Today’s lesson looked at two important points that came out of the story of Cain and Abel.
1) Whatever you do for God, or give to God, do so to the best of your ability.
The two brothers, Cain and Abel, each made sacrifices to God. Cain sacrificed “some of” his crops and Abel sacrificed “the first-born of his flock”. There is something general about Cain’s sacrifice but something special about Abel’s. The Bible [in Genesis 4] is not clear on why, but for some reason God “looked with favour” on Abel’s sacrifice but not so with Cain’s. This angered Cain. The closest God comes to explaining why he did not accept Cain’s is in saying to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Apparently, the substance of the two sacrifices had little to do with God’s pleasure at it or not. Rather, it had something to do with “doing what is right” in making the sacrifice.
This reminded me of the story [Mark 12:41 – 44] in which a poor widow put “two tiny coins” into the temple’s treasury chest while many rich people put in “large sums.” Jesus’ praise for the widow over the rich people had nothing to do with the absolute amount involved but something to do with the circumstances of the people involved and the resources from which their offerings came. We should aim to give God the best we have to offer.
Click here to watch a brief story of Cain and Abel.
2) Dealing with jealousy.
As with Cain and Abel, the things that we do (e.g. playing soccer, cooking, singing) are often not as good as what someone else does. Sometimes we think that we are not admired or liked as much as someone else. These things can happen even in our own families. In this video a priest discusses how we can accept and deal with such situations. Click here to watch it.