His Brother’s Keeper
nat rosasco
Genesis 4:8-11
Throughout the various stages of my life, I have spent a great deal of time in graveyards. When I was growing up, my family lived directly across from a graveyard. My sister and I used to play there. Our parents probably would not have approved; nor would have the graveyard keeper, for that matter, so my sister and I had an unspoken agreement not to divulge where we were going when we said we were going out to play.
But in fact, I can state from personal experience that graveyards are great places for children to play. We could sense the rich and varied ambience that graveyards exude. Graveyards are at once peaceful, mysterious, poignant, beautiful, sad, hopeful, and sometimes a bit frightening. And we were cognizant too, of course, of all the souls at rest who surrounded us. We used to pretend that we knew them. Somehow I think that they would not have minded our presence there.
When I grew up and became a pastor, I continued to spend a great deal of time in graveyards. It’s part of the job description, albeit found only in the fine print. Pastors preside over graveside services. One year, in the early days of my ministry, there were upwards of twenty of them. And too, pastors accompany the grieving to graveyards. It helps those who have lost a loved one to hear a psalm or a prayer, to connect their loss with the biblical promises.
And as I grow older, there is an additional reason to spend a great deal of time in graveyards. The generation behind me is now being to be laid to rest. As the Bible expresses it, “That generation was gathered to their ancestors.” And I have even begun to go to graveyards for those in my own generation who have been laid to rest. No doubt I will continue to spend a great deal of time in graveyards for the rest of my life. And when I am laid to rest, of course, I will spend endless time in a graveyard.
I am not complaining. There’s much to be said for graveyards. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there is no superficiality in graveyards. No hiding behind roles or masks. No avoidance through busyness or distraction. No denial through triviality or pretense. Graveyard’s declare life’s greatest mystery; for in graveyards, life confronts death. Emily Dickenson wrote, “The distance that the dead have gone does not at first appear.” In graveyards you can’t help but wonder about the distance the dead have gone. I remember once standing before my father’s gravestone and murmuring to myself, “Where are you now, Dad?”
Spending all this time at graveyards, I have read many a gravestone. In fact I have become something of an expert in the area. There are a couple of standard types of gravestones. One situates a person in his or her family – loving wife, beloved son, this kind of thing. The other situates a person in his or her career or vocation. There’s a special insignia for a lawyer or a doctor, for instance; and of course, for a soldier. But then there is the type of gravestone that deviates from the standards. I have decided that’s the kind I want, and I even decided what I want my gravestone to say – “She was her father’s daughter.”
I want it to say that because I heard it so much growing up. “You sure are your father’s daughter!” And that always gave me comfort and happiness. I knew who I was, and I knew whose I was. So I will take final comfort and happiness believing that I am my heavenly father’s daughter. She was her father’s daughter.
The reason that I have already decided what I want my gravestone to say is not that I am one of these people who has everything planned with regard to her death. I run across a lot of these kinds of people. They have every single imaginable detail and contingency planned. Either they don’t want to burden their relatives, or they don’t trust their relatives not to screw things up. They have the outfit they want to be laid out in, including the jewelry. They have the readings and hymns they want performed at the service. They have the restaurant where they want the reception and even the courses of the meal. They have the coffin and the plot. Their finances are in impeccable order. That’s not me. My hat’s off to them, but that’s not me. I have already decided what I want my gravestone to say because I saw a gravestone once, one of the deviations from the standards, and it moved me. It continues to move me even to this day. The reason I have already decided what I want my gravestone to say is simply that I am copying a good idea.
The gravestone said, “He was his brother’s keeper.” That’s how some man wanted to be remembered, or how someone remembered him. Either way. He was his brother’s keeper. It boiled down the Bible in such a human way. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." " This I command you, that you love one another." "Bear one another’s burdens." " He was his brother’s keeper."
