It's almost time to elect a president of the United States. Every four years we go through this little exercise called a national election. And even though every four years we tell one another that the election is about issues; about the economy and about foreign policy and about defense and about the welfare of the people … even though every four years we say this thing is about issues; we still fall into the same trap.
The trap we fall into is getting off on all the peripheral issues. We use our precious time and energy focusing on little things, personal things, that may not amount to a whole lot. But somehow our attention is riveted on them,
Who avoided the draft many years ago, and how did he do it? Did he run off to Oxford and write letters to influential people; or did he join the National Guard and occupy a safe berth secured by influential people? I don't know that it matters now.
Whose wife is more wifely? The one who doesn't care to stay home and bake cookies, because she is a lawyer? Or the one who stays home and writes books and speeches, because she is a lawyer? I don't know that it matters.
But we seem to focus on all these side issues and personalities. If you are a presidential candidate, nothing is safe, nothing is sacred; nothing escapes the public's attention.
Least of all does your brother escape public attention. We've had in recent years a whole long list of presidential brothers who have drawn attention to themselves and created embarrassment for the man in the White House. Jimmy Carter had brother Billy, who tarnished Jimmy's Bible-believing Baptist image' by swilling beer and running off to Libya every chance he got. Embarrassing!
Richard Nixon had brother Donald, who got involved in a long list of real estate deals and influence peddling schemes that embarrassed even the tape maker in the White House.
John Kennedy put one brother in his cabinet, and then had to defend him against the charge that he was as cold as steel and as remorseless as a robot. Another brother was elected to the Senate, but the story has it he spent more time with the ladies than with the laws. At least the brother on Pennsylvania Avenue kept his embarrassments out of the public eye.
And now we have George Bush's brother Prescott, who has been indicted for fraud, and Bill Clinton's brother Roger, who is a recovering drug addict. What a choice we have for First Brother! Hey, if Ross Perot hasn't got any brothers, I'll vote for him in a minute!
Well, brothering is a complicated business. It is not always easy to be a brother. All kinds of things get in the way; all sorts of feelings and motives color this business of brothering. You know that in your own families, and you must know that in your craft, your brotherhood, represented in this room. This afternoon I want to let the Scriptures show us why sometimes our brothers are an embarrassment; and, beyond that, to let the Scriptures teach us about a special kind of fraternity, a wonderful kind of brotherhood, that is available to us.
The Biblical question rings down through the ages, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Let's see how the question can be answered.
I
First, the Scriptures will show us what happens when brothering is nothing but an accident of birth or an accident of nearness. Men call one another brothers if they share the same parents and the same home; or sometimes just because they are thrown together in the same group.
But when brothering is nothing but an accident of birth or an accident of nearness, brothering quickly degenerates into rivalry. And rivalry leads to destruction.
Go with me to the very beginning of the human race.
Genesis 4:1-9
Two men, Cain and Abel, who shared a common parentage. They grew up under the same roof. Both toiled under the heat of the sun to earn a living and wrest from the earth their sustenance. That Abel kept sheep' and Cain grew crops is really incidental. They labored under the same sun and found fulfillment in the same household. They were brothers.
But that Abel gave the Lord the firstlings of his flock and that Cain "in the course of time brought an offering" is more important … one brother seems to have been forthcoming and spontaneous with his gift, the other more reluctant, more driven by duty.
And the Lord received Abel's offering with more regard than Cain's offering. A wedge was driven between the two that led ultimately to the destruction of both of them. Abel destroyed by the hand of Cain, Cain destroyed by his own twisted heart. What happened?
Brothering, if it is just an accident of birth, an accident of nearness, easily degenerates into rivalry. It becomes competition. And competition leads to destruction. Our own spiritual insecurity will cause us to downgrade brothering into competition.
Men, it is when in our own insecurity we cannot rejoice in the success of others that we make our brothers our rivals,
It is when in painful recognition of our own shortcomings that we cannot rejoice in the achievements of others that we make our brothers our competitors.
