Stop Killing Your Brother

There are two genes that I didn't get:

First is the artistic gene.

Second, the construction gene.

And while I wouldn't mind having both of those, I have found myself in situation after situation wishing I just knew how to mechanically repair and take care of things.

I mean I just can't build stuff.

There's been times where my dad was visiting my house and he would see a shelf hung up on the wall, a little disjointed to his eye, and ask, "How did you hang that up?" with a certain skepticism to his voice full well knowing what I am and am not capable of. And in a cowardice sort of shame I would have to look at him and say, "Thumb tacks..."

Its kind of ridiculous isn't it. I mean growing up, we built our house. And when I say we, I mean my dad, my mom, my brother, and the plethora of help they enlisted from friends and family. Meaning I didn't do a whole lot. I just don't have the knack for it. And while my dad loves me incredibly, there is a bit of disappointment mixed with confusion that I just can't quite figure out how to be more 'handy' around the house.

So recently, my lack of the construction gene became incredibly prominent. When you walk into our hallway, initially the available space is the width of a door frame. But about two feet in, just to the right, the space opens up as the wall is deepened about a foot or so back. For us, this became very valuable space in our rather small one bedroom apartment with a new baby that has amassed more stuff than we thought imaginable. So we wanted to use as much of this space as we could from floor to ceiling. We started by putting in a bookshelf that went up about three feet from the floor. Which means we were still left with quite a bit of leftover room. Buying a taller bookcase seemed a little unnecessary and financially irresponsible and, though I'm not too impressive with the whole construction bit, I do know that just stacking stuff to the ceiling never really ends good. So I did the next best thing. I went out and got a few milk crates.

My vision was pretty simple: three crates that had a good amount of space and could hold some good storage, spaced out enough that stuff could still be put in between. Imagine all the different things we could do with that! So I gathered my incredibly dull and lacking tool bag and set out to do the very thing that seems to always escape me - build something.

I started with a pencil in order to try and line up where I would hang the crates in an attempt to go through this as officially as possible and have them look somewhat aesthetically pleasing. But all good things must come to an end and in senseless fashion, I quickly abandoned any thoughts of procedure or craft, held up a crate against my carefully drawn pencil lines, and pounded it into the wall with a couple of nails.

Then, not thinking that it had enough sturdiness, I pounded a few more nails in.

Then a few more.

No anchors, no finding the two by four studs, no measuring. Nothing. Just a bunch of nails pierced into some drywall holding up crates full of books.


What did you think would happen?

Exactly.

A great feeling of accomplishment whisked through my mind and was suddenly destroyed as I watched my half hearted effort fail miserably.

And probably, according to anyone who has ever touched a hammer, I was doing it wrong. There was nothing about my process that was up to the codes and standards that are a staple to hanging anything in a home.

I started with just pounding nails into drywall.

Which was wrong.

It wasn't what I was supposed to do.

Then, in a sort of insanity, I figured that more of the wrong thing would help. If a couple nails flimsily put into a wall just ready to be pulled out by any sort of weight wasn't going to work, then a bunch of nails with the same lack of strength would most certainly help, right?

Really, the last thing I needed was more nails.

I knew it wasn't working, I knew it wasn't the right way to go about it, but I just kept adding more and more of the wrong thing until I felt it was justified to hold up a crate full of books.

Because you can keep adding nails...but it doesn't mean it is going to change things.

It just means you are going to further enhance the mess you've already begun to make.

You don't need more nails.


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There is this fascinating story about the first family in the book of Genesis. This man and this woman have emerged from this garden and have begun creating more people and the events that ensue are absolutely loaded and could be talked about practically infinitely, but there is something that happens in the unfolding of the narrative that gives insight into the profound human practice of using more and more nails.

We find out that these first people have two boys, Cain and Abel and they begin living and navigating the earth they've been brought into. Eventually they have 'occupations' or, simply, ways of surviving, and as a part of that, they have this sense of giving some of this creation that has given them life back to God. Again, this story is loaded.

But in the midst of this process, we read this:

"And Adonai had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell."

