When Cain kills Abel God is not deceived. You remember the story of Cain and Abel from the book of Genesis, yes? They are brothers. Cain becomes jealous of Abel, and fearful: He is afraid that Abel’s success equals his failure – that there is not room enough for both of them in God’s good graces. So, Cain invites Abel out to the field one day and kills him.
The next thing we hear is God’s voice in the form of a question. “Where is your brother Abel?” God asks Cain, prompting one of the most famous lines in all of our Scriptures. “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” The lie “I do not know” is not enough for Cain. Am I my brother’s keeper, he spits out, a challenge to God. He hopes his own audacity will throw God off the scent.
God is not deceived. And God’s response will stop you dead in your tracks. “What have you done?” God says, “Listen: your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” It’s not just that God has seen what has happened, has witnessed the truth, that God is all-knowing. It’s that the blood of Abel that Cain has spilled cries out, testifies to the truth of what has happened, cannot be undone and will not be ignored.
The God who creates in love and dwells in relationships of love is attuned to the suffering of the world and is not at peace with it. The compassion and empathy of God is restless and relentless in the face of Cain’s violence and deception. God hears the sound of the blood that has been spilled, feels the pain of the slain. Cain can try to distract God from the ugliness of his actions: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But God is not deceived. And neither are we.
Each of us knows in our own marrow the answer to Cain’s disingenuous question. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes. Yes, you are. Yes, I am. The murder of Abel is horrific. But the question with which Cain seeks to cloak his guilt is itself an act of violence. Am I my brother’s keeper is ugly and violent because it trumpets a callous indifference to the way the God of love has ordered the world. God built humans for relationship and connection. Cain and Abel are certainly each their own person – and also, they belong to each other in a unique and powerful way that has sadly escaped Cain’s understanding.
Cain may be lying when he says he does not know Abel’s whereabouts – but perhaps the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is asked in utter sincerity. It is exactly that kind of missing the point that would lead a person to disregard their own sibling’s humanity. Cain’s own fear and self-preservation blinds him to the truth that yes, he is Abel’s keeper, as Abel is his keeper. Cain himself is deceived. But God is not, and neither are we.
Which is why it is so shocking to see the sheer violence and inhumanity we are willing to accept in our own time and place. It is not just that the racially targeted rounding up, incarcerating, and deporting of people in America is unjust and criminal – though it is unquestionably both of these things: It’s that it is intentional in its cruelty and dehumanization. ICE seeking to pull children out of schools to arrest them, to scoop families up at graduation ceremonies, deporting US citizens, and legal American residents without anything resembling due process or respect for human dignity, the grotesque photo ops in front of incarcerated men – these are terrorist acts. They are quite literally designed to cast fear in the hearts of every Latino living in America.
This is not accidental. It is not an unfortunate byproduct of a larger humanitarian effort, or a sad necessary bit of collateral damage: These acts of cruel inhumanity are all done by design. Immigration officers are following orders from above, and are being goaded on by officials, pundits, and a public that is zealously calling for the imprisonment and deportation of anyone – American or not – who poses a threat to the current unprecedented show of authoritarianism by our government.
They are all of them looking at us and challenging us with that same ancient question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
That is the question, is it not? Am I my brother’s keeper?
And do not be deceived into thinking that migrants and racial minorities are only your siblings if they fit the criteria you have constructed. God has made us all for each other. For the Christian there can be no question about this. We are all one family, one body. The denial of this is a violent rejection of the way God has ordered the world. Our callous indifference to the mistreatment of our siblings is turning us into a nation of Cains. We can pretend we are righteous, that they deserve it, that this is just the ugly cost of doing business, but the blood and tears of our siblings are crying out to God from the ground, testifying to the truth of what has happened, cannot be undone and will not be ignored.
God is not deceived. Neither should we be.
Deep in his own blood, Cain knows what he has done. He is terrified of accountability. He does not want to hear God’s judgment, and of course he doesn’t. Do you? Do I? Do we want to know what God’s justice will look like for a country that perpetrates this kind of unjust inhumanity?
Strangely, mercifully, graciously, God does not kill Cain. In fact, God spares him. But God puts a mark on Cain’s face. And Cain, who to this point was a farmer, one who tilled and kept the earth, is told by God that the same ground onto which he spilled Abel’s blood will no longer yield any kind of fruit to him. Cain’s own violence has polluted the land he loved, rendered him unrecognizable and has made him incapable of fulfilling his beloved vocation. There is life for Cain, but he will only find peace in it if he is willing to let go of his fears and accept accountability. Cain’s only chance for new life is in acknowledging that God is not deceived, that he is in fact his brother’s keeper, has always been, will always be. So it is with us. We are made for each other.
