Am I My Brother's Keeper?
Genesis 4:9; 1 John 3:11-24
Introduction
This past week I installed a new ISP on my computer. I had to set up the DNS and the TCP/IP. Then I had to configure the SMTP and the POP. If you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe you'd better read the FAQ. By the way, that's the only abbreviation I'm really familiar with. FAQ means Frequently Asked Questions, and I had a lot of questions! Questions are an interesting form of communication. You can learn a lot from a person's questions, or lack of them. If someone doesn't care enough to ask questions, they're not interested. We only ask about things we're interested in.
The first 3 questions in the Bible are interesting. They tell us what the key characters were thinking. Satan asked the first question in the Bible in Genesis 3:1. He asked Eve if God really said what she thought he said. His purpose then was to cast doubt on God and his Word. He's still doing that today. The second recorded question is in Genesis 3:9 where God called to Adam asking where he was. God's purpose was to seek man and have fellowship with him. He's still seeking and calling for us today. The third question is found in Genesis 4:9 where a man asks God about our relationship to each other: Cain asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?" We still ask that question today when we shirk our responsibility to others!
Since Cain, every generation has questioned how we ought to relate to our brothers. Do we love them or hate them? What if they hate us, or they're different from us? Can't we just "live and let live?" How does God want us to relate to others? John addressed questions like those in 1 John, chapter 3, beginning with verse 11. (Read vs. 11-18)
Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" was a disrespectful excuse to get God off his back. However, it's an important question that needs to be answered because it deals with our basic relationships. If we can answer this question right, we can begin to live in harmony with others. Maybe it would help answer Cain's question if we break it down into 3 other questions to define our terms: (1) Who is my brother? (2) Am I really responsible for my brother? (3) What should I do for my brother?
I. Who Is My Brother?
Verses 12 of my text makes reference to Cain's killing his brother. As we first consider, "Who is my brother?" we should remember what Jesus taught us. The same kind of question was asked of Jesus in Luke 10:29. When a scribe tried to entrap Jesus, Jesus turned the tables and put him on the spot. Jesus implied that the scribe wasn't in a right relationship with God or his neighbor. To justify himself, the scribe asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan. With that story, Jesus implied in verses 36-37 that our neighbor is anyone in need of our love.
Can we agree that all people have some kind of need? We think only the "down and outs" have needs, but the "up and outs" have needs also. I saw Bill Gates being interviewed on TV this week about the government's anti-trust suit against Microsoft. Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. But, there are things money can't buy: like true friends, good health, peace of mind and spirit. If Bill Gates isn't saved, he has the greatest need in the world. His money will never buy him answers about death and where he'll spend eternity. He needs a Savior just like every other person without Jesus.
Acts 17:26 says every person came from one blood through Noah back to Adam. Since we're all brothers and sisters in the human race, we wonder how evil people can commit horrible atrocities like those in the news this week from Uganda. The cultic leaders of the Movement to Restore the Ten Commandments have now killed more people than Jim Jones when he poisoned 912 people in 1978. This week's count was 924 dead with more graves to be excavated. Our text says if we don't love our brothers and sisters, there's no difference between us and those cultic murderers.
Who is my brother? Any one needing your love. Their race, social standing, physical features, how they're dressed, what language they speak - these should have nothing to do with your decision to love them. Under the skin their blood is just as red as yours; the same pains hurt them and the same joys cheer them. My Chorale Choir at Mississippi College used to sing: "No man is an island; no man stands alone. Each man's joy is joy to me; each man's grief is my own." All fellow members of the human race qualify as our brothers since every person has needs.
II. Am I Responsible for My Brother?
We move to the second question that will help us answer Cain's question. "Am I responsible for my brother?" Most people would say, "No, I'm not responsible for someone else's actions." While that may be true, you may be responsible for why they act the way they do. If we could love and befriend each other, we could stop much of the violence today because people are crying out for help. When they can't get help any other way, they turn to crime and violence. What they need is a friend to show them the right way to solve their problems.
I remember very vividly my initiation at Mississippi College. When I arrived on a September Sunday afternoon in 1956; before my parents left, I was immediately taken to a barber stool in front of my dorm and given a quick, lop-sided, crooked Mohawk haircut. My mother left in tears. Over the next 6 weeks, we freshmen had to wear our beanies at all times, except in buildings and in the presence of ladies. We couldn't step on a crack in the sidewalk or walk on the grass. We ate in the dining hall sitting under the tables using only a knife. Any upperclass man could make us do anything from reciting our school history to singing the Alma Mater. If we were disrespectful, we cleaned the auditorium steps with our toothbrush or measured the football field with a 6 inch ruler. We hated those 6 weeks, but do you know what that initiation did for us? It bound our class together. We had to know and trust each other because everyone else was against us!
