. He was the Golden Boy, the first born, the one who followed God's command to Adam to till the hard ground. And because of his belief in his own exceptionalism, he believed that God's favor was his by right. Theologian and ethicist Miguel de la Torre writes, “Privileged Cain is called upon to control his appetites, appetites that if acted on, would bring violence to the one living on his underside, the one not privileged in this world.” So when Abel hands over the best offering to God and in turn receives God's favor, he's entering territory that Cain believes is his. Cain believes that he is the most deserving of love because of his position of privilege.
So what does Cain do? How does he respond when Abel trespasses into territory that he believes is his by right? He stands his ground. The threat of losing something that he believes is his is too much for Cain and he stands his ground. Perhaps in some ways, the murder of Abel at the hands of Cain should go on record as the first “stand your ground” killing. The myth of his own exceptionalism leads Cain to claim his space, no matter the cost – and in this case, the cost is his own brother's life.
The belief in exceptionalism has potentially lethal implications, and yet it is a myth that has been perpetuated and renewed again and again throughout time. Perhaps we carry some of these myths in our own self-understandings? Were you taught that you were exceptional because you are the first born in your family? Or maybe because you are male? Were you taught that you were exceptional because you are intelligent? Or maybe you are exceptional because you are educated? Are you exceptional because you are physically attractive? Or like me, did the world around you teach, even subtly, that you exceptional because your skin is white? Are we taught to believe we are exceptional because we are American? Or Christian?
What we see in the Cain’s murder of Abel is an ancient precursor to America's stand your ground culture – the belief in exceptionalism that leads to a perception of privilege that must be guarded at all costs. In 2015, Kelly Brown Douglas an Episcopal priest and theologian published a book entitled Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. In this book, she describes stand-your-ground culture in America as the intersection of the myth of exceptionalism, cherished property, and the claiming of spaces to protect that property. While the notion of racial superiority is not present in the story of Cain and Abel because we believe they are biological brothers, the groundwork laid for the murder of Abel is similar to the ideology of stand your ground killings today.
Stand your ground laws are present in some form in 35 states here in our country, and they began receiving increased attention and scrutiny following the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin. The use of a stand your ground law as a successful defense in the acquittal of Trayvon's killer gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement. His killer’s claim of self-defense after believing that he was heroically pursuing a teenage boy who he perceived didn't belong in that particular neighborhood reminds me so much of the dynamics we've just described in Cain killing Abel. He thought that Trayvon was out of place and that which did not belong to him must be protected.
Last week, it was 16 year-old Ralph Yarl, a Black teen who went to pick up his twin siblings from a play date in Kansas City and accidentally went to a house on 115th Street instead of 115th Terrace. After ringing the doorbell, Ralph was shot through a door by an 84 year-old white man who claims he was protecting his home from an intruder. And Ralph being shot is one of at least four such shootings in the last week. Two cheerleaders were shot in Texas after one of them opened the door to the car she thought was hers. A 20 year-old woman was shot and killed in a car after her friend turned into the wrong driveway. And in Charlotte, a 6 year-old girl and her father were both shot when a basketball rolled into a neighbor’s yard.
You see, the problem with stand your ground laws is that they allow someone to use lethal force based on their own perception of danger. With what we know about implicit bias, white supremacy, the many myths of exceptionalism, and a current culture of abundant fear, it's easy to understand that allowing an individual person to decide when they have permission to kill based on their own perception of threat can be a recipe for disaster. Stand your ground culture is how we ended up with the now infamous photo from 2020 of a couple in Saint Louis standing on their lawn of their mansion pointing firearms at protesters walking past in the street – a move suggesting that a step onto their grass merits a loss of life.
This is the reality of stand your ground culture in America. We are being acculturated to be Cain in this biblical story. But here is where I take a more hopeful turn, because Lord, I always need that hopeful turn. I want to talk about this “ground” we are referring to in stand-your-ground culture. Because in our scriptural story this morning, like many stories in scripture, the ground operates as a kind of background character.
In the story, when God confronts Cain after the murder, and asks him where Abel is, Cain responds with that infamously smart alec comment, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” To this, God says, “What have you done? Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.” The ground knows what happened. The ground sees the injustice, feels it, and rejects it. The ground is on the side of God, and along with the blood of Abel is communicating to God the injustice that has taken place. Just as God instructs Moses to remove his shoes so that his feet may touch the holy ground on Mount Sinai, just as Jesus tells parables about farming in which the ground itself appears to have wisdom, the ground beneath us is on the side of God because the ground is part of God's creation.
We know that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. From chapter one of Genesis, “God called the dry land earth, and God saw that it was good.” The ground above which we exist is aligned with God. So the myth of stand your ground is that it was ever your ground. It is not your ground or my ground. It is our ground because it is God's ground. And because it is God's ground, it is a ground that rejects injustice.
And here is the best news of all. That ground that is made by God, pronounced good by God, and aligned with God, is also the ground that is the source of our being. You and me. The creation story in Genesis 2 tells us that God formed humans from the dust of the ground, breathing breath of life into our nostrils and making us living beings. We come from that ground. That ground that rejected the stand your ground murder of Abel, that's a part of us. Our culture may try to teach us to be Cain in this story, but God has made us to be the ground in this story – that character that cries out to God that injustice has taken place. So remember this. Remember where you come from.
So how will we honor that sacred ground in our words and in our actions? How will we stand upon God's ground, resisting the urge to claim it for ourselves as a justification for the myths that the world tries to teach us? How will we stand God’s ground in opposition to the a nation that invites us to “Shoot first, ask later to protect what is rightfully yours.” The Gospel text from Luke today, which tells the account of the Road to Emmaus, shows us that the Disciples meet Jesus, and recognize him only in the act of inviting a stranger to stay and eat with them. How very different this is from the stand your ground culture in which we find ourselves, where we are taught to fear the stranger.
Perhaps we are called to proclaim a new era in which “stand your ground” gives way to “standing God's ground,” a ground that is better shared by beloved creation. A ground that requires us to stand upon it while doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly together.
Stand God’s ground. Not your ground, God’s ground. May it be so. Amen.
(Photos credits Ralph Yarl’s family, Woodlands Elite Cheer Co. via CNN, Kara Fohner/AP and Chuchay Stark via ABC)
