The Voices That Cry Out From The Ground

The kids of famous families are always in the news. Here in the United States, for example, we often heard about former president Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. And we constantly hear stories about our current president’s children (but especially about Ivanka and Donald, Jr.). Somehow we have a fascination with the kids of famous or influential people.

Well our first reading today from Genesis 4 features the kids of famous people – Adam and Eve. After Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden, they have kids. Their firstborn is Cain and the second born is Abel.

There’s a lot in the scriptures that I don’t understand, and one of those things is in today’s reading. Cain is a farmer, and Abel a keeper of livestock – both necessary and noble professions. Both brought offerings from their livelihoods before God. But, somehow, God liked Abel’s offering better and Cain gets jealous of this.

Was God a meat eater and thus favored Abel?

Was God tired of “woke” vegetarians and, thus, shunned Cain?

I have no idea.

But for whatever reason, Cain grows resentful that he is rebuked by God and takes his brother out into the field and attacks him. Abel is killed.

Later in the story, God asks Cain where his brother is. Cain says that he doesn’t know and offers the oft-quoted line, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

God then grows angry with Cain and says, “Listen: your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil!”

That line always stops me in my tracks. The blood of those who have been victims of violence will cry out from the soil.

I could not help but think of the emerging story of 24 year-old Sam Nordquist – a trans man originally from Minnesota – who was found dead in Canandaigua after being brutally abused and tortured for the last month by 5 people.

Sam’s blood cries out from the soil.

I think about the more than 46,000 dead in Gaza – with more than half of them being women and children.

Their blood cries out from the soil.

I think about the more than 3000 people killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the past few weeks.

Their blood cries out from the soil.

The list could go on and on of all of the blood that cries out from the soil – the blood of our human relations as well as our non-human relations. The blood shed throughout the history of the United States. The blood shed in the history of the world.

This is really heavy stuff, so let’s just pause for a minute and breathe.

In the gospel from Mark 8, the Pharisees are pressing Jesus for a sign. Jesus has been preaching and teaching about the God of justice. The God who hears the cry of the poor. The God who reminds us that we are keepers of each other. The God who witnesses the injustice.

And because of their unbelief, they want proof that it is as Jesus describes.

I can imagine Jesus being a bit stunned by their response. I imagine him thinking, “Can’t YOU see the harm that’s going on around us? Can’t YOU see how the religious, political and economic systems are crushing people? Can’t YOU hear the cries of the poor, the marginalized and the forgotten? Isn’t this pain enough of a sign for you?”

Jesus says that he’s not going to give a sign to them. They will have to decide for themselves if what he says is true and act accordingly.

This is also where we find ourselves in today’s world.

God’s not going to come down from the sky and give us a clear sign that we should get involved in this cause or that movement for liberation. That’s just not how God works.

What God will do, however, is to encourage us to put our ears close to the ground and listen deeply to the story of harm that it tells. To listen to the cries of the blood in the soil.

This may draw us deeper into working for LGBTQIA+ rights in an era when we are witnessing greater levels of hostility, violence and erasure of queer and trans people (locally and nationally).

This may draw us deeper into anti-racism work as we seek to address the brutal history (local and national) of discrimination, redlining and racialized violence.

This may draw us more deeply into the work of addressing the climate crisis and the impacts of our lifestyle on our non-human kin.

There are so many ways we can respond…

It is hard for me to believe that when we “listen to the cries” coming from the soil all around us that we will not be moved towards greater and greater forms of action and involvement as we recognize that we, in fact, are each others’ keeper.

The famous archbishop of El Salvador in the 1980’s, Oscar Romero, started as a reserved parish priest who served the wealthy elite and enjoyed a comfortable life (even as his country of El Salvador was being crushed under extreme poverty and military violence). He was a quiet “company man” who was content to kind of look the other way and not make waves. It was the killing of his friend, Rutilio Grande, however, that provoked a change in Romero. Grande’s blood cried out to Romero and gave him newfound courage and clarity which enabled Romero to become an incredible leader against a system he once took refuge in.

Our lives can be the same if we are willing to listen to the voices that shout from the ground to us. Let this be our sign.