There is something that goes on that leads to Cain being rejected and, frankly, he is a little pissed.

 What we have is a story about something going wrong.

Cain has had something go wrong.

It hasn't gone in the direction it was supposed to.

It didn't start the way he needed it to or wanted it to or desired it to.

He messed it up.

And it has left him feeling rejected and judged and has led to him separating himself from everyone around him.

Nothing that any of us have any experience with.

And it is in this moment of Cain's anger and bitterness that God says this:

"Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it."

Probably some of the best advice ever.

God is simply saying, "You've done this, you've made this choice or decision, you've put yourself in this position and you've gotta get out of it. You've got to go in the other direction."

Which seems rather obvious on the surface, but it is never that simple is it?

There is this brilliant line in the book of Ecclesiastes that says, "Whoever digs a pit may fall into it; whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake."

You get this image of this ancient wall built out of jagged rocks and mortar with holes all throughout; the perfect nesting grounds for snakes.

Which means that if you put your hand in there, you are probably gonna get bit.

It is kind of like saying, "Don't dig a pit that you are just gonna end up falling into."

There is this idea that you do something and it doesn't go so well, it doesn't go the way it was supposed to, it doesn't put you in a good position to flourish and move forward and progress and so either you can keep going in that direction or you can do something about it. You can do what is right, what is needed to be done, or you can just keep on going in whatever destructive pattern you've already started.

Or maybe we could just say it this way:

Don't ask the tree to stop being hard.

Just stop hitting the tree.

Because more nails isn't the answer here. Rather, the answer is to change the spiral you've already started.

A couple weeks after this whole milk crate and nail catastrophe happened, my dad visited and, after a little embarrassment and letting him lay down a couple jokes about my handiwork, he gets some huge anchors, uses a tape measurer and makes all sorts of little marks on the wall denoting where he wants things to go, drills some holes, lines the crates up, and screws the anchors through the crates into the wall providing enough strength to hold my body weight.

And it was actually a little bit easier than my nail fiasco a few weeks prior.

That is all it took to make things happen.

It is the only thing I needed to do.

Stop going in the wrong direction, figure things out, and change it. Stop playing near the wall if you don't want to get bit by snakes. Stopping hitting the tree and just go around it.

This is what God is saying to Cain.

And it is at this point, after God and Cain have had this conversation, that we would fully expect things to change. We expect Cain to apologize, go cool off, and come back with a new direction learning from what went wrong in the first place.

We expect him to learn from where he has been.

We expect this sort of Hollywood ending where Cain fixes it and goes back to his family and they sit around the dinner table chatting as the camera pans away and the beautiful piano music fades in with the credits and everything is resolved and normal and figured out.

But this isn't what happens.

Immediately after this talk with God, Cain convinces his brother to go out to the field.

And he kills him.

Instead of reorienting the way he was going, Cain spirals out of control. He just keeps pounding in more and more nails thinking that will fix things and it ends with Abel buried in a field at the hands of his brother.

It is a rather sad story that ends pretty disappointedly.

Which is what God was trying to keep from happening. God confronting Cain was almost like God saying, "If you don't do something about this it is going to get much worse. Your anger and bitterness will increase, the milk crates will end up crashing to the floor, and your brother will be dead."

What began as something going wrong with an offering ends with murder.

It turns into Cain killing his brother.

We have to become the kind of people that stops killing our brother as soon as the process starts. That, when we begin going the wrong direction, when we make that choice that leaves us a little behind or angry or bitter, when we don't put ourselves in the best position, we have to be aware of it and then do something about it. We simply can't afford to ignore it and say that whatever happened in the past is in the past. We have to own it.

To master it.

Before it masters us.

Which doesn't mean we sulk about what went wrong or let it take up our headspace, but simply that we learn from it. That we learn from getting bit by the snake. That we learn to hang the crates correctly instead of just adding more and more nails.

We have to be people that are open to re-navigating and changing directions and doing something in the midst of our wreckage.

Because if we don't, we will just end up with books all over the floor and a massive amount of holes in the wall.

We may end up killing our brother.