It’s ironic really that those words were first voiced in a negative light. Cain had just murdered his only brother in cold blood, and God came looking for him. When God caught up with him, Cain was like a defiant little child - trying to stick his chest out, trying to maintain his position , trying to hide his fear. “How would I know where he is?” Cain mouthed off. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But unwittingly Cain testified against himself. His words disclosed that he was indeed to have been his brother’s keeper.
Undeniably, there are many Cain’s in our own generation that still, in their own ways, construe those words in a negative light. There are those who would say that to be a brother’s keeper is to set a standard for him to live up to, a standard of course, that’s probably based upon nothing more than their own ignorance or passion or prejudice, a standard that they embody but that the brother does not. They are their brother’s keeper by standing fast and firm against their brother’s sin.
And then there are those who would say to be a brother’s keeper is to avoid or ignore him. This way of being a brother’s keeper still assumes a set standard or one kind or another. It says I’m white, or I’m straight, or I’m healthy, or I’m sober, or I’m rich, or I’m educated, or I’m saved, ….and you aren’t, so rather than standing fast and firm against your sin, I’m just going to pretend that you don’t exist. It’s kind of a skewed version of that bumper sticker you may have seen that reads, “Co-Exist.” Let’s Co-Exist in the same way islands coexist.
And then there are those who would say to be a brother’s keeper is simply a matter of getting out the check book. Send something off to this cause or that - to deal with the brother abstractly or mathematically and so avoid personal risk or unpleasantness. You can be your brother’s keeper and never have to look him in the eye. Yes, there are all sorts of ways to construe those words in a negative light, and so, like Cain, deny our obligation to be our brother’s keeper.
But I don’t think that man in the graveyard denied his obligation to be his brother’s keeper. I think he really was his brother’s keeper. I think he took people’s burdens -whoever they were and whatever they were - upon himself. My grandmother knew how to do this. Whenever I told her about a problem I was having she’d say, “What do you think we should do about it?” My problem instantly became her problem too. I think that man was just this way. And I think he was just this way because he was possessed of a God given respect for the dignity of all people. And even in his death, he is still serving as a model as to what life is all about.
Graveyards. Maybe the reason they intrigue me so is that they call to mind our common destiny as human beings. We are born. We struggle through this life for a span, and then we die. Death awaits us all. But whether we struggle together or alone seems to be the decisive thing. He was his brother’s keeper. He would not let anyone struggle alone, just as Jesus Christ would not let anyone to struggle alone. Holy Lord God, Let it be said of us. Amen.
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, enslaved the People of Israel. It was not out, as you might assume, out of cruelty. It was, rather, out of judiciousness. The People of Israel were not Egyptians. They were foreigners. They were the rough equivalent of what we today would call the undocumented. So now as then they were deemed to be threats. Add to this that the People of Israel grew increasingly numerous, as numerous even as the Egyptians themselves. This intensified the threat. In those numbers they could simply take over. Or Egypt’s enemies could induce them to fight for them, as a kind of built in fifth column. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had to act. And so he enslaved the People of Israel. It was the judicious thing to do. But his judiciousness was not rewarded. In slavery, unpredictably, their numbers only increased. Pharaoh’s patience with the People of Israel grew thin. Judiciousness then crossed over to cruelty. