Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

 

The pastor's sermon referenced this line*, and talked of our fears and god's place in our lives. My own fear's can create what I perceive as more darkness. But it's not real, and even when it is real god has made a promise. These Mom's for Liberty, the conservative state senators and house members (the head of the house had an angry outburst when the bill failed) are turning children into their own darkness. I don't know how you even reach them, this isn't even anymore about a particular issue, but about a state of fear and finding more to fear. 

Dear god, relieve me of my fears. Stop me from finding more to fear.

And all the people say:  "Amen."

The title to this post comes from Genesis 4, when Adam and Eve conceive two sons:

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

6 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

7 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.

8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13 And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

15 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 

I know, it's the KJV, which we're all supposed to hate, but I hate it less than other versions readily available on-line, and I'm not doing a deep exegesis of the scriptures so I'm not that worried about the translation.  It's the gist that matters, and we have that here.  Besides, I have a fondness for Early Modern English.  This is the stuff that taught you to speak (and think) the way that you do; show a little respect, punks!

And I carried it through to v. 16 because the KJV is a literary treasure, and the reference to "east of Eden" is, thanks to Steinbeck, a literary one, too.  But the gist is Cain's murder of his brother.  And it's very interesting to pay close attention to the story, because Cain is mad at God and jealous of Abel, because God accepts Abel's animal sacrifice but not Cain's grain sacrifice (equally intersting because by Deuteronomy the Israelites are directed to bring the first fruits of the harvest to God as an offering; a passage I've used often for Thanksgiving.)  Still, Cain is none too happy, so he takes his wrath out on Abel.  I'm an older brother with a younger brother, and I get that.  There were times in my youth I resented the presence, or successes, of my brother, starting with him coming home from the hospital.  My parents loved to tell the tale of me coming into my mother's presence a few days after that and asking:  "Mommy, when is that baby's daddy going to come take him home?"  It got better from there, but I'm honest enough to say he's always been a better brother to me than I have to him.  So I get where Cain is coming from, if I don't condone his actions.

But v. 7 causes me to pause a moment, because the notion of action, deeds, behavior, is already here; and it's not a complicated one:

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.

Granted that's not exactly plain guidance and a clear set of guiderails, but the intent is fairly clear (as clear as God can be said to be, human beings being what they are.  I can only imagine the Midrash on this verse.).  Do well, and you will be accepted.  And as it comes to pass, murdering your brother is not "doing well."**

Cain's answer to God's question is a famous one, and I hardly hope to provide the definitive interpretation of it.  But I think, just as God tells Cain to "do well" and so be accepted (by God?  by society?  by family?  It is ambiguous, isn't it?), I think Cain's question is a cri du couer to which the only answer can be:  "Yes."

But now what does that affirmative entail?

I don't know how you even reach them, this isn't even anymore about a particular issue, but about a state of fear and finding more to fear. 

Are we obliged to reach the Moms for Liberty who so fear the otherness of others? As citizens of a democracy, no.  No more than we are obliged to re-educate the racists and bigots and white supremacists among us.  You can't, after all, fix stupid.  And our prison systems long ago gave up on "reform" for prisoners (more's the pity, but that, too, was a democratic decision). But as Christians?  Are we our brothers', and sisters', keepers?

Yes. With provisos.

Matthew comes closest to giving us guidance here, so let's start there:

And if some companion does wrong, go have it out between the two of you privately.  If that person listens to you, you have won your companion over.  And if he or she doesn't listen, take one or two people with you so that 'every fact may be supported by two or three witnesses.' [a reference to Deuteronomy 19:15]  Then if he or she refuses to listen to them, report it to the congregation.  If he or she refuses to listen even to the congregation, treat that companion as you would a pagan or a toll collector. I swear to you whatever you release on earth will be considered released in heaven.  Again I assure you, if two of you on earth agree on anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  In fact, wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be there among them.

Matthew 18:15-20, SV

I finished that with v. 20 because it provides the needed "stinger" of Christian humility to it.  No doubt the Moms for Liberty think they have agreed on something to ask for, and that God has given it to them.  But then we feel the same way, don't we?  And they are two or three gathered in Jesus' name; but then so are we, aren't we?

Well, two or three of us, reading this, anyway, have probably gathered in Jesus' name.  Close enough is clearly good enough.  Jesus clearly wasn't concerned with competition between congregations for who had the fullest pews, and the largest number of pews to fill.

Which also points back to this passage from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount: it's about the ekklesia, the church, the body of the faithful. Yes, and in one sense it's just that restrictive:  who do you disagree with so strongly, except a member of the ekklesia?  And how to you treat them finally as a pagan, or a toll collector, if there is no group to stand behind you and against... them?  But that raises a question for the Moms for Liberty:  who do they speak for?  and why is their group in control (if it is)?  If, as Jesus says in v. 20, wherever two or more are together in his name he is there, too, that means Jesus is in a lot of places you (or I, or the Moms for Liberty) don't want to be, among people we don't even want to associate with.

