If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” – Genesis 4:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 9, 2015): Genesis 4

In the spring of 1985, The Coca-Cola Company unveiled a new taste for its flagship product – Coke. The resultant product was called “New Coke” – and it is almost unanimously thought to be one of the worst marketing decisions – ever. New Coke’s reign was short, but it cast a long shadow. The backlash was immediate. Coke drinkers revolted over the New Taste. Competitors marvelled at the Coke move noting that companies routinely change their formula, but only Coke chose to advertise the change. Observers publically asked whether Coke possibly misunderstood its place in the market. Pepsi Taste Tests were designed for comparisons between small amounts of the product – less than a can of the pop. In small amounts, drinkers opted for the sweeter Pepsi product, but in larger quantities the sweetness could often tip the scales in the direction of Coke. But that was something of which The Coca-Cola Company seemed to be blissfully unaware. Coke’s reaction to the backlash was to almost immediately release Coke Classic – the old Coke formula with only a couple of revisions. Amazingly, the move resulted in an increase in market share for The Coca-Cola Company and conspiracy theorists began to believe that this was Coke’s strategy all along. But that is highly unlikely. The unfortunate reality is that Coca-Cola’s innovation could have seriously damaged the company. Coke’s success through this period is really because of only one reality – The Coca-Cola Company got very lucky.

This passage is one of the harder ones in the book of Genesis. The truth is that we are not really sure what Cain’s sin was. Some have argued that it was the difference between the sacrifice of a rancher versus that of one who farms the land. According to this view, God apparently loves ranchers more than he loves farmers. But others have argued that this is a first fruits issue – Abel brought his first fruit. The first fruits (or the first born) are always given in faith because there is no real guarantee that there will be others that will be born and that will survive – and yet we give anyway. Cain on the other hand just gave a portion of his crop – not the first of his crop. And this view of Cain’s sin might have been closer to the truth. According to this view, Cain becomes the first innovator. Rather than giving to God what he has asked for, he makes a substitution. He explains why this should be good enough for the one that created him. But in the end, God disagrees.

We are all innovators. We make excuses. We explain to people and to God why we can’t give to God the things that he has requested from us. God asks us for our tithes and offerings, but we don’t tithe because that is so Old Testament. God does not really expect that of me? God tells us not to gossip, but we gossip explaining to God that this is simply part of the human condition and that his prohibition of gossip is simply unreasonable. God instructs us to love the stranger and the outcast, but we don’t love others as ourselves and the explanation we offer is that they are in sin, and they are wrong and they do not deserve our love until they repent. And with every innovation and every explanation we walk further and further away from the God that we profess to serve; and we walk further toward the sin of Cain.

Innovation in the corporate world must be handled carefully. Every innovation contains within it the seeds of success as well as the seeds of destruction. But when we are talking about the words of God, innovation only has the ability to destroy – and that was something that Cain found out as he offered his innovative sacrifice to his God.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 5