Redeemer Lutheran Church
1084 W. Bullard Ave.
Fresno, CA   93711
Phone: (559) 439-8500
Fax: (559) 439-8585
office@redeemerfresno.com

The Reverend Clarence Eisberg
Phone: (209) 725-9082
Cell:  (209) 631-3108
pastor@redeemerfresno.com

Worship ~ 8:30 a.m. & 10:00 a.m.
Family Ministries ~ 10:00 a.m.
Holy Communion ~ 2nd & 4th Sundays
Connecting People to Jesus
and to One Another!
www.lcms.org









The Reverend
Clarence Eisberg

April 13, 2008

“Enochville: The Story of Alienation”

Many of you know that our son and daughter-in-law recently had their second daughter.  
Of course she is wonderful.  For over 30 years I have visited mothers in the hospital the
day after they had given birth to a child.  Those visits have taught me a number of
undeniable and unchangeable truths.  First, no matter what I may personally believe,
every baby born is exceptionally beautiful.  When mothers ask:  “Don’t you think my baby
is the most beautiful child in the entire world?  There is only one answer:  a quick and
enthusiastic … “Yes!”

Over the years I’ve only had one mother say…be honest… I know he looks like a wrinkly
mouse!  Another thing I have learned.  Along with being the most beautiful baby ever
born, every grandparent has assured me that their grandchild is the smartest baby ever.  
Their grandchild has the wisdom to open his eyes … their baby has figured out how to eat
and sleep and do other baby things.

In truth, when any of us look at our child or grandchild for the first time we dream dreams.  
In our dreams our “baby” will always be applauded by teachers, admired by classmates,
appreciated by all they meet and never left out of any childhood games at school.  Their
hearts will never be broken.

Adam and Eve were no different.  They now live outside the Garden of Eden.  They live
where all families live, outside of Eden.  They had tremendous hope for their first born
son, Cain.  When Adam and Eve watched their two boys, Cain and Abel, playing with each
other, did they ever believe that the oldest would kill the younger?  When King David
looked at his first born son, Absalom, did he ever imagine a day when his headstrong
child would try to overthrow him and they would be in a life and death struggle for the
kingdom’s crown?

In the Christmas story, when Zechariah and Elizabeth looked at the baby they named
John, what did they think would happen to their little lad?  Did they ever think for a
moment he would be living in the wilderness, wearing a camel hair suit, accessorized with
a leather belt?

Decades pass.  The boys grew up.  Worship is hard-wired by the creator into every
human heart…the need to worship God started in the Garden.  They both came to
worship, each offering a sacrifice.  Genesis 4 tells us that they had different careers.  
“Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil.”  “In the course of time…Cain brought some of
the fruits of the soil as an offering and Abel brought an offering from his flock.”  They both
knew that God had told their parents that a blood offering is what forgave sins…It’s quite
possible Cain’s heart was not right.  We know that he got “very angry”.

God came to Cain and said:  “If you do what is right, you will be accepted.”  So Cain knew
what was right but chose to sing Frank Sinatra’s favorite song…”I’ll do it my way!”

God warned Cain:  “Sin is crouching at your door…it desires to have you…but you must
master it.”  Cain did not listen to God’s voice…He invited his brother into the field and
killed him.  Again God comes to Cain…”What have you done…Your brother’s blood cries
out to me from the ground.”  “Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground”…
for the grave you dug in the ground now holds your brother’s body… God knew.  V 12  
Cain, “when you work the ground it will no longer yield its crops for you.  You will be a
restless wanderer on the earth.”

To be a restless wanderer is to be homeless, to be an alien in a strange land, among
people with whom you can not communicate because they don’t understand you and you
don’t understand them.  The alien is lonely, friendless, isolated.  Sinful behavior still
brings alienation.  Paul was right when he said…”the wages of sin is death.”

Cain is alienated from himself.  He responds in self pity…”My punishment is more than I
can bear.”  He sees what is happening to himself and he doesn’t like it.  No one
understands me!  There is a conspiracy abroad to destroy him as a person.

One father, Rev. Robert Hoyer, Lutheran Pastor and author, tells this story about his own
family.  He writes:  “Late one evening not long ago, when my wife and the older children
were still up and the youngest ones in bed, a teenage daughter began her lament.  ‘You
know what I don’t like about myself?’ she asked.  And then she gave long list.  ‘My hair is
too fine, My nose is too broad.  My ears are too big.  My shoulders are too wide’ and on
and on.

When we began to answer…Her brother said … “Yup!  That’s right.”  And was ready to
add to her list.  Her mother and sisters tried to reassure her that she really was charming
and made a list of her special talents.  Self esteem, accepting what James Dobson wrote
in his book “Dare to Discipline” .  We use the world’s standards of acceptance to judge
ourselves.  1)  beauty, the gold standard of acceptance.  2)  intelligence – the sliver
standard of acceptance (also noted in the recent Fresno Bee article about the quote
“escort” service provided by a Fresno native now living in New York)  3)  athletic ability –
the bronze standard of acceptance.

If we use these standards of self-acceptance then we are living in the city built by Cain,
Enochville.  Sin holds every human captive and we end up alternating between heights of
exhilaration and the depths of depression between self-satisfaction one day and self
accusation and non-acceptance of self the next.  God views us differently.  God chose to
create us.  He chose to love us and accept us just as we are.

