It is a hard struggle to discern a sacred reality in the flawed and tragic conditions in which we live, and our experience will often be disconcerting or contradictory.My faith tradition tends to emphasize answers: Jesus is the answer, love is the answer, on the day I called, He answered me. And in previous posts I've talked about how aggressively I pursue answers.
The Bible is also really good at answers that are not what I wanted to hear, for example:
Me: "Why can't I just try harder and be better?" The Bible:"Because you're a sinner by nature; trying harder will never work." Me:"What can I do about my mistake?" The Bible:"You are going to have to apologize." Those kinds of answers are okay too, I mean once I get over the initial disappointment, because at least now I know what I'm working with.
But I've also talked about how okay I am with realizing there is no answer, and that's a space Armstrong likes to operate in. In fact, sometimes I wish she'd stay in that space more frequently; I'm very distracted by her constant references to two authors of Genesis and an editor. I think I would be similarly distracted by constant references to the "real" identity of Homer in a discussion of the Odyssey. But when she's not referencing this to my mind overly complicated and somewhat outdated interpretation of the origins of Genesis, she does something I really appreciate in a Biblical scholar: she encourages you to see what is actually there in the words themselves.
Of course other Bible commentators do the same. I've also been reading Abba's Heart. Neill Lazano discusses Luke chapter 15, where Jesus talks about the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. He talks about a shepherd who leaves 99 healthy sheep out in the open so he can go retrieve one that has wandered; he talks about a woman who spends all day looking for a coin, and then throws a party when she finds it; he talks about a man who allows his son to blow half the family legacy on partying and then welcomes him home with open arms; and he talks about them all as if they are perfectly normal people! In Sunday school we just draw pictures of shepherds carrying lambs; we don't face the fact that the behavior described is actually kind of strange. Jesus, surprise, is not teaching platitudes, and Karen Armstrong feels that Genesis also is a story that, if we are really paying attention, is meant to unsettle us.
For example, Armstrong writes about Cain: "God gave no reason for his rejection of Cain and his gift; he simply told him that he had the power to resist the surge of anger and rage rising in his heart." Not so unlike that father of the prodigal son, who had a similar message for the resentful elder brother who had always done everything right. Now, commentators and Sunday School teachers have come up with many ideas about why Cain's offering was rejected, but Armstrong is strictly correct: in the text, God does not tell Cain or us. I imagine myself opening gifts from my kids and saying, "Yeah, I'll wear this scarf, but not this other one." I would never do that, but God does, and doesn't seem to think there's a problem.
This point particularly resonates with me because I have been thinking a lot lately about the fact that in the Bible, envy is called a sin. From the Ten Commandments to the letters of Paul, wanting what someone else has, whether their cow or their position in the family, is just plain wrong. Being jealous of someone else for any reason (other than to protect monogamy) is not, in the Bible, an emotion that you need to learn to control, like anger or worry, but a sin you need to choose against. So already in the 3rd chapter of Genesis, God seems to be bringing up this point, saying to Cain: "So I liked your brother's gift better than yours. It happens. Get over it." And honestly, couldn't Cain be overreacting just a tiny bit? It's not like God said he liked Abel himself better. Cain and God were obviously still in relationship, so what was Cain's problem?
See, when you dare to see what's actually in the passage, it does make you look at the story differently. The story of Cain and Abel becomes not some kind of convoluted foretelling of the necessity of blood sacrifice for sin, but just the first of many times that life is not going to be fair, materially or relationally, and that God is trying to give us the tools to cope with that inescapable fact.
