Midweek Lent 1
Genesis 4:1-12
In the name of ✠ Jesus
We heard in Genesis 3 this past weekend, with the fall of Adam and Eve, how the fundamental human sin is pride, the desire to be like God. This sin is foundational to all the others because it orients everything in terms of me and my will and how I want my life to be. On Ash Wednesday a week ago, we heard how pride behaves, seeking the earthly reward of human approval and praise but losing the heavenly treasure of fellowship with God. Pride is ultimately self-destructive. He who exalts himself will be humbled.
Today in Genesis 4, we focus on the 2nd of the so-called 7 deadly sins, envy. This sin, too, is self-destructive and dehumanizing, but in a different way. Pride wants to dethrone God and take His place. Envy wants to cast the neighbor aside and take his place. Envy wants what your neighbor has, whether it’s things, or family, or friends, or status and honor. It covets being able to live your neighbor’s life, and in jealousy it can’t stand when others are doing better. Envy is the source of that German term schadenfreude, taking pleasure in another person’s failure. Why does it bother us sometimes when others are doing well and succeeding? Because in pride we want that to be us. And when someone else fails, we imagine that somehow elevates us and justifies us.
We see in the narrative of Cain and Abel that envy truly is a deadly sin. It wants to kill you and maybe use you to harm someone else. Long before Cain raises his hand to spill his brother’s blood, envy takes hold of his heart. He is depressed that God regards his brother but not him. Cain is tempted with the vengeful daydream that he will find satisfaction and relief in his brother’s death; and so Cain kills him. Remember how Satan does the same thing to Joseph’s brothers before they sell him into slavery. Likewise the devil sings this deceptive song into King Saul’s ears when David’s military successes make him the more popular one. And the evil one does the same thing to you when he leads you to have contempt for others who are more successful, or to assign evil motives to them, or to find a little too much delight when they fall.
God warns Cain beforehand. He tells him that sin is crouching at his door, like a predator waiting for the right moment to attack its prey. And in this way you also are warned. Be on guard against how envy works, how it distorts your perception, long before it turns nasty. Learn how envy misorients and embitters your heart. Don’t let it overpower you. Don’t let it draw you to seek the company of those who want you to wallow in it, especially online and in social media. Stop playing the unhealthy game of comparison. Stop disputing like the disciples about who is the greatest. Recognize how perverse it is to be upset at another’s success or to rejoice at another’s failure. God, in His mercy, has revealed the enemy’s game plan to you so that you can turn away from it.
Jesus is both our example for how to deal with this, and above all He is the One who saves us from our envy. He was not jealous of what others had when He fasted and suffered. Rather, He received those things as the Father’s good and gracious will and was obedient for our salvation–“Not My will but Yours be done.” While there were times in His ministry when Jesus spoke woes regarding His enemies, He did not rejoice in their downfall. He wept over Jerusalem; He felt the hurt of Judas’ betrayal. He prayed, “Father, forgive them. . .” Jesus is among us as the One who serves, the One who gives, the One who rejoices when we receive good things from His hand. He is the One whose true delight is in exalting those who take refuge in Him.
In the Passion narrative, it is revealed that Pontius Pilate knew that the religious leaders had handed Jesus over to him “because of envy.” They were jealous of Jesus’ popularity; they were threatened by how He was shaking things up and upsetting the system. But this is something we should take comfort in. For we see in this that Jesus bore not only the envy of the religious leaders of His day but of the whole world even to this day. He took it all without defending Himself or promoting His own interest. Our sinful envy, too, fell upon Him and was swallowed up in His wounds and answered for and taken away.
This is how we are set free from envy, in Christ alone. Believing in Him we know that even if others have something more than us or a better situation in life, we still have every good thing in Christ. We let go of envy because Jesus has said to us, “Everything that is mine is yours in your baptism–my glory, my life, my place with the Father.” This is the envy-killer. It is written in Romans 8, “If God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
So let us learn to apply the Commandments here. If someone is doing better than us, according to the 8th Commandment we do not seek to hurt his reputation but to explain everything in the kindest way. And according to the 9th and 10th Commandments we turn away from coveting–scheming to get our neighbors stuff or to entice people away from them–and instead we seek to help them hold on to what they have.
In Christ we are able to shift our thinking. We begin to see how the God who loved us into existence and gave His life for us has also done the same for everyone we encounter. And so it is written in Romans 12, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Using St. Paul’s image of the Church as one body is helpful. If some other member of the body succeeds, then you succeed. If some other member of the body suffers, you suffer. What eyeball or hand rejoices at chapped lips? Instead, in Christ you begin to desire the good of those around you. You are made able to give thanks for your own unique place in the body of Christ and to willingly praise God for the gifts He has given both to you and to others.
One final thing: A day is coming when we will rejoice in the downfall of those who have made themselves enemies of God, whom we might be tempted to envy in this life–those who have stubbornly gone their own way and who reject repentance and faith in Christ–in the same way that we rejoice in the downfall and defeat of Satan. Malachi 4 says that on the day of Jesus’ return, “You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.” But this will not be because of envious vengeance but because of rejoicing in the goodness of the Lord and His victory over all that stands against that goodness. Our strong Savior has crushed the devil’s head under His feet. Our delight is in Him, who rescues us from anything or anyone who would cut us off from His life.
So then, let us not give way to envy, but rather let us remember that in this life the Lord distributes His good gifts to whomever He pleases according to His gracious will. Let us pray for the repentance of the enemies of Christ whose lives may seem enviable, that they may escape from judgment on the Last Day, just as we have by God’s grace. And let us know that all of us who believe and are baptized possess every good thing in Christ. In this way we are freed from envy to praise God’s handiwork wherever we see it, especially in those around us.
In the name of ✠ Jesus