“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”

How many of us remember the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Despite being a bit of a bible geek, I did not remember where it was found in the bible and did a google search to figure it out.  Much to my surprise, it wasn’t a trigger that inspired a parable by Jesus, nor was it a question asked by the Pharisees, or even a phrase that Paul had coined in one of his letters.  It was, however, in Genesis 4.

The last time I read that story was as a kid in my illustrated story bible.  ‘Cain and Abel’ is a tale of common humanity.  Jealousy of a sibling is something many people are familiar with although not many will admit it.  Even more common is making an excuse when caught red-handed.  Cain defensively and angrily tried to deflect God’s question. 

God told Cain to let go of his anger and jealousy, but Cain hung onto it, and nursed it, according to the scriptures.  As James wrote in his letter, “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s justice.”  Cain’s anger did indeed not produce God’s justice.  Cain fed his anger until it boiled over into violence.  And then he refused to take responsibility by deflecting God’s question.

We’re not murderers, as far as I know, but the question of “Am I my brother’s or sister’s keeper?”, feels central to the tension we are now seeing in many conversations.  It is a difficult ethical question to ask of ourselves.  The people who are covid deniers or anti-vaxxers are ready to accuse us of being sheeple and worse at the slightest opportunity.  They promote medications that are proscribed for livestock, as if that is safer than a vaccine developed by some of the most educated and dedicated medical experts in the world.  Their anger does not lead to justice, which at this time would be vaccinations distributed to more than just 2% of the world’s population.  Nor does it build up love and community in this country.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a justification for not taking care of one another, not taking responsibility for how our actions impact others.  Remember the first Star Wars movie when Han Solo delivered R2D2 and Princess Leia to the Rebel Camp after escaping Darth Vader and the Death Star?  She says to him, “It’s not over yet”, and Han says defiantly, “It is for me, sister. Look, I ain't in this for your revolution, and I'm not in it for you, Princess. I'm in it for the money.”

That is where a lot of people are right now.  They are in it for themselves, and no one else.  They struggle to deal with change or with being asked to do something like wear a mask or get a vaccine that doesn’t benefit them or their bank accounts.  They are coming from a place of defensiveness that says “I don’t want to do anything someone else tells me I should do” or “I don’t need to care about others getting sick”.  They are coming from a place of entitlement, or anger or shame or fear or denial.  Ultimately, they don’t want to have to change for someone else.  They fear being controlled by someone else.  And their fear of being controlled is so strong that they do irrational things.

It’s always easy to see when it’s them out there that are stuck in the question of “Am I my brother’s keeper?’  But what about us who want to follow Jesus?

Christians are not called to judge our neighbors, as tempting as that might seem.  Or as widespread as that might appear – judging those who have vaccines, those who don’t, those who are staying home, those who went to the Calgary Stampede, those who have Covid, those who don’t believe in Covid, those who sanitize their hands, those who hug everyone they meet, those who know who they will vote for, those who don’t know if it will make a difference whether they vote or not.

As Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

We are to look within, noticing the times we resort to anger or respond with greed or jealousy or pride or denial or resentment.  The times we lie, or say nasty things about people behind their backs, the times we don’t listen to someone with a different point of view.  The times we lash out or the times we fail to speak up.  Especially now, the times we need make changes and accommodations that we feel are unnecessary or unimportant.  More now than ever, change will be hard and resented and rebelled against.  Clinging to human traditions when they no longer help us connect with the holy can lead to the exact kind of Pharisee thinking Jesus was condemning.

It’s not how our church is set up, or how we feel about wearing masks in church, or being asked if we are double-vaccinated or where we sit that makes us unclean.  It is the anger and resentment, or stubborn clinging to what we think is the right way of doing things that can break down our relationship with God.

Ultimately, we are called to be more than our brother’s keeper.  We are not to enable or abandon them, but to love them.  Jesus taught that we are to love our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and love our neighbor as much as we show compassion to ourselves.  That is what is truly important.  Loving God, loving neighbor, loving self.  We can do this, and when we do, we are following the way Christ calls us to be, turning back on what makes us unclean and worshiping God in ways that make a difference in the world.  May it be so for us all.