God is Not Deceived - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Each of us knows in our own marrow the answer to Cain’s disingenuous question. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes. Yes, you are. Yes, I am. The murder of Abel is horrific. But the question with which Cain seeks to cloak his guilt is itself an act of violence. Am I my brother’s keeper is ugly and violent because it trumpets a callous indifference to the way the God of love has ordered the world. God built humans for relationship and connection. Cain and Abel are certainly each their own person – and also, they belong to each other in a unique and powerful way that has sadly escaped Cain’s understanding. 

Cain may be lying when he says he does not know Abel’s whereabouts – but perhaps the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is asked in utter sincerity. It is exactly that kind of missing the point that would lead a person to disregard their own sibling’s humanity. Cain’s own fear and self-preservation blinds him to the truth that yes, he is Abel’s keeper, as Abel is his keeper. Cain himself is deceived. But God is not, and neither are we.  

Which is why it is so shocking to see the sheer violence and inhumanity we are willing to accept in our own time and place. It is not just that the racially targeted rounding up, incarcerating, and deporting of people in America is unjust and criminal – though it is unquestionably both of these things: It’s that it is intentional in its cruelty and dehumanization. ICE seeking to pull children out of schools to arrest them, to scoop families up at graduation ceremonies, deporting US citizens, and legal American residents without anything resembling due process or respect for human dignity, the grotesque photo ops in front of incarcerated men – these are terrorist acts. They are quite literally designed to cast fear in the hearts of every Latino living in America.