Sermons, Prayers, and Reflections from First Unitarian Church, Des Moines, IA (2023 - ) and Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation, White Plains, NY (2013-2023)
2025-01-14
Freedom
Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gained a male child with the help of the Lord.’ She then bore his brother Abel. Abel became a keeper of sheep, and Cain became a tiller of the ground.
In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the soil, and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock. The Lord paid heed to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed.
Cain was much distressed and his face fell.And the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you distressed, and why has your face fallen? Surely, if you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right, sin couches at the door. Its urge is toward you. Yet you can be its master.’
Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Come, let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him.
Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’
And he said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’
Then He said, ‘What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! Therefore, you shall be more cursed that the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth.’
Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is too great to bear! Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth -- anyone who meets me may kill me.’
The Lord said to him, ‘I promise, if anyone kills Cain sevenfold vengeance shall be taken on him.' And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest anyone who met him should kill him.
Cain left the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
In this passage, the Chinese servant, Lee, is talking to Samuel about those sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis.
Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word. The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me. Then I compared the translations we have — and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James version says this — it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says,‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin....
Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible. It was very new then. And it was different in this passage. It says, ‘Do thou rule over him.’ Now this is very different. This is not a promise, it is an order.
And I began to stew about it. I wondered what the original word of the original writer had been that these very different translations could be made....
I respectfully submitted my problem to one of these sages, read him the story, and told him what I understood from it. The next night four of them met and called me in. We discussed the story all night long.... Every two weeks I went to a meeting with them, and in my room here I covered pages with writing....You should have sat through some of those nights of argument and discussion. The questions, the inspection, oh, the lovely thinking — the beautiful thinking.
After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too — ‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Do thou.’ And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’...
The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel — ‘Thou mayest’ — that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’ — it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’...
Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win....
It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man....
Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this — this is a ladder to climb to the stars....It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.
I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed — because ‘Thou mayest.’
As we think about our theme of the month for January -- Vow -- and reflect on the Great Vow of our life, we confront the fact that we can say all kinds of noble and lofty things about our purpose here on Earth, yet we often find ourselves not being our best selves. We may have done the exercises for discerning and articulating our vow, yet we find ourselves breaking it. The Christian tradition calls this sin – which I suggest we think of as not being so much about breaking God’s rules as failing to live up to our own ideals of what we want to be. Can we be free – free to live by our vow, as we want to?
Steinbeck's character Lee is awfully excited by the idea that we are free, we can choose not to sin -- to keep our vow and live by it. Why does Lee get hooked by one verse from Genesis 4, plunge into two years of intense exegesis about it, and conclude that ‘thou mayest’ is humanity’s ladder to the stars?
The story of the conflict between Cain and Abel reflects the real conflict in the Ancient Mid-East between the tillers of the ground and the keepers of sheep. It is also one of many times in the Hebrew Scriptures that a parent or parental figure’s real or apparent preference for one sibling over another causes trouble.
For Lee, the key verse, Genesis 4:7, comes before Cain kills Abel. Cain is feeling sad because Yahweh “paid heed to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed.” Yahweh says, Why so sad?
“If you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right, sin couches at the door. Its urge is toward you. Yet you can be its master.”You can be its master. The King James Version says, “Thou shalt rule over” sin – which Lee reads as promising that humans will triumph over sin. The American Standard Version says, “Do thou rule over” sin – which Lee reads as a command, an order to triumph over sin.
The Hebrew word here is “timshel,” and of the 20-odd major translations into English, the only one that uses “thou mayest” is the 1917 JPS (Jewish Publication Society) Translation of the Tanakh. (The Tanakh is the same 39 books as what the Christians call the Old Testament, arranged in a slightly different order.) The 1917 JPS translation would be the one in use by English-speaking Jews of Steinbeck’s time. If Steinbeck consulted with a Rabbi -- and apparently he did -- the phrase they would have talked about was, “thou mayest rule over” sin. "You can be its master," is from the New JPS Translation, 1985. It’s a mix of “you’re allowed” and a sort of “Si, se puede” (yes we can) encouragement. You can be sin's master.
John Steinbeck's East of Eden is a literary exposition on the Cain and Abel story, and, in particular, gives attention to this one verse. Steinbeck, through his character, Lee, puts the emphasis on free will: thou mayest. And, for Lee, free will is a really super nifty thing. Free will is what, he says,
“makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice.”What is Lee talking about?
Here’s what I have to say about that: Determinism is ultimately beside the point, but it does serve the purpose of helping clarify what is the point -- what is at stake when we strive for greater freedom. What will turn out to be at stake, I will argue, is relationship, community -- all of us welcoming each of us. Through love are we free. And through freedom we can be what we really, deeply want to be, can live by our vow.
Determinism raises an important question: If freedom means you get to follow any impulse that happens to come upon you, whence do those impulses come? Your desires are produced by some combination of genetic predispositions and environmental influences. You get to choose, but you don’t choose the factors that will cause you to choose the way you do.
