Adam’s Other Son

 

Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth… (Genesis 4:25)

 

        Why is it that our stars fade so quickly? Political and business leaders disappoint us not just with failed promises but with failed integrity. Heroes of sport lose their luster and move from champion to bum in a moment. Celebrities we idolize are taken down by drugs or scandal. Disgrace claims them long before the grave.

Many years ago I heard Ernest Campbell, then just retired from the pastorate of New York City’s Riverside Church, preach a sermon entitled “Adam’s Other Son.” Its focus was on Seth, third son of Adam and Eve. Abel was dead, slain by his jealous brother. Cain, the murderer, had been banished and was wandering east of Eden. Their parents, Adam and Eve, according to the ancient story, had no one remaining. The human family and the well-laid plan of creation were in jeopardy…until there was born this third child—Adam and Eve’s other son.

        It’s a good bet that not one person in five that you might ask could give you this other son’s name. They might know Cain, might even be fascinated by him—the nomad, the fugitive, free of restraints, wandering the earth. Abel also is known and admired—the patron saint of victims, the good brother who did it right, a decent soul who paid a terrible price for his innocence.

        But they won’t know Seth. And there’s not much to know. All that is said of him is that he married, fathered children and died. Still, the story of faith, of humanity itself, continued because of him. The plan, that grand design that was to follow the road through Ur and Egypt and Sinai and Jordan and Babylon and Bethlehem, was still workable because of him. Seth, the almost anonymous one, became the carrier of the promise, the link to the future.

        Perhaps our stars twinkle only briefly because ultimately every age, every era, belongs to Seth. Perhaps it’s always to be this way, that we depend on the Seths of this world to carry on. Our hope and our future are in the hands of the ordinary person, the obscure, the unknown—and they are the right hands.

        So who are the Seths today?

·         Seth is the one who reads the news but never makes it.

·         Seth struggles with budgets and bills but always finds a way when someone asks for help.

·         Seth is usually home in the evenings, except when volunteering in the community or attending a committee meeting at church.

·         Seth is unfashionably loyal to his wife.

·         Seth is the neighbor who minds her own business but is always willing to lend a hand.

·         Seth seldom rides in limousines.

·         Seth is lost in a gourmet restaurant but gets excited about a fried chicken picnic with the grandkids.

·         Seth’s clothes are undistinguished and his travels are limited, but when they pass the hat for a sick employee or retiring colleague, he always has a twenty to spare.

When Seth passes from the scene, few will notice. A name may be written down, a memory shared, but in a hundred years no one other than God will know. And yet—as Ernest Campbell noted at the conclusion of his sermon—when he enters on the other side, it will be to the sound of trumpets and the shouts of the angels. For it is through Seth—Adam’s other son—that God holds this world together.

Who are the Seths you know? What do they look like to you?

Copies of Mike's book You Are Rich: Finding Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of 60 similar reflections, can be ordered through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.