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Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
Ezekiel 33:7-9
† In Jesus Name †
May the peace of God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ be your sanctuary, your refuge, and may you always welcome the journey there!
Cain’s question should haunt us….
There is something special about having friends and family around us. We see that today, as some have come long distances to help their friends celebrate forty years of marriage.
But there is a challenge for family and friends as well, for no one can disappoint us, no one can hurt us, no one can challenge our ability to love, as much as they do. It seems like it has always been so, well not always. Once Adam and Eve screwed up in the garden though, there has always been tension in families, and among friends.
We see it especially in the relationship of their first two sons, Cain and Abel. The challenge of loving each other was brutally sacrificed to bring some sense of relief to the pain and jealousy that found a place in Cain’s heart.
The reason that I bring him up this morning, is a question he once asked of the Lord.
Am I my brother’s keeper?
The son of man hears the answer to Cain’s question, and the answer is found in our Old Testament reading today.
7 “Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me.
Yes, we are to work to keep your brothers safe… for if something happens to them and they are unaware, the passage from Ezekiel tells we are held responsible.
That is a heavy burden, yet is our mission in this life.
The Apostle John wrote about this as well:
20 If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God whom we have not seen if we do not love others, whom we have seen. 21 The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also. 1 John 4:20-21 (TEV)
We have to be watchmen for each other…we have to warn each other, as best as we can, for this is the will of God.
We have to care for the wicked folk too!
As we look at Ezekiel’s watchman, it helps to make the connection between the words watchman and keeper. It’s the same word in Hebrew, to guard them. TO be on guard is to work for the safety and peace of those entrusted to your care. A peace and safety corrupted and destroyed by sin.
But note in the Old Testament reading, those entrusted to the watchman’s care are called the people of Israel. They are named, appropriately, after the one whose name means to struggle with God. Not after Abraham, the father of Nations, or Isaac, laughter, but Jacob/Israel, the one who wrestles, who fights God.
It goes on to say that these we care for are wicked, and are certain to die unless they change their ways.
Great description of the people we have to keep safe! Oh wait – he’s describing the people of God. Uhm, that means the description could very well be of us.
Wicked here means those who are guilty, those who have violated either God’s law or His will. Scary thought, if that is the definition of evil. Do we realize we embrace evil when we sin? Paul said it this way,
29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. Romans 1:29-31 (NLT)
All those people are evil, right? Do you hear that it includes those who gossip and quarrel? That it includes those who are proud and boastful? What about those who do not show kindness or mercy?
It is them we are called to warn that certain judgment is coming.
Some of you may contend that the watchman are just the Old Testament prophets, and maybe the apostles and evangelists of the New Testament. We might bristle a bit when we realize it includes the pastor, and that it could include deacons and vicars and elders.
But what if I said that each of one you is called to care, to help your brothers and sisters stand firm in the love of Christ Jesus?
That keeping them, guarding them in Christ by warning them is what we do, because we are called to love them? Think about it for a moment, is it loving to allow someone to do harmful actions? Maybe we can’t prevent them, Ezekiel seems clear about that, but we can call them to repentance. We can call them back to Christ. We can love them that much because He loved us!
Let this mind be in you…. Which is in Christ!
So what do we do with our past? What can we do when we screw up and fail? What do we do with our sin?
What do we do with those times when we failed to be our brother’s keeper, to serve Him as a watchman? When we’ve allowed them to be in bondage to sin without warning them, or when we failed to call them to repentance? When we’ve failed as watchman, guards, and keeping them safe? What about when we’ve rejoiced that they got what they deserved, ignoring our responsibility to call them to trust God?
Well, we don’t “do” something. We listen.
When we confessed it we need to listen and hear of the faithfulness of Jesus to forgive us, and to cleanse us of that sin. Maybe we need to hear His absolving us again. Maybe we need to hear the words of our baptism, that we are united with His death and sin has died to us. We need to hear that His blood was shed, His body broken, that we would live forgiven. We need to hear (and therefore proclaim) His death, until He comes again.
You see, ultimately, this prophecy is about Jesus as well. He is our watchman, our guardian; He is our brother who is our keeper. He is the one who warns us, and makes possible the very repentance, the change of heart and mind that repentance is.
That is why Acts talks of repentance being granted to the Gentiles, even as it was to the apostles and disciples who were Jewish.
He’s called you out of wickedness, into a life filled with hope, with goodness, with joy as we see Him at work. As we see Him take people that are gossips and haters and do not show mercy, who struggle with God, and re-create them into children of God.
This is why the cross happened; this is why He died, taking on the burden of the death and condemnation that awaited us.
That is how a brother acts towards his brothers and sisters. He sacrifices Himself, so that they may live. That is what it took to get our attention, to reveal not just the existence of God, but His love for us.
For our brother, our Lord, Jesus our savior is our watchman – He is the One who is our Keeper, as He keeps us firm our heart and mind in the peace of God our Father. AMEN!
Who Is My Brother? Who is my Neighbor? Who is my fellow-citizen?
Devotional thought of the day:
9 The LORD asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He answered, “I don’t know. Am I supposed to take care of my brother?” Genesis 4:9 (TEV)
17 “Do not bear a grudge against others, but settle your differences with them, so that you will not commit a sin because of them. 18 Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself. I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:17-18 (TEV)
317 The Apostle also wrote that “there is no more Gentile and Jew, no more circumcised and uncircumcised; no one is barbarian or Scythian, no one is a slave or a free man; there is nothing but Christ in any of us.” Those words are as valid today as they were then. Before the Lord there is no difference of nation, race, class, state… Each one of us has been born in Christ to be a new creature, a son of God. We are all brothers, and we have to behave fraternally towards one another! (Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). Furrow (Kindle Locations 1501-1505). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.)
We are a society that lives on the defensive. We see it nationally, where we spend billions on trying to protect our assets, and when our leaders try to help out others in need, they are blasted. We see it in how we want justice, as long as its impact is NIMBY (not in my back yard) as long as it doesn’t affect my neighborhood. We are wiling to help extended family, as long as it doesn’t cost our immediate family, or even our personal needs, wants, desires. We honor the sacrifice of the past, as long as it doesn’t mean we have ot sacrifice today. Martyrs of 500 years ago are honored, but we don’t want to face the fact that there are martyrs every day. Because that might mean we have to suffer.
It is the nature of our world, and if in no other way, we struggle to be in that world, but not of it, in regards to this.
We struggle to be one in Christ.
We struggle to forgive hurts, to reconcile, to ever desire those things. We want instead to justify our actions, our words, our thoughts, We want to be know as the ones who are right,the ones who do things the way they should be done, and those members of our family, or those nor from our community, or from our country, are always wrong.
We need to go back to the basics, to our baptism, to the moment the Holy Spirit cuts open our hearts and creates in us faith, when He gives us a new mind, when we become new creatures. We need to keep that moment before us, to remind us of who we are. Not just a Parker, nor just someone who lives in Cerritos, or the USA, but one who has found Jesus completely trustworthy, who realizes the love and mercy given to me, who recognizes the healing done in heart and soul.
It is then I can ask the questions of who is my brother, or neighbor, or fellow citizen on this journey through life. The answer?
Who did Christ die for?
The only way to love them, is in Christ. For then we can deal with the hurt, the pains the betrayals, knowing God has already dealt with those injuries at the cross. Even as He dealt with ours.
That’s what faith is… trusting in God’s presence, His love, His mercy, for us all…..