Everything is the product of causes – with the possible exception of certain quantum phenomena which, some physicists say, are entirely uncaused. Under certain conditions the spin of certain particles is absolutely random – NOTHING caused it to spin the way it is spinning and not the other way. So, if quantum phenomena can be uncaused, can human behavior be uncaused? Well, what if it can? That is not what freedom looks like. If you saw somebody moving about randomly – muscles contracting here and there without cause or reason – we wouldn’t say she was free. Quite the opposite. We’d say she was in the grip of – enslaved by, we might say – some bizarre and horrible neurological condition.
Determinism makes a very logical point. Everything that happens is either the product of causal conditions or it is random. Neither products of causal conditions nor random action is free. "Free will" is an incoherent concept.
This logical point is sound, but the sort of free will that is thereby defeated is not the sort of free will that any one who yearns for freedom is yearning for. They aren't yearning for some incoherent concept, but for something very real in our experience. What is it?
People who are yearning for freedom are yearning for liberation from some force or condition in their life. It might be a slave master or prison bars or an addiction or mental illness or poverty or bad habit or impulsiveness. Someone yearning for freedom isn’t looking to become uncaused. They just want certain causes removed so that happier causes can, instead, dictate their actions. They would like to be guided by purposes that make sense and are rewarding rather than by someone else’s commands and by threats of painful punishment. They would like to have certain specific constraints removed. They would like to be guided by the better angels of their nature rather than by their demons.
Nor does determinism mean we can’t hold people responsible for what they do. One of the causes at work producing human behavior is the social practice of holding a given person responsible for a given action -- and if that practice of holding each other responsible works – if it helps maintain an orderly society -- then let's keep the practice. Moral disapproval sometimes works. There are a lot of things I don’t do because the moral disapproval of those around me has taught me not to do that. The key relationships in our lives include a shared language of moral deliberation, and that’s often a strong causal factor on our behavior.
For instance, we don’t shout inappropriately in public. For people with Tourette’s syndrome, that doesn’t work. We say they aren’t responsible for what they do – which is to say that the shared language of moral deliberation – praise, blame, censure, punishment – is an ineffective causal force for making them change that particular behavior.
Much of the time, though, holding people responsible through use of moral language works just fine. If your teenager has misbehaved and then protests that causes made him do it, you can just reply, “Of course. And now let’s see if being grounded will cause better behavior in the future.”
So what I’m saying is this: Thou mayest – you get to choose – doesn’t mean your choice is undetermined, not even a tiny bit. The mixture of influences you didn’t choose and genetic inclinations you didn’t choose – maybe with some randomness thrown in that you also didn’t choose – wholly determines what you will choose.
But that’s beside the point because the important question isn't, "Are your actions determined?" The important question is, "What is freedom actually experienced as?" We don’t experience freedom as uncaused action, so when the determinist points out that there is no uncaused action, this fact is irrelevant to the experience we’re talking about. The real question is how do we experience freedom, and how can we experience more of it?
I think there are three conditions for feeling free in what we do: that our own moral deliberation -- alone or through discussion with others -- is a significant cause of what we do; that we are physically and mentally able-bodied and able-minded; and that all our tastes and preferences are taken into account; none are suppressed.
One: We experience freedom when one of the causes is a shared language of moral deliberation. When an action happens reflexively or habitually or driven by obsessive-compulsive tendency or by any other mental disorder, we don’t experience it as being as free as we do when the language of moral deliberation can play out in our minds and when there’s a real possibility that we will actually carry out the conclusion of that deliberation. When we say that depression, schizophrenia, and mania aren’t free choices, we’re saying that talking – blaming, scolding, threatening, ostracizing – doesn’t do much good.
We experience freedom not when our action is uncaused. It’s always caused. But when language – particularly the language of deliberation – is a key factor among the causes, then we experience freedom. Ultimately the moral language with which we deliberate is also produced by causes -- environmental inflences and genetic predispositions -- but that doesn't matter. When those causes filter through moral deliberation, the resulting actions feel more free.
Two: We experience greater freedom when the causes that are coming from our own body, including our brain, are within the range of normal and healthy, rather than including mental or physical illness.
Three: We also experience greater freedom when all our tastes and preferences – howsoever unchosen those tastes and preferences are – are allowed at the table. We don’t, in the end, have to act to satisfy every taste, but not squelching or suppressing or denying that we do have the tastes we have is a piece of the experience of freedom.
In John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, the character, Lee, is excited about the Hebrew word timshel, translated as, "thou mayest." The possibility of acting where there is neither a command ("Do thou") nor a guarantee of an outcome ("Thou shalt") is indeed exciting. It’s very engaging.
When no particular authority is commanding and the outcome is up for grabs, then we are called upon to use moral deliberation. Then we bring all our tastes and preferences to the table – they all get to be considered even if they aren’t all gratified. Then we can pursue purposes with integrity with an overarching sense of who we are.
How can you get more Timshel – more of that experience of freedom – in your life? In other words, what might I say today that might function as a cause to help your action be less caused by causes you don’t like and more caused by causes you do like?
Practice attention. Just notice what’s at work in you. Noticing that you’re angry, or that you’re scared, noticing the tightness in your chest or throat or shoulders or stomach, noticing the heat rising on your skin, or the contraction of hair follicles that is that hair standing on end feeling – just bringing conscious awareness to these feelings gives them less power over you. Not zero, but less.
