The modern mind seeks to gain information through syllogisms
and deductive propositions. However, most of what the Bible teaches about
how to live one’s life under God’s reign is communicated through
the form of story. When Jesus wanted to communicate a spiritual truth, He
told a story. “The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story”
(Eugene Peterson, Leap over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians
[San Francisco: Harper, 1997], 3). The truths about love and marriage, family
and parenting, are expressed in Scripture through narrative ways.
The first insight into sibling rivalry is the story of Cain
and Abel. While the text does not give specific directions on how to treat
brothers and sisters, it does pose a very important question that opens the
door to conversation: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis
4:9). That question was in response to an even more important question asked
by God: “Where is your brother Abel?” The divine question presumes
a very important revelation of God’s view of familial relationships:
God holds us personally accountable for the people that are closest to us.
God knows Abel by name and intervenes for him even in his death.
Retelling this story in faithful ways helps us ask the same
question, not only of our closest relatives, but also of our brothers and
sisters in Christ. The Christian life is lived in community. Communion with
God cannot be separated from communion with each other. Our vertical relationship
is never quite right when the horizontal relationships are wrong. We are a
part of the family of God, which means we are our brother’s keeper.
The fact of the “other brother” is a given. What remains
to be seen is our response to them.
In his wonderful little book Papa, My Father: A Celebration
of Dads, Leo Buscaglia tells the following story:
It happened when I was supervising an educational program for
disabled children many years ago. I was observing in a classroom for mildly
retarded fourth graders. I sat beside six children and their teacher in their
reading group. They were reading a story about a little duck that had no father.
As with all good children’s books, this one was filled with repetitive
phrases. The refrain was always, “But the little duck had no father.”
The teacher, having learned the best technique from her prestigious
school of education, read carefully, distinctly, and with feeling. When she
completed the story, she followed up immediately with a question-and-answer
period to check comprehension, as all good educators do.
“Martha,” she asked a lovely little girl in the group,
“tell us. Did the little duck have a father?”
The child answered without a moment’s hesitation, “Yes.”
The teacher paused for a moment, slightly taken aback by the
little girl’s response. Finally, she smiled and said, “Martha, let
me read to you again from the story, and listen very carefully this time.”
She then repeated several parts of the story, each time accentuating
the familiar refrain, “The little duck had no father.”
This time, certain of success, she again asked Martha, “Did
the little duck have a father?”
The entire reading group now had fallen into a tense silence
while Martha reconsidered the question. After several moments she responded
very matter-of-factly, “Yes.”
The teacher’s frustration was beginning to show at this
point, but she was determined that the child would finally get the right answer.
With a slight quaver of annoyance revealing itself in her voice, she took
the child on her lap, forcing her face close to her own.
“Now listen carefully, Martha. I’m going to read from
the story once more.” She again read from the book, “The little
duck had NO-O-O-O father.” The entire group, and poor Martha, who was
now a captive in her teacher’s arms, jumped at the sound of the exaggerated
“NO!”
“Now,” the teacher asked again sweetly, regaining
her control, “did the little duck have a father?”
By this time Martha’s large brown eyes had filled with
tears of fear and frustration. The entire group waited in anxious silence
while she once more thought through the situation carefully. Finally, she
answered again, “Yes, the little duck had a father.”
At this point the teacher totally lost control. “Martha,
you disappoint me. You’re simply not paying attention! It says again
and again in the story that the little duck had NO father.”
Now the tears in Martha’s eyes overflowed and ran in streams
down her cheeks. “But, teacher,” she said, “EVERYBODY gots
a father.”
The teacher was taken aback completely. She hugged Martha in
apology, smiled, and indicated that now she understood. The entire reading
group grinned with relief.1
Martha was right. It’s universal. “EVERYBODY gots
a father.” Everyone under the sound of my voice knows that to be true.
We know the biological equation: a sperm + an egg = a child. We understand
it biologically.
