Being Teachable through Silence

Cain, Abel, and learning from what's not being said

In the first story told about humanity after their banishment from the Garden of Eden, we immediately meet the first sibling set in Scripture in Cain and Abel. Having been exiled from the divine space, they immediately turn to ritual, offering sacrifices to God. Why would they respond to this experience with knee-jerk sacrifice? Even though they’d never been explicitly commanded to do so, their two sacrifices reveal something about the human condition. Outside of a face-to-face relationship with God, humans must worship someone and somehow. Humans can’t not worship.

The two siblings offer different sacrifices. Abel offers the blood of a firstborn animal from his flock. And his older brother Cain gave God some of the fruit of the soil. However, we see that only Abel’s sacrifice is acceptable to God. Cain’s sacrifice did not please God. There’s plenty of room for hearty debate about why one sacrifice was acceptable and the other was not (a debate to be hashed out elsewhere). Nonetheless, it would only be later biblical writings that would reveal why Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable and Cain’s was not. “Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did,” the author of Hebrews writes, “By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.” (Heb. 11:4) Interestingly, the New Testament looks backwards, over its shoulder, and identifies within this Old Testament story something not even mentioned within the story itself—faith. And it is faith that continues to be what reckons sinners right to God.

What else is this story about?

One of the underlying themes of the Cain and Abel narrative, I believe, is something quite rare in our moment of time: silence. Silence no longer comes easily. To guard it, we often have to take drastic measures. In recent years, I’ve tried to adopt a more intentional rhythm of quiet so as to create space for Christ to speak to me. To that end, I decided six months ago to fast from listening to podcasts for a year. Podcasts aren’t bad. I host one, for heaven’s sake. But podcasts have, sadly, filled up the tiny cracks of inactivity that the soul needs. Indeed, as Thomas Merton once wrote, “solitude is to be preserved.”¹ And if it is not, we do violence to our very selves. There are different kinds of silence in the Cain and Abel story.

Photo by Ernie A. Stephens

So, where is silence in the Cain and Abel story? In a fit of jealousy, Cain murdered Abel because his offering was not acceptable, as was his brother’s. As Abel lay dead in the ground, God came and confronted Cain: “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” (Gen. 4:10) There are two interesting things to note about what we see in this confrontation. First, nowhere in the first three chapters of Genesis had God ever forbidden murder. Sure, God would eventually forbid it. But before this, he hadn’t. Despite God’s alleged silence on the matter, Cain kills Abel. And he unquestionably knows that his actions were wrong, given the shame he feels afterward. Theologically, this is instructive. It teaches us that just because God has been (up to that point) silent on a matter does not render it permissible. Silence isn’t a permission slip. And Cain’s absence of asking God reveals that humans often use God’s silence as a permission structure to sin. The humans are to obey not only God’s word but also God’s silence. Scripture is silent on many matters. However, that does not mean Scripture permits such things.

But, secondly, silence can often be a signal that something is very wrong. Abel is dead. He can’t speak or cry out. And yet, God hears Abel’s silence. Abel’s voice may be silenced. But his blood still cries out. And God hears it. Often, we can discern injustice not by who speaks or what they say, but by who is not being heard. That is, the absence of a voice is revealing. And we must learn to hear those who are not speaking or being heard. For the absence of a voice is often the presence of an injustice. Abel may be silenced. But a God of love hears silence because he watches, loves, and cares.

There is another kind of silence in this story. Aren’t we further to see the blatant detail that the one righteous human in this story (Abel) is never recorded as hearing God speak directly to him? Yet the one unrighteous human in this story (Cain) not only hears God’s voice but has a whole conversation with him; albeit in the name of correction. God’s silence, then, is reserved for the righteous one in this account. And the one who hears God’s voice is the unrighteous one.

What if the righteous are the ones most able to steward the gift of God’s silence?

We have much to learn in silence. Sadly, in the tradition to which I belong within Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity, it is often assumed that God speaks most and clearest to those whom he is closest to or most pleased with. That if we’ve been faithful, obedient, and pursued God passionately, we can expect him to talk to us all the time. It is the righteous, we are told, that spend their days chit-chatting with God. Can this happen? Yes! But this first story of God speaking to individuals after Eden reveals that the person entrusted with God’s silence is the righteous one. That goes against most of what we’ve been taught. And it should trouble us.

But also comfort us. It is likely, friend, that you will experience seasons of life in which the voice of God goes quiet. In those seasons, we are often so mean to ourselves. We wonder if we really love God anymore, or if our sin has caused a disruption of blessing, or if God has left us. But if the Abel story is at all instructive to us, it is that sometimes the righteous are the one’s who never get the clear dialogue with God. As any marriage can attest, in the early years, the relationship needs constant dialogue to be healthy. But a sign of health is that years later the couple can sit in a room silent and just be with each other.

Silence teaches us.

And silence is often what God gives the righteous. Some silence is intentional by God. Some silence is the result of injustice and must be listened to. And some silence is the gift God gives to the righteous. In the end, though, all silence can be a teacher. Especially when it is God’s silence.

---

Thanks for being a reader of the Low-Level Theologian. As always, you can find me wasting as little time as possible on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Or, check out my podcast with Dr. Nijay Gupta at Slow Theology. Do remember that I just released A Teachable Spirit: The Virtue of Learning from Strangers, Enemies, and Absolutely Anyone with the folks at Zondervan Reflective. Pick up a copy and dig on in.

1. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Image Classics (New York, NY: PRH Christian Publishing, 2009), 92.