Brotherly Love

Genesis 4:1-8

Ah, brothers...you gotta love ‘em!

A brother may be the closest relative you ever have, but that does not mean that he will be the closest relative you ever have. 

There is too much history. There is built in competition. There is the presumed certainty that the other always got the better of everything. There is the simple proximity. There is the sharing. There is all the stuff that comes with inhabiting the same space as another human being. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

That’s just the way it is with brothers.

Today, the Bible offers us Cain and Abel, but it could also raise before us Jacob and Esau, Joseph and the guys, Moses and Aaron, David and his brethren, David’s sons, James and John, Peter and Andrew--well, you get the point--brothers run all through the scriptures--and, invariably, they get into a fair number of scrapes just because they are brothers. There is all that stuff that makes them brothers. 

Oh, brother...

So, what can we glean from brothers that helps us on our way in the life of faith?

First, there is the beginning. Brothers come from the same source. They share a mother. One of the great mythologies of human existence is that there is a disconnect between people because they do not come from the same place. We see different hometowns, different economic strata, different interests, different cultures, different colors, different languages--differences on end--and fool ourselves into thinking that this means that we have nothing really in common with the people with whom we share the planet. But we all come from God. We are all the work of God. We all exist because of God. Like all brothers, we have the same beginning. That erases all divisions. It makes all distinctions cosmetic when you get down to it. Yes, humanity is a crazy quilt of differences, but at the core, we are all of the same stuff. 

My brother and I were about as different as brothers could be. He was short and stout; I am tall and thin(-ner); he was a musician; I can barely hold a tune; he was rough and tumble; I am more prim and straight. Yet, despite all of those differences, despite the fact that we did not even look alike, nothing could alter the truth that we were brothers. 

So, it is with every human being we meet along the way. You never meet someone who is not a child of God.

Yet, the second lesson gleaned is that being children of God is not a cure for conflict. All of the brothers mentioned above in our biblical list fought with each other. They fell out. Sometimes the results were disastrous. Cain murdered Abel. Jacob ran for his life from Esau. Aaron led Moses’ people into total apostasy. And on go the crimes, battles, and troubles that afflicted all these brothers. 

I have said it many, many times--if there is more than one person in a room, there will be conflict, and sometimes it does not require that second person. 

God warns us of this truth. It is there as God meets Cain in Cain’s darkest hour--that moment when jealousy tears at him and rage begins to shape his imagination, and Abel falls into dire peril. God whispers a caution to Cain--”Beware, Cain, sin couches at the door.” Sin lay in wait. It anticipates that moment of weakness, that moment when we lose our senses, lose our minds, sure we are right as rain and cold as steel. Those moments come when we run into the conflict that surely comes. Suddenly, we feel manipulated, mistreated, taken advantage of, hurt, unheard--and our souls demand satisfaction. The only recompense is the obliteration of the other person. 

You don’t have to kill someone to destroy them. Shatter their dreams. Ignore them. Use them. Shun them. Belittle them. Those all work, too. 

But God warns us. God warns us to heed the signs, recognize the storms, and guard ourselves. 

But the next lesson gleaned is that God knows there will be times when we fail to do so.

God knows our imperfection better than we know it ourselves. God knows our inability to rein ourselves in better than we know our own weakness. God plans for it. God sets the stage for redemption.

God is with both Abel and Cain.

Abel is safely in the confines of God, even as his brother works terrible evil upon him. Cain can think himself rid of Abel, but Abel is still with God, still kept in the envelope of God’s beatitude. That is the promise of resurrection. But even as Cain does the unthinkable, God is with him, too. God does not rain holy fire on Cain, nor will God allow anyone else to take their vengeance for the blood of Abel. God preserves Cain. God keeps him. There will be another day for Cain, a day for him to get it right.

We call that grace.

And that is how God meets all of us, all of the time. God meets us to preserve us. God encounters us to keep us on our way--in the way defined by Christ as THE way. God preserves in love for love. 

So, what do we learn from the biblical brethren?

Conflict is inevitable, but, with God, so, too, is grace. God knows our imperfection, and God knows we will need help beyond our own feeble resources to transcend it. God knows that kids fight. So God enters the fray. God enters to preserve all involved. God wants us to have that next day. God wants us to be.

So, look around the room. This motley bunch is family--all of us, different names, different ages, different types--we are all family. There will be good days. There will be bad days. But there will always be another day, thanks be to God.

Take that grace for all that it is. Take it, and unhitch yourself from all that might lead you to turn on your siblings. That is not the way. Love is the way.

Go that way.

Amen.