We also know that spiritually. Spiritually, we know that “everybody
gots a Father.” A Heavenly Father. A loving God who created each of us
in His own image. Few of us here would dispute that fact. But in the very
moment we affirm that “everybody gots a Heavenly Father,” we also
affirm something else. Biological or not, “everybody also gots a brother.”
Why does that have to be true? Why does there always have to
be the “other” brother? Or to quote the New Testament parallel for
the Cain and Abel story, Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son: “Why
must a certain man always have two sons?”
Why must Adam have Cain and Abel? Why must Abraham have Isaac
and Ishmael? Why must Isaac have Jacob and Esau? Why must Jacob have Joseph
and 10 elder brothers? If you think about it, the very fact there is strife
today in the Middle East is because some 4,000 years ago there was “another”
brother.
So why does a certain man always have to have two sons? Why
must there always be the “other” brother (or sister)? Couldn’t
we manage fine if they weren’t around? Wouldn’t life be easier without
them?
Let’s be honest, there are disadvantages to having brothers.
If you’ve had brothers, you know what those disadvantages are. Having
brothers around means that life will never be the same for you. It means there
will always be bumps along the way that might have been smoother without them.
It means the world simply won’t revolve just around you
anymore. You have to learn to share—to share Mom and Dad, to share the
attention, to share the affection, to share the responsibility. You even get
two presents at Christmas instead of four—all because of your brother.
And if that isn’t reason enough, then you have to share the two toys
you did get with your thieving brother!
It might not be so bad if they were at all like us. But most
of our brothers are very different than we are. As those of you with children
will attest to, simply being from the same womb, and having the same parents,
and receiving the same upbringing is no guarantee of a duplicate. Just because
“everybody gots a father,” even the same father, there are no carbon
copies.
With our parents and with our God there is no such thing as
“cookie-cutter creations.” Every brother is different. Every brother
is unique. That is, they’re not like you! They don’t think like
you, act like you, or even hold the same values as you.
And that makes us competitive with our brothers. And so we scrawl
our names in Magic Marker on our baby dolls and our trucks and say, “Don’t
touch my stuff.”
When my sister and I were younger, for a period of about three
months, we shared a room together. It was a temporary arrangement, while we
waited for our house to come open, but the battle lines were drawn. We split
the room in half with masking tape from the top of the ceiling, across the
floor, and up the other wall. And then we threatened each other, “Don’t
cross this line. This is my side of the room, and I want you to stay out!
If you even step across that line, I’m gonna knock you into kingdom come.”
Evidently, we heeded each other’s warning because neither of us were
ever knocked into kingdom come, and my parents seemed to be happy about that
because then they would have had to come looking for us, and they had no idea
where kingdom come was either.
Sometimes we feel like the little boy who wrote a letter to
his pastor: “Dear Pastor, I would like to go to heaven someday because
I know my brother won’t be there.”
It’s never easy to live with our brothers, biologically
or spiritually. And yet, as much as we wish “a certain God didn’t
have two sons,” He does—and far more than two.
It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why does it have to be
that way? Why do we have to share everything with our brother? Our parents,
our toys, our affection, even our God?
According to Martha the fourth grader, it’s because “everybody
gots a Father.” And therefore, every brother, regardless of how different,
is cut from the same fabric. Every brother and sister shares, you and I share,
something important from our Father. And that is the image of God.
You carry the part of me that I am trying to recover. You carry
within you the quiet whispers of a yesterday long forgotten, but never missing.
And every time I am with you, I am helped to rediscover the image of God within
me. And that’s why I need you, Brother. And that’s why you need
me, Sister.
It’s a marvelous, amazing thing, the image of God. Our
sin may have robbed us of the likeness of God, but not of the image of God.
And what is the image of God? The image of God is love, which is another way
to say, relational. We do not and cannot love in a vacuum. We need someone
to be in relationship with, which means we need someone to love. And because
that is true, only in relationship with my brother can I see God most clearly.
(For the balance of this sermon manuscript, go to www.preachersmagazine.org.)
1. Leo Buscaglia, Papa, My Father: A Celebration of Dads (New
York: William Morrow and Company, 1989), 17-19.