Noticing hunger, just paying attention to the sensations, opens up a greater experience of freedom. If we don’t much notice what the hunger really feels like, then we just reflexively grab a bite to eat. But if we do notice it, possibilities of choosing otherwise come into view. We bring our own language of deliberation into the situation, and it might produce a different outcome than just unthinkingly responding. Or notice when you’re not hungry. Am I reaching for some food when I’m actually not hungry? Noticing where that impulse or habit to eat might be coming from, if it isn’t coming from hunger, allows us the feeling of greater choice – which is to say, it brings the language of deliberation into the causal mix.
If sin is anything that isn’t manifesting your best self -- something that you did that came from an impulse that you would rather have overridden -- the reminder that you have choice – that is, the reminder to bring conscious deliberation into the mix – can be helpful at keeping you on track of your vow.
An example comes from a young woman who struggles with injuring herself, and sometimes with impulses to suicide. She wrote a blog post I happened to come across while I was scoping out thoughts on Steinbeck’s East of Eden novel. She wrote:
'A few weeks ago my friend Austin told me about his favorite passage from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. In this part of the story, the characters discuss the different translations of the Bible story about Cain and Abel. They found that each translation used a different phrase to describe Cain’s relationship with sin. The King James version says “thou shalt” conquer sin, whereas the American Standard one says “do thou rule.” But the Hebrew word used is “timshel,” which translates to “thou mayest.” And that means there is a choice. With “timshel,” Cain would have a choice to either rule over sin or not. As I sat on the floor listening to Austin speak, my knee shaking with the anxiety of the thoughts in my head, I felt the power of timshel. I knew that while my head was telling me to self-injure, that I needed to self-injure, in reality the words in my head were not “thou shalt” but rather “thou mayest.” I had a choice, and I was able to choose to be safe.' (Emily Van Etten, "Timshel")Yes. I certainly want to affirm her power to choose to be safe. Of course, one passage from Steinbeck is not a cure-all. Her struggles returned. Still, any time we can manage to move into the space of conscious choice, bring the forces at work in us into the light of self-awareness, we do, temporarily, open up a little more freedom to follow our vow. At the same time, we should also remember that, in Genesis, immediately after Yahweh tells Cain, “you can be its master,” the very next two sentences are:
“Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Come, let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him.”So one little reminder might not do much. Cultivating the habit of constant self-awareness, always noticing the needs, feelings, desires as they arise, this is the practice of freedom. We do this not to suppress or reject the parts that we don’t like, but to own them and embrace them.
To hold ourselves fully responsible – that is, response-able; able to respond to – all of who we are – to own and re-integrate all of ourselves, all the terrible things we’ve done and said and felt and failed to do or say – this is the practice of freedom.
Psychologists use the term “dissociation” to describe a range of detachments from reality. It often has to do with distancing ourselves from a part of ourselves. In extreme cases, it is multiple personality disorder, as the Dr. Jekyll self seeks to sequester and banish the Mr. Hyde self. We are all prone to some form of dissociation – we want to identify with the parts of the self that we like, and get rid of the parts we don’t like. Freedom comes from embracing it all.
Cain is banished from the presence of Yahweh and goes to the land of Nod, East of Eden. Freedom comes from bringing your inner murderous Cain back from the land of Nod (the land of nodding off, the land of sleepy unawareness), back into the full presence of the awakened self -- and owning the responsibility for all of who you are. Not indulging every whim, but not suppressing any either. Neither indulging nor suppressing, but aware of and responding to. We do not rule over our sin – the impulses we will regret -- by banishing it, but by welcoming it into the community of self, by recognizing the legitimacy of its needs.
At the end of East of Eden, the servant Lee begs for the father Adam to give his son, Cal, his blessing. “Don’t leave him alone with his guilt...Let him be free,” pleads Lee. And Adam, as he is dying, whispers one word: “Timshel!” "He thus affirms that Cal has indeed, by accepting responsibility, demonstrated that he is capable of ruling over sin."
In the end, freedom and responsibility are not something we can do by ourselves. We need each other creating the community that can show all of us, all of our parts, back into relationship. You have to do your part, but you don’t have to go it alone. Indeed, you can’t do it alone.
Freedom means no one is banished – no part of you is banished. And that takes all of you welcoming all of who you are, all of us welcoming all of us.
A British band called Mumford and Sons has a song titled “Timshel” (video below). Some of the lyrics echo the East of Eden passage we've been looking at:
“And you have your choices,But the song lifts up also the crucial role of one another.
And these are what makes man great
His ladder to the stars.”
“But you are not alone in thisTimshel: we can do it. Si se puede.
And you are not alone in this.
As brothers we will stand
and we’ll hold your hand,
Hold your hand.
I can’t move the mountain for you
But you are not alone in this."
Thou mayest rule over sin – that is, we just might overcome all banishment, heal from our dissociations, enter into a welcoming responsibility. We may become whole through love. We need all of us. That's our ladder to the stars.
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