Texts: Genesis 4: 1-16; Matthew 2: 13-23
In the National Gallery of Art there is an enormous painting by Peter Breughel the Elder depicting the slaughter of the innocents. Mothers are screaming and crying, unable to save their children from Herod's soldiers. Some try to place themselves in front of their children targeted for death; others are running with their babies in their arms. One mother in particular stands out. She is sitting in stunned disbelief trying to cradle the dead child in her lap. Her face does not show horror because she simply cannot believe it is true, that they have killed her child.
Lucia, a refugee from the El Salvador of the eighties told me about her daughter killed by bombs as she and her family tried to hide in the jungle. The army, the one we paid for, had come through Arcatao, killing anything and anyone they “suspected” of being a guerrilla. As one soldier responded to a question I had posed about killing women and children, “We only killed them if they were guerrillas.” So Lucia bundled up her five children and headed towards the Honduran border, several miles away. Planes bombed the roads they used forcing them into the jungle. The planes, the ones we paid for during Reagan's presidency, napalmed the jungles. And the little girl, just two years old, died. Obviously a communist sympathizer. Lucia isn't angry, just troubled that the little girl's spirit will wander the earth since she didn't even have time to bury her because she had to keep the other children together.
This past week a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against New Jersey’s gun legislation. Goodness knows, we certainly should be able to carry our guns into churches, schools, not to mention bars and trains. The complainants stated that under the new rules of “sensitive locations, they were unable to carry their guns in most places. What a terrible shame. And the idea that a person could prohibit guns on his or her own property – terrible. How many more must die from senseless gun violence?
Murder is as old, of course, as Cain and Abel. We can approach this text as a folk tale for the origin of murder. But, in this murder, there is something even more ominous, namely that brother is killing brother. The American Civil War was not the first war wherein brothers killed brothers or had such murderous rage towards each other that they made sure the other was dead – or at least non-threatening. From the Robin Hood stories, many of us know of the enmity of John, called Lackland, because as the fourth child, inherited lands were not available to him, against his brother, King Richard the Lionhearted. Bitter over the fact that Richard did not give him Aquitaine in France, John was still angry in spite of the fact that Richard gave him vast estates when he assumed the throne in 1189. John's thirst for power resulted in his refusal to ransom Richard when he was held by the Germans upon his leaving his crusades in the Holy Land.
Less well known is the battle for power fought between Frederick Ii, Elector of Saxony, and his brother Duke William of Wetlein, which resulted in a full scale war from 1446 to 1451, ending in a truce that left both sides where they were when they started. Most sibling conflicts did not mean full scale wars as in this case, but usually just the murder of one sibling by another. Elizabeth I lived her early life in fear of her older sister Mary who held the power of life and death over her.
We create myths of heroism to justify the loss of our children to violence and war. Nationalist myths like the Battle of Blackbird Hill, which told of Serb loss to the Ottomans, are used to justify the oppression of other ethnic or religious groups. The Israeli expansionists use their so-called vision of restoring David's kingdom to justify building settlements on the West Bank that put their own children directly into harm's way. The Sunni and Shia divisions in Islam have less to do with theological differences than with ancient infra-familial struggles resulting in treachery and murder.
Although most such battles do not resemble the fratricide one finds in the Godfather films, they often play out in inheritance battles over money or property or both, which often substitute for the lack of parental approval. These battles are, of course, no less civilized in the destruction of relationships, if they ever existed in the first place.
But, back to Cain and Abel. Artists throughout the centuries have portrayed their images in various ways. Paintings of them as children show the older Cain pushing the younger Abel in an attempt to explain or foretell Cain as an evil and murderous person; other paintings portray Cain as dark and swarthy with Abel looking like a young Scandinavian without his skis. The monumental paintings by Titian, woodcuts by Leyden, and poetry by Rilke speak to the deep revulsion we feel or profess to feel at fratricide. In his poem on Cain and Abel, John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, has the following lines: Like him [i.e., Cain], the way of grace we slight/and in our own devices trust/call evil good, and darkness light/and hate and persecute the just.
The Genesis text provides the deepest question for us in Cain's response to God's question to Cain: “Am I my brother's keeper?” This is the question we all face, of course. Our societies are constructed on the very premise that we have responsibilities towards each other, not just to refrain from murder but to create societies free from the scourge of violence. We talk about people behaving as animals but animals do not kill except in their search for food or to protect themselves from a predator. The violence that inhabits our world is human created and we must own up to our complicity in such violence if in nothing more than our silence in its face.
The culture of violence goes well beyond guns, however; it includes bullying and the refusal of people to accept those who live among us as our neighbors and worthy of respect. Overcoming violence also includes finding alternative and creative ways to resolve disputes within the communities where we live.
These stories from Scripture serve as parables for our time for they show us the consequences of anger and, rage, not to mention the fear of losing power. The more we are able to learn to engage in power sharing, the less fearful we become as a people. Of course, there is clearly a problem when others are unwilling to accept new models of behavior; however, as a community of faith, we can set examples for others to begin to bring an end to our dependence on violence as a solution to societal problems
Let us pray: Eternal Spirit of love and peace, help us to build communities of justice add peace so that our children will live and grow and, by your grace, serve you in your realm of peace and justice. In the name of the One who is our model, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.