for your burnt offerings are before me always.
Cain, your sacrifice isn't the problem. It isn't the thing you are doing which is at issue. It is your heart.
In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD
from the fruit of the soil,
while Abel, for his part,
brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.
Abel, it seems like you are accepted because of the thing you give. But actually it is what it means to you that matters. It is the disposition of your heart which is acceptable. Because you are concerned more with what the LORD thinks than anything you are able to give the best of what you have.
Cain, you are competing. You want to be seen as better than Abel. You resent that the LORD looks with favor on Abel's offering. The LORD asks you why you are so resentful and crestfallen to hear that another has done better than you. He tells you that this is not a competition. You don't have to outperform anyone. "If you do well, you can hold up your head".
Abel is your brother but you can only see him as a threat. In the parable of the prodigal son the older brother refuses to celebrate the younger son's return. He feels as if his own perogatives and happiness are threatened by the joy surrounding the return of the younger son. Cain, you carry this attitude to the extreme. God has joy enough to bless both you and your brother but you are too selfish to see it. You go to the extreme to prevent God from giving his joy to Abel lest you not receive what you consider to be your due.
Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
It is now too late to feign disinterest.
Then the LORD asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
He answered, “I do not know.
Am I my brother’s keeper?”
You do know where he is. You do care. Your self interest has done this. It starts as a preoccupation with being first. It prevents you from giving the best of what you have. But it transforms to something which threatens you. It festers into hatred.
“You sit speaking against your brother;
against your mother’s son you spread rumors.
When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.”
Hearts like yours don't act sincerely. When they ask for a sign Jesus sighs "from the depth of his spirit" because they are not sincere requests. The Pharisees come forward to argue with Jesus rather than to seek truth. It is the same insincere heart that we see in you, Cain. It is a heart so concerned with self-aggrandizement that it can only perceive others as a threat. The Pharisees act first on this selfishness by the violence of intellect and argument. Their words before others are there first line of defense for their own egos. But Cain, you are not so different. You slay Abel. They slay Jesus.
We see your motives with ourselves, Cain. We see the motives of the Pharisees in our own hearts. And we see precious little of Abel, offering the first and best of what he has. Jesus tells us, "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise." He sighs when we test him, but he longs to reveal himself to us. He doesn't want hearts that must avoid his presence. If our hearts are more Cain than Abel the LORD is willing to grant us "more offspring in place of Abel".
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
We must open ourselves to the correction which Cain cannot bear. God will teach us to offer him the sacrifice for which he longs.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise (cf. Psa. 51:17).
It does not consist in things that are external. It is nothing with which we can compete with others or compare ourselves to them.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship (cf. Rom. 12:1)
We offer to God all that we are. When Cain dominates our hearts this threatens us. But with Abel we are able to realize that it is in fact our hope of joy and blessedness.
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that openly profess his name (cf. Heb. 13:15).
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