It is at the very heart of the spiritual sickness that darkens every man's door that when our own fragile egos are threatened, we lash out, we seek to destroy. Of what was Cain afraid? He was not afraid of Abel so much as he was afraid of himself. When we are afraid of ourselves, we express our fear by striking out at those who are closest to us. The demon of spiritual insecurity gets hold of us so that we cannot tolerate our brothers' accomplishments. We cannot tolerate them because they remind us of what we ourselves have not done,
When I was six years old, my younger brother was born. Now six years is a pretty good gap between children, and so I had had plenty of time to get used to the notion that I was king of the heap. Number one son, Numero Uno. Lord of all that I surveyed.
But then this tiny, squalling, puny looking thing. I remember wondering what all of this was going to mean for us, I remember watching warily as they brought him home and began to tend him; I remember long nights when he yelled from dusk to dawn, I remember how much time they took just feeding him. And then I remember … you would not think I could remember this after all these years, but I do … I remember stomping my six-year-old foot very hard as my parents hovered over him, and I screamed out for all the world to hear, "Nobody around here cares about me any more."
Nobody around here cares about me. We smile when a six year old says it, but it is not funny when brother Cain cries out, "Am I my brother's keeper?" "Do I have any responsibility to him, for him?" No, we are rivals. We are under the same roof and we happen to be next door to one another, but insecurity makes a brother a rival, too close for comfort, and ultimately rivalry destroys brotherhood.
II
But if it is true that merely being under the same roof or in the same community may create brothers who do nothing but compete against one another, then it is also true that some brothers advance from being rivals and become partners. Some brothers learn to work together, to organize together, to cooperate together. Some brothers are able to do a good deal of good for the community and to engage in all sorts of fine projects for community betterment.
Indeed, our national strength is due in no small measure to the fact that fraternal organizations such as your own have seen needs and have moved in to make a difference where they could. So many things, from hospitals to schools to various charities, owe their existence to the fact that men may create brotherhoods of partnership. Partnership to accomplish something of worth.
But did you know that even this kind of brotherhood has a way of decaying? Even those brothers who are partners and only partners, nothing more, have a way of misunderstanding, manipulating, and mismanaging one another. And when that happens, their purposes are botched and their brotherhood is wounded.
Again the Scriptures instruct us. The Book of Exodus tells us of two brothers, Aaron and Moses, who were thrown together in partnership. They not only came from the same home; they not only lived in close proximity to one another; but they had an additional degree of closeness. God had called Aaron and Moses into partnership.
The story has it that Moses had been called of God to advocate for the people at the court of Pharaoh. But Moses objected that he was not eloquent, that he lacked the ability to think on his feet. And so God reminded Moses of his brother Aaron’s ability:
Exodus 4: 14b-16
And so Aaron became the spokesman for Moses at the royal court. The people were ultimately delivered, crossing the Red Sea, and made their way out into the Sinai desert; as you know.
But later on the Book of Exodus comes to that awesome moment when Moses has ascended the mountain to receive the tablets of the Law. While Moses is gone, the people begin to pressure brother Aaron.
Exodus 32;1-5
But when Moses came down from the mountain and saw what was going on; he took his partner brother to task:
Exodus 32:21-26a
Men, it is one thing to make your brother your partner. It is another thing to have a common heart.
It is one thing to assign your brother a task to do. It is another thing to help him own its purpose in the same way you do.
When I stand at the foot of Mount Sinai, I see two brothers failing. I see Aaron failing, of course, because he never really understood what the purpose of all this was. He didn’t really grasp what the stakes were.
But I see Moses failing too. I see Moses failing because he treated his brother as an underling, he used him as a partner, but a junior partner; an errand boy. Never did Moses lead his brother into authentic brothering, whereby both of them owned the mission, both of them understood God's intent, both of their hearts beat together.
Some brothers are not fully brothers, just partners. Just co-workers. Just laborers on projects; members of committees, pawns in the game, to be moved around and used and manipulated. And when that happens, when brothering is nothing more than making partners, the result will be disappointment. Somebody will not really understand what it's all about.
I introduced you a minute ago to my baby brother. I mentioned how I felt when he was new born and took away all the attention I had been used to.
Now let me bring you forward about four years. By the time he was four and I was ten, I had learned to put up with him, and had even learned how to milk him. I had learned his weak spots and how I could use him.