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to murder the infant boys as they delivered them. That would thin their ranks. But the Hebrew midwives refused to do so, and with their refusal, civil disobedience was born. They chose to heed God not man. But Pharaoh King of Egypt was not so easily undone. He ordered his army to search out the infant boys and throw them into the Nile. Thereafter, cruelty no doubt took on a life of its own. Pharaoh King of Egypt rightly ranks with the likes of Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. One wonders why it is that so many who rise to power become murderous and maniacal tyrants. The human cost - the suffering and misery and despair and tragedy -- are unimaginable and incalculable. Against this backdrop, a woman from the house of Levi gave birth to a healthy and beautiful infant boy. It would normally be the occasion for celebration and joy, but it was for her the occasion for anguish. When a child is born, a mother’s first instinct is protectiveness. But how could she possibly protect him? She thought desperately at first that she could hide him, and she did so for several months, but that could not go on forever. He could any day be discovered. The lesser of two evils was to abandon him to his fate. So she plastered a reed basket with bitumen and pitch, and she cast her hope upon the water. Low and behold, the daughter of Pharaoh happened upon the basket. She peered into it, beheld the crying infant, and she had compassion. The daughter of Pharaoh has never received the appreciation and respect she deserves. She is, inexplicably, overlooked. What she did was exemplary. Normally when people enslave others, they find justification for it. The enslaved are not deemed the equal of their enslavers. They are deemed subhuman. Slavery, therefore, is a necessity. More than this, it is morally right. That’s what the South advanced in this country, after all. But the daughter of Pharaoh did not fall prey to justification. She had compassion. And she acted upon that compassion. Here is an important reminder. It is not enough to have compassion. To have compassion, or any other altruistic emotion for that matter, does not make you a good person. You must act upon it. If you have compassion and you do not act upon it, that makes you decidedly less than a good person. As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And here is something truly astounding. Her act was to adopt him. That was, to say at the least, a courageous thing to do. It certainly would not have put her in good stead with her father. I can just imagine it. “Father, I have a surprise for you. You have a new grandson.” Such an announcement could only have dumbfounded him, but his confusion would have given way to horror as she went on, “I have adopted an infant boy from among your slaves.” If nothing else, we can now set the record straight. We can give Pharaoh’s daughter the appreciation and respect that she deserves. But we can do more than that. As I said, she is exemplary, and so we can follow her example. We can show compassion to those who have cast their hope upon the water. Yes, a mother forced by dire circumstance to give her child up for adoption, hoping that her child will be loved and cherished. But too, one with an atypical identity, hoping to be accepted for who he or she really is. One of a different race, creed, or income level seeking to relocate, hoping not that she will be welcomed, for that would be too high a hope; but hoping she will be at least be tolerated. One who has transgressed, hoping he will be forgiven. One who has something difficult to impart, hoping she will be understood. We can show compassion for those who have cast their hope upon the water. For someone greater, much greater than Pharaoh’s daughter did the same. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” “My daughter has just died. Come and lay your hand on her, that she may live.” “Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” “Jesus, come before my son dies.” “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, for my daughter is tormented by a demon.” “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers terribly.” “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” They cast their hope on him. And he showed compassion for them all. And when we cast our hope on him, he will show compassion for us -- unlimited even by a cross. Amen.
I attended a funeral recently. It was for my high school math teacher. He was one great guy. Everyone loved him. He taught math at my high school for forty years, and he also coached wrestling. By the time he retired, he had become something of a legend in his own time. The funeral was upbeat, not like so many funerals that are so very sad. He lived a full and long life, and we gathered to celebrate that. But for one man – a classmate of mine who wrestled for him. He was absolutely devastated. I approached him in the parking lot after the funeral and asked if he was okay. He broke down. “That man was everything to me,” he said. “I was O.K. so long as he was in the world.” Then he shared his story. His mother died when he was very young. His father was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. By the time he was in high school, he was far down a bad road. He hadn’t the support to do well at school, so he didn’t. He was very angry, so