On Cain and the Inner Exclusion
In the world of Urban ministry, we take our cues from the legacy of John Perkins and the Christian Community Development (CCDA) movement, spearheaded in the 1960s and brought to the urban centers of North America for decades of turning urban blight into blessing. Some common lingo we use are the "Three R's" of community development: Relocation, Redistribution, and Reconciliation. This last concept is one that warrants quite a bit of discussion, since it takes on an obviously spiritual dimension apart from the others, whose criteria can be discussed in the latest socio-political and economic terms. Reconciliation is the third leg of this essential recipe for long-term sustainable transformation in a community, and is surely needed as we still reel in the aftermath of racist incidents in our so-called "post-racial" society.
While this myth shatters, it is important for me to look for the sources that lead to the conditions that affect many dimensions of our lives, but most especially the vulnerable lives of those in high-risk neighborhoods in the city. As a Christian, it is important for me to be rooted in a biblical understanding of the work we do and the context which shapes these communities. Since the city's problems are many, and we are not satisfied dealing with cosmetic treatment or management of the symptoms of urban decay, I must search in the origins of our sin not long after the first episode of rebellion in the Garden. We go further into the wilderness, east of eden, to the original horizontal rupture that manifests in our suffering even in our own day.
Although Cain and Abel are the mythological constructs of the Israelite and near-Eastern cultures that influenced them, they are icons of our humanity (Please look for an upcoming post on my views on biblical inerrancy, truth, and authority soon if you need me to clarify what I mean by mythological). One of the most helpful commentaries on this passage is Miroslav Volf, a Croatian theologian who grapples with the question of reconciliation and fratricide in the context of the violence in the Balkans in the 1990s and the genocide of his own people at the hands of Serbian militant groups.
He writes a chilling analysis of the passage regarding Cain, Abel, and their protective God. He describes humanity's narrative as inhabiting both brothers, and both outcomes, both murderer and murdered:
Volf posits that the much discussed "mark of Cain" is not given out of shaming condemnation, much like a biblical Scarlet Letter, but rather as a protection. In doing so, "God did not abandon Cain to the cycle of exclusion he set in motion (Volf 98). If we are pained to learn of our remarkable capacity to exclude and alienate through violence and placing values on unavoidable differences, how much more remarkable is the grace of a God who still extends his kindness unto his children.
May He speak to our present situation when we find ourselves, Cain and Abels, Zimmermans and Martins, and all who find themselves on opposite sides of the tracks, in need of comfort.
While this myth shatters, it is important for me to look for the sources that lead to the conditions that affect many dimensions of our lives, but most especially the vulnerable lives of those in high-risk neighborhoods in the city. As a Christian, it is important for me to be rooted in a biblical understanding of the work we do and the context which shapes these communities. Since the city's problems are many, and we are not satisfied dealing with cosmetic treatment or management of the symptoms of urban decay, I must search in the origins of our sin not long after the first episode of rebellion in the Garden. We go further into the wilderness, east of eden, to the original horizontal rupture that manifests in our suffering even in our own day.
Although Cain and Abel are the mythological constructs of the Israelite and near-Eastern cultures that influenced them, they are icons of our humanity (Please look for an upcoming post on my views on biblical inerrancy, truth, and authority soon if you need me to clarify what I mean by mythological). One of the most helpful commentaries on this passage is Miroslav Volf, a Croatian theologian who grapples with the question of reconciliation and fratricide in the context of the violence in the Balkans in the 1990s and the genocide of his own people at the hands of Serbian militant groups.
He writes a chilling analysis of the passage regarding Cain, Abel, and their protective God. He describes humanity's narrative as inhabiting both brothers, and both outcomes, both murderer and murdered:
The initial problem of the story is the formal equality and common belongings (brothers with complementary vocations) in relation to the inescapable difference of being first and second, rich and poor, honored and despised, regarded and disregarded. From the outset, all human relations are fraught with the tension between equality and difference in the context of which the relation between the self and the other has to be negotiated. Outside the Garden of God rivalry sets in which drives the protagonists even further "east of Eden" (Genesis 3:24, 4:16). Since human work is threatened with failure, since value tags are inescapably placed on differences, and since recognition can be given or withheld by the ultimate judge, the self will engage in a struggle as it seeks to maintain its identity and attempt to assert itself over at the expense of the other. This tendency opens itself to the land of exclusion, a place in which exclusions are perpetuated and the excluding ones themselves live excluded--though never from the continued care of God. (Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Abingdon: 1996, p. 94-95)
Volf posits that the much discussed "mark of Cain" is not given out of shaming condemnation, much like a biblical Scarlet Letter, but rather as a protection. In doing so, "God did not abandon Cain to the cycle of exclusion he set in motion (Volf 98). If we are pained to learn of our remarkable capacity to exclude and alienate through violence and placing values on unavoidable differences, how much more remarkable is the grace of a God who still extends his kindness unto his children.
May He speak to our present situation when we find ourselves, Cain and Abels, Zimmermans and Martins, and all who find themselves on opposite sides of the tracks, in need of comfort.
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