Now who's in charge?  Now who is my brother's keeper?  And who is my brother (or sister)?  And what does being a "keeper" mean, anyway?

I've been the pastor of churches where people were quite sure Jesus was on their side, but not mine.  I've been next door to churches (as a pastor) who were quite convinced Jesus was with them, and not me and my congregation (I could have thrown a rock from my church and hit the church next to it, but that pastor never so much as called me to welcome me to the neighborhood, and several pastors I knew in the area said he never would, because they were MO Synod Lutheran, and so "holier than thou."  I should have called on him anyway, but frankly I had my own problems and didn't need to add to them with a bad experience at another church door (I already had a church member demanding I bar another member from entering our church building.  He had the power in the congregation to enforce his demands, and was one of the reasons I left as soon as I could.).  Probably I should have, as an act of Christian charity and humility.  I accept that criticism; I make it myself.

But so it goes.

What responsibility, then, do we have for the Moms for Liberty (to give "them" a name and something of an identity)?  Perhaps it is the responsibility to not be afraid:

My own fear's can create what I perceive as more darkness. But it's not real, and even when it is real god has made a promise. These Mom's for Liberty, the conservative state senators and house members (the head of the house had an angry outburst when the bill failed) are turning children into their own darkness. I don't know how you even reach them, this isn't even anymore about a particular issue, but about a state of fear and finding more to fear. 

Your own darkness is all you can take responsibility for, because it is all you can truly struggle with.  You can't struggle with other people's darkness, because they can't struggle with yours.  Pointing out the splinter in your sister's eye is ignoring the log in yours.  After all, the splinter you see is just a reflection of that log.  You can only worry about your problems; you can't fix theirs.

But you can't kill 'em, either.  That's the lesson from Cain's story.  You are your brother's keeper to the extent you want to control your brother; and murder is the ultimate act of control.  I can take your life. I can make you die, while I live.  What greater control is there than that?  Expand it a thousand times, a million times, with the power of the modern tyrant (Hitler; Stalin; Pol Pot), it is just multiplying the original sin of murder.  It is that sin which is still the root problem.  So in that sense, yes, you are your brother's keeper.  But are you the keeper of his soul, or his fear?

No.  Your sister or brother keeps their own soul, their own fear.  And you can help, but you cannot be responsible for their decisions.  Which is not to say you cannot be responsible for your decisions, either.  Their fear need not be your fear.  Fear is a contagion; but you can inoculate yourself against it, and teach others to do the same.  Teach, but not control.

I was at a school board meeting last night because the Lovely Wife is retiring, and she and all the retirees this year were being honored.  They also honored speech and debate students in the district who had won state honors.  Three teachers from three high schools presented their students, the last proudly announcing she was the teacher of the other two teachers on stage that night.  I mention it because she spoke so clearly and eloquently on the stage it was a breath of fresh air after the two teachers who announced their students and their accomplishments in voices so rushed and muddled it was impossible to tell what they were saying into the microphones.  The last teacher, the teacher of teachers, spoke clearly.  The contrast couldn't have been greater.  You can teach; but you can't control.  The responsibility ultimately lies with your brother or sister.  What you are responsible for, like Cain, is your own actions and emotions.

So what do we do about the Moms for Liberty?  We oppose their political positions, because this is a democracy, and that's how democracies function.  We oppose, but we do not seek control; that's their failure.  We do not replace our fear (of fascism; of tyranny; of extremism) with their fear.  In that sense we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers: we keep ourselves within our limits and responsibilities, and expect them to do the same.  And when they don't, society provides the corrective, even to treating them like pagans and toll collectors; if it comes to that. 

But we also recognize them as children of the living God, a God who loves them as much as God loves us.  Aye, there's the rub.  We are their keepers only inasmuch as we keep ourselves, and treat them as brothers and sisters.  How they treat us is not within our control; nor should it be, because then we'd be within theirs.  Aye, there's the rub, again. We have a responsibility to treat them as we would be treated, and to love them as God loves us.  But we are not responsible for their fears and nightmares; we are only responsible for not trying to feed them, and for not judging our sisters and brothers for them.  After all, the worst we see in them is just the reflection of the worst we have in us.  That we can work on; the rest, we have to work with.

May all the people say: "Amen."

*Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,[a]

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me. 

**This story has inspired at least two contemporary takes on it.  One is a movie, "He Never Died," in which the protagonist turns out to be Cain, who is immortal and eternal, i.e., he can't be killed.  An interesting interpretation of the curse in v. 15.  And the brothers appear in the Netflix version of "Sandman" (true to the comics?  I've no idea.), where Cain repeatedly and frequently kills Abel, who just comes back to life out of the grave, rather stoically and forgiving of his older brother.  Which is an interesting commentary on brothers, indeed.