he was a behavior problem. The only friends he could make were kids like himself, so he hung out with a tough crowd. And he had begun to dabble in drugs. He was pretty much a lost cause at the age of sixteen. Enter my math teacher. He approached him one day out of the blue and told him he could tell by his gait that he was born to wrestle. This could only have been a ruse to intervene. Even I, who knows nothing about wrestling, am suspicious that you can identify one born to wrestle by his gait. At any rate, the ruse worked. He intervened. And he made him into a great wrestler. On top of that, he made him into a great young man. His advice, understanding, and support were unwavering. He helped him to deal with his past in such a way that it didn’t destroy him. He filled his present with new found responsibility, purpose, structure, and discipline. And he paved his way to a future. After graduation he went to college on a wrestling scholarship and eventually became a doctor. “I feel so lost,” he concluded his story. “What am I going to do now?” While he was sharing his story, I could not help but think how hard life can be. We here are generally prosperous and privileged, so we can afford to put up a front. But behind that front life can be hard. Because it’s out there -- loss, abuse, addiction, and a host of other afflictions. It’s enough to make you lose your way. And as I said, we here are generally prosperous and privileged. What if the loss, abuse, and addiction are compounded by poverty or racism? Then it’s all but a foregone conclusion. Your way is lost. Yes, life can be hard. Life takes casualties. Lots of them. It can make us feel helpless and overwhelmed. We want to make things better, but what could we possibly do? The answer is no farther away than my late math teacher. What could we possibly do to make things better? We could reach out, like he did. And what is in view here is not merely a good example, although we must never underestimate the power of a good example and must always strive to be one. But there’s more in view than that. It has to do with the Bible. The Bible may seem like a forbidding book. For one thing it’s thousands of pages long. It makes War and Peace look like a short story. For another thing, it’s unimaginably ancient. The Bible’s story begins 2,000 years before the Common Era. I just read that a sizable portion of millennials don’t know what the Holocaust was. To them that’s ancient history - a mere 75 years back. The Bible is more than 4,000 years back. That’s unimaginably ancient. For yet another thing, it traffics in extremely complicated and sophisticated theology, plumbing in its unfolding the depths of such mysteries as our nature, the predicament that our nature has landed us in, and the means of our redemption. And it does so all the while purging itself of false starts or conclusions. So it may seem forbidding. But at the same time, ironically, the Bible lends itself to succinct summaries. Here’s one: God lives. Here’s another: Good triumphs over evil. And another: Love triumphs over fear. And another: Practice universal justice. And another: Love one another. And here’s one that’s right on point: Reach out. The Bible can be summarized in just two words. Reach out. Think about it. That’s what God did. God reached out. God reached out to Abraham and told him that from him would one day issue a nation, and not just any nation, but a nation that would somehow bless all the nations by bestowing upon them redemption. God reached out to Moses and bequeathed him an ethical law so that God’s people could bear his righteousness. God reached out to David and told him that from his descendants would emerge one who would embody that redemption. And that one in the fullness of time emerged. God reach out to his son. He told him that if he would make a great sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, it would be the means for all people to reach out to one another. In a real way. A way that advanced God’s own being and cause. And his son made that sacrifice. And in his brief ministry that preceded that sacrifice, he reached out to everyone. And I mean everyone. Lepers. Prostitutes. Beggars. Even a bitter little man perched up in a sycamore tree. So reaching out is not just a good example. It is nothing less the mechanism that God that employs to bestow redemption. Yes, life can be hard. Paul knew this. “We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” But Paul goes on. “So we must make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” And this means reaching out. “I feel so lost now. What am I going to do?” asked my grieving classmate. I told him that his coach had already showed him what to do. I told him to reach out. Amen.