And so one day he and I were out in the back yard. He had been unusually pliable that day. Everything that he did and said had sent the signal that there was nobody like his big brother, In fact, when an airplane flew over our home, and my little brother said, "Joe, did you make that?", my ego went flying off into the stratosphere along with that plane.
So he was learning to ride a tricycle that day. He was just discovering how you keep the thing from tipping over and how you stop it without banging up your shins. I suggested that we play traffic cop; I would sit at a corner on our backyard sidewalk, and as he would pedal toward that corner, I would give him either a STOP signal or a GO signal. We did that several times, until he became very confident, overconfident. Then I started messing with him.
I would give him the GO signal until the last possible instant before that tricycle came to that corner, and then I would flash STOP so quickly that he would topple off the thing trying to obey. Next I would give him the STOP signal until he was right at the corner, slowing down; and would flash the GO signal frantically, urging him to round that corner so fast that the thing would fall over again.
As I remember, this blissful game came to an end when both knees were bloody and when even a four-year-old got the picture.
Brotherhood had been nothing but an over-under partnership, and it had decayed into frustration and disappointment.
Some brothers, like Aaron and Moses, are just partners. They are co-workers on projects. And somebody will end up using somebody else. Before long there is no brotherhood, just frustration and disappointment.
III
Oh, but let me tell you what brothering can be, Let me provide you with an entirely different picture of brothering.
There are two other men named in the Scriptures. They are not blood brothers, as were Cain and Abel or as were Aaron and Moses. These two young men were the original odd couple. They were very different. They came from different levels of society. They had very diverse backgrounds. And, you could say that powerful forces were conspiring to keep them apart.
But in one of the loveliest descriptions you will find in any literature, we are told that these two men were brothers of a special kind. They were brothers who had chosen one another. They were soul mates.
Listen to this word about Jonathan and David … Jonathan, the son of old King Saul, David the young warrior and poet, whom many of the people touted as a finer man and a greater soldier than Jonathan's father:
I Samuel 18~1-4.
"The soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and he loved him as his own soul." Indeed in another verse it says that Jonathan loved David as he loved his own life.
And as the story unfolds, in fact you do see that Jonathan again and again risks his own life and safety in order to protect his soul mate David against the ravages of old King Saul. When the old king became jealous and would have speared David, it was Jonathan who pled his case.
When the old king became frantic and would have slaughtered David and all David's friends, it was Jonathan who ran the risk of death himself to warn David.
There is no competition here; there is no threat.
There is much more than a working partnership here; there is no using of one another.
These are soul mates. These are men who have chosen to be brothers,
Oh, you may have brothers who are brothers in blood, but they are nothing but rivals, competitors, and they will destroy each other.
And you may have brothers who are brothers in partnership, but ultimately one of them will use the other, manipulate the other, and they will frustrate and disappoint one another.
But you may also be blessed with brothers who choose one another and who are so committed to one another that they will lay down their very lives for one another. You may look forward to brothers whose strength lies in their reaching out to one another and in their very souls knitting to one another. Jonathan's soul loved the soul of David as his own soul. Soul mates.
The keys are two: brothers who choose and brothers who lay down their lives. Brothers who choose and brothers who lay down and risk their lives. "Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.”
The glory of the Gospel, men and brothers, is this: that we have in Jesus Christ not one who is untouched by our infirmities, not one who fails to understand us, but rather one who understands us to the full, and yet chooses us, knits His very soul to us, and loves us to the end. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Am I my brother's keeper? Dr. Robert Hingson, a very successful physician from Pittsburgh, answered that question. He had dealt with the professional intrigues within the medical profession; the fraternity of medicine or law or the ministry or any other profession can be deadly in its competitiveness.
He had found great success in training other physicians and specialists in the field of anesthesia. He had created many a working partnership. He had all the money he needed and all the superficial friends you could ever ask for.
But Bob Hingson was not satisfied. And so a number of years ago he invented the inoculation spray gun, which could inoculate scores of people against several diseases in just a few seconds of time by penetrating the skin with a high powered jet of serum. No needles, no sterilization, just squirt and immunize.
Bob Hingson not only invented the jet inoculation gun. He founded an organization to go around the world and eradicate disease wherever he could. I like not only what he did; I like the name of his organization: Operation Brother's Brother,
"In this is love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
