For my contribution, I went off at a bit of tangent, and came up with what might have been the first thank you letter ever written.
If you want the full context, you can find it in Genesis 4:2-8. But the Biblical account is a little limited. I decided to go into it a bit deeper...
Just a quick note to say thanks for that wonderful act of worship that you led for us all today. I think that I can speak for everyone present when I say that we really saw God’s blessing on our time together. There’s no doubt that you can really put on a sacrifice, Bro!
I am a little concerned that you may have heard rumours to the effect that I was a little put out by how well it went, especially as my Harvest Offering last week didn’t really go as well as I might have hoped. Please don’t attach any weight to any such gossiping!
OK, it’s true I was disappointed that my event didn’t seem to have quite the same ‘wow’ factor as yours – after all, I had put a lot of work into all that growing and tending and picking and reaping, naturally I felt that I should have got some recognition for all that labour. Especially since all you had to do was sit out in the field and watch your sheep all day, then bring one back home and kill it on the alter! Not to disparage your skills in any way, bro, but you haven’t exactly had the toughest career path to date, have you?
Now, I know you went over some of this in your sermon – which was excellent, by the way, I particularly liked the way you structured it in three clear points, which is an idea I might pinch if that’s all right! - and yes, I do appreciate what you said about the cleansing power of blood and so on. But my concern is that you’re missing the practical value of agriculture, especially when it comes to building civilisation. Which I hope you’ll agree is one of our priorities at the moment.
I’m thinking of starting a city, myself, and that means a lot of people needing a lot of food. Sorry, but a bit of lamb isn’t going to do it. We’ll going to need a lot more crops of all sorts, a lot more of my sort of farming. That’s the future, bro, and with all due respect to your thinking on this, I really don’t want to see things held back by what I’m afraid may be a rather rigid and traditionalist religious viewpoint.
But perhaps a letter isn’t the best place to bring all this up. I’d much rather talk face to face. Why don’t we get together out in the fields tomorrow? Just you and me – and the sheep, of course – and we’ll toss this whole thing around for a bit. I’m sure we could both learn something from that.
So I hope to see tomorrow.
Thanks again!
Your brother,
Cain.