Jesus was always one to bring the party. All he had to do was show up, and lots of others showed up too -- eager for engagement, eager for excitement, eager for something new. It was little wonder. Here at last was someone who had something to say. Something different. Something provocative. Something truthful. Jesus had a way of uttering truths that had never been uttered before, but at the same time, were strangely recognizable. And it was happening once again. Once again, Jesus had brought the party. He showed up at the house of Mary and Martha, and suddenly the place was filled with men who immediately took their place at his feet. This gesture was an indicator that they were ready and willing disciples. They wanted him to teach them. And so he began to teach. That was Martha’s cue. She sprang into action. After Jesus’ teaching, it would be fellowship hour, and as we all know, fellowship hour is predicated upon food. And in ancient times, you couldn’t rely on your reserves from Costco. Feeding a room full of men was labor intensive. Animals had to be slaughtered and dressed. Bread had to be baked. Water had to hauled. Martha went directly to work, expecting Mary to fall in place behind her. But what did Mary do? She went and sat at Jesus’ feet with the men -- shirking her role, defying expectations, and leaving Martha to shoulder the burden alone. I can imagine Martha’s frustration. I can imagine her passive aggressive attempts to get Mary back in the kitchen. Staring daggers at her from the threshold. Uttering loud sighs as indicators of her strain. Dropping pottery on the floor to startle Mary to awareness. But Mary took no notice. None whatsoever. Martha should have counted to ten. How much strife could be averted if we could all just remember to count to ten, or perhaps twenty. Martha for her part shot like a rocket from outrage to outburst. “I’m doing all the work in here Jesus, while Mary has yet to raise a finger. It’s hardly fair. And have you even noticed? Do you even care?” And there was doubtless more to it than the fact that Martha had to provide all the hospitality on her own. There too was the fact of what Mary was doing. She not day dreaming or singing idly out the window. She was sitting at Jesus’ feet. She was in there with the men. Martha was doubtless chagrined and embarrassed that Mary did not know her place. It certainly did not reflect well on the family. But Jesus did not vindicate Martha. Jesus chastised her, “Martha, Martha,” (and when someone says your name twice, wait for some kind of a correction to follow) “Why are you so distracted and stressed and scattered? Let it go. Mary’s right where she should be.” We’re left to wonder how Martha felt at that point. I bet she wasn’t happy. She simply didn’t get it or she would not have reacted that way in the first place. Now normally this text is interpreted as a caution against busyness. Martha with all her busyness is a prototype that we should avoid. Not that productivity is a bad thing. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all. But there’s a certain kind of busyness that’s not good. It’s when we become enmeshed with worldly or personal concerns and address them with obsessive application – application that mixes with pride, competition, insecurity. It becomes a kind of self-perpetuating force. And it causes us to lose all perspective. It causes us to become disoriented. We forget that we’re supposed to be at Jesus’ feet – his disciples, listening to him. And this is a fair enough interpretation, but I think there’s something else here. An elephant in the living room. Mary was right where she should be. She was at Jesus’ feet, his disciple, listening to him. But Mary was, obviously, a woman. Women did not seat themselves at the feet of rabbis. Women were not disciples. All they needed to know was taught to them by their mothers. Women did not sit side by side with men learning. It was unheard of. It was forbidden. And yet Jesus told Martha that Mary was right where she should be. Her place was with the men. Really Jesus? A woman’s place is with the men? Really Jesus? In first century Judaism? Jesus was a revolutionary and a radical, and don’t ever forget it. All down through history and even to this day there has an unspoken and inviolable code. It could be expressed as a variant of a line from the wedding ceremony. What society has divided, let no one unite. And Jesus was saying the polar opposite. A women’s place is with the men. Think about what this means by extension. Women, your place is with the men. Men, your place is with the women. Whites, your place is with blacks. Blacks your place is with whites. The wealthy, your place is with the poor, and the poor, your place is with the wealthy. The powerful, your place is with the powerless. The powerless, your place is with the powerful. The old, your place is with the young. The young, your place is with the old. Jesus was smashing down all dividing walls. His disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated. This is simply too radical, simply too revolutionary. But that’s who Jesus was. This is why he brought the party. It’s because he spoke God’s truth. Disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated, and this in service to humankind that is to be completely and utterly integrated. That all should be one. But this is so radical and revolutionary that it is very seldom approximated. It’s too hard. But is it really? Is it really that hard to forge the way? Is it really that hard to reach out? Is it really that hard to cross the aisle? To be vulnerable? To be risky? To be open? To be accepting? To be understanding? One thing’s for sure. It’s a lot easier than hanging on a cross in faith it could be so. Amen.