Cain thinks that God has turned his back on him and that God no longer cares for him.  
Not true!  God has said no such thing.  That is Cain’s interpretation.  The Lord did not
hide from Adam and Eve, they were hiding and God went to the Garden to find them.  So
also here.  God warned Cain…he wanted to “do his own thing”  God did not allow Cain to
evade his responsibility.

Cain had a choice.  He could listen to the voice of God, but he did not.  Until Cain learns
to listen and obey God he will remain alienated.

God knows he is alienated from people.  Cain knows he is under judgment.  V 14 “who
ever finds me will kill me.”  The fear of death is now heard in “his” cry.  Robert Hoyer in his
book “Cain Come Home” writes:  All human beings are now held in slavery by their fear of
death.  The reality of death becomes a task master, driving the alienated to prove
themselves to validate their existence in some way, luring them to establish some sign of
immortal worth to which they will be remembered to which they can appeal against the
testimony of the dirt to which they must finally return.”

Cain is not only afraid of his own death… he is afraid of people and what they think of
him.  He can trust no one.  He can not allow anyone to get too close or really know
him…he is afraid…and now alone.  If people get too close…he has to disappear…on the
run, a wanderer.  In Cain we can see a mirror into the life of every self-conscious person
who escapes the potential judgment of inferiority, by hiding and withdrawing where no
body will notice them.  And so, those who “dance with the stars” are encouraged,
challenged to reach deep inside and let their real personality show forth on the dance
floor of life.  And we applaud the winners and judge others as not as worthy, not as
coordinated.  But those who lose always tell us they made new friends and had a great
time.

That is the world of Enochville, where we live with the knowledge of “good and evil”.  
Enochville is the city that Cain builds.  Enochville has defenses.  It is a place to stand.  It is
Cain’s answer to alienation.  In this city, Cain and his descendants live without God; they
live in a reasonable degree of comfort, peace and pleasure.  They have walls, watch
towers, and a police force.  Yes, they still have fear in their streets, fear for their children’s
safety.  They worry someone might steal their children.  There is fear that someone will
break into their homes and rob them.

They know “good and evil”, they consult fortune tellers and astrologers in the hope of
seeing into the future and knowing more.  They have a conscience…they know others are
watching.  Conflicts are inevitable, person against person, group against group.  There
are winners and losers.  Society becomes stratified.  There are laws and rules…but there
are always those who do not like the laws…they, like Cain, are controlled by selfishness.  
So dishonesty and crime, deceit and violence are generated.  The citizens are threatened.

Against such lawlessness the citizens must protect themselves.  Some invent bolts and
locks.  They buy guns and take lessons in self defense.  They warn their children to be
careful of adults who might hurt them.  The government creates courts and jails, fines and
punishment.  It’s very expensive and creates stress and anxiety.

The process never ends.  There are those who seek to find the loopholes.  There are
those who turn the law into self advantage and learn to purchase justice with money.  
Crime always remains a few steps ahead of the forces intended to protect.  The citizens of
Enochville slowly give up their individual rights and freedoms.

There was another group of people who chose a different path.  Descendants of
Seth…people who began to call upon the name of the Lord.

There came a moment in time, when the descendants of Seth, through Noah, through
Abraham, there appeared a man, Jesus of Nazareth.  He called people to repent and
offered God’s reconciliation.  He came to offer freedom from death, which people feared.  
He offered acceptance and began to seek and gather the lost.  He called a few disciples
to walk with him and learn.  His task was not to have people serve him, but to serve, even
to the point of giving up his own life.

He gathered the citizens of Enochville, the hated tax collectors, like Matthew and
Zaccheus, the sinners and lepers, the blind and crippled.  He forgave sins and showed
mercy and told those who followed him to go and do likewise.

When you forgive, you bring reconciliation, you restore friendship.  Love your neighbor as
yourself.  When you act like the Good Samaritan you bring healing and hope.  Display
mercy.  For your Father in heaven is merciful.

Paul writes to the church at Rome:  While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ
died for the ungodly.  Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man but God shows his love
for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since we have been justified by
his blood shed on the cross, we are thus saved from God’s wrath.”

Well, by now you are probably asking… “What does this mean?”  It’s a good Lutheran
question.

1)  It means that we can come home to God.  We no longer have fear of standing in his
holy presence.  He has restored our friendship, offering peace and harmony through
Jesus Christ.

2)   We can love ourselves, for we know that God loves us, accepts us.  We no longer
need to dislike ourselves.  We no longer need to be alienated from ourselves nor one
another.  People in Enochville will classify you and judge you and group you, but God
created you special and knows every hair on your head.  Our self esteem is not
determined by others but by God who created us in His image.

3)  We need not fear the earth, nor the grave, for beyond the dust of the earth is a
resurrected body.

4)  God has come to Enochville.  He came to Bethlehem.  Not with trumpets nor halo nor
flash, but he came in love to save.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that who so ever believes in him will have eternal life.

You and I have the presence and promise of the Living God.  We live outside the Garden
of Eden, in a place called Enochville, to which God himself has come.  As we walk with
Jesus and imitate him, the world is transformed, we have learned that God loves us and
we love one another and serve one another.  Just as Jesus taught.