That's what the world needs now, because we're all brothers and neighbors on a small planet. Look at 1 John 3:11. "This is the message we have heard from the beginning, that we love one another." Who told us that? Jesus did in Matthew 22 at the beginning of Christianity. Before he died, Jesus said we could fulfill all God's law requires of us by loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbor as ourselves. After Jesus died to provide our salvation, the Father had John to change those requirements slightly. Verse 23 says God's command for us now is to believe in his Son, Jesus, and to love one another.
So, "Am I responsible for my brother?" The answer is yes! We have to turn all the way through the Bible to 1 John 3:16 to answer Cain's question from Genesis 4:9. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Verse 16 teaches, "Yes, even to the point of laying down our lives for our brothers."
III. What Should I Do for My Brother?
Now, we get to the practical meat of the matter as we continue to ask: "What should I do for my brother?" Look at verses 17-18. There we're told that if we have the means to help someone in need, we should share what we have with them. Otherwise, how can we say the love of God is in us?
That brings me to something I have wanted to work into a sermon since I stood at the back of our auditorium several weeks ago. We happened to have several visitors that Sunday. They came early, and many of those strangers were seated on the aisles as you came in from Sunday School. I watched in disbelief as many of our members walked right past strangers without saying a word to welcome them. Yet, those same members went to them during our welcome chorus and shook their hands. You know what that says to me? It says we're just going through a hand-shaking ritual when we welcome our guests if we can't personally greet each one when we pass by them. People, we have to develop a mind-set of genuine concern for every person we meet.
Is the friendly clerk who you talk with at the grocery store married? How many children does he or she have? Where do they go to church? What about the service people you deal with regularly: the man who fixes your appliances, the people who pick up your trash, the mechanic who services your car? What do you personally know about these fellow human beings? Are they hurting for a friend to talk with? Do they need something you could share? The most precious gift you can give them won't cost you a cent, because Jesus has already paid the price for their salvation; but they won't know it unless you tell them. And, your telling them about the love of Jesus won't mean much if they don't see his love in you. Why would anyone want what you have if you don't even care for other people?
Remember what James wrote in 1:27? "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep (yourself) unspotted from the world." He said in chapter 2 that we prove our faith by our good works. The proper response when someone has reached bottom is not: "He made his bed; let him lie in it." Rather, we should think, "There, but for the grace of God, go I. I must help my brother because someone helped me."
Janie and I received good news last week when we heard from a pastor in Canada that he's starting a one-man campaign to get the churches of Canada to implement the book we wrote just before we came here, How to Build a Caring Church. Janie was also on my staff in our previous church where we had 1700 members and five ministers. She was our Ministry of Caring Coordinator. Our philosophy there was if a need was evident, we attempted to meet that need without questioning their motives. If they were deceiving us, they had a deeper problem at the root of their need. By meeting their temporal needs in the love of Christ, we often had a chance to share Jesus and give them a permanent solution.
Because of that ministry, we became known all over Chattanooga as the Caring Church. It was the best publicity a church could have. We prepared and delivered meals every day, indefinitely, as long as someone was incapacitated. We repaired equipment for those on fixed incomes; we sat with sick people around the clock; we sent cards every day to encourage or congratulate someone. We delivered flowers to our members in the hospitals. And, our expenses were financed by donations.
We had a large deaf congregation who had never been called on to be ministers. When we asked them to prepare meals, write cards, or do yard work, they were ecstatic because that made them feel useful. I remember when one of our men's Sunday School classes painted a widow's house one Saturday. She had laid awake nights worrying that her unpainted house made her neighborhood look bad. Her neighbors were concerned that Saturday because so many cars were parked at her house. They came to ask if she were alright. I listened in pride as she stood at her front gate telling her neighbors, "This is my church painting my house for me!" That's what John is talking about in our text.
The final verses of 1 John 3 say,
This, then, is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts
at rest....If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and
receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what
pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
and...love one another.
Conclusion
We draw attention to the cross at Easter. The cross, with its vertical beam and its horizontal beam, reminds us of our 2 great responsibilities to God and man: Love Jesus with all our hearts, and love our brother as ourselves. Maybe that's why Jesus told us to take up our crosses daily and follow him. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes. Jesus said, "What you do for one of...these, you do for me!"
