VOL. 6, NO. 18

 

AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?

We just can’t get away from the question that begins the Bible in the stories of
Cain and Abel; Isaac and Ishmael; Jacob and Esau; Joseph and his brothers.

“There’s practically no religion I know of that sees other people
 in a way that affirms the other’s choice.”
You only have to glance at the daily news to see how passions are stirred
 by claims of exclusive loyalty to one’s own kin, one’s own clan,
one’s own country, and one’s own church.
These ties that bind are vital to our communities and our lives,
but they can also be twisted into a noose.

                                                                                  (Bill Moyers quoting Elaine Pagals)

Scripture:                                                                                                         Genesis 4 (NIV)

  1. Adam lay with his wife eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.”

  2. Later Eve gave birth to his brother Abel.   Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.

  3. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD.

  4. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,

  5. but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

  6. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?

  7. If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

  8. Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field."  And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

  9. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"   "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

                                                                                                                                                           Psalms 122

  1. I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”

  2. Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem.

  3. Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together.

  4. That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, to praise the name of the LORD according to the statute given to Israel.

  5. There the thrones for judgment stand, the thrones of the house of David.

W

THE FIRST DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY

      After Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, they had two sons: Cain, the farmer, and Abel, the shepherd. As they grew and produced, each brought his offering to God. Abel's offering of livestock was accepted, but Cain's offering from the fields was not.  A conflict escalates. One brother kills the other. Their lives are changed forever. 

      Why is the offering of one person accepted and not the offering of another?

      We can’t really be sure, but we know that the choice of one child and the rejection of another continues in our lifetime. Sometimes they are children, sometimes they are nations. Sometimes it is one religion placed up against another.

      “There’s practically no religion I know of that sees other people in a way that affirms the other’s choice.”

      That is what I want to think about with you today. Are we our brother’s keepers or are we our brother’s competitors?

FROM REBELLION TO BLOODSHED

      Cain killed his brother Abel; it was a short step from rebellion to bloodshed. Cain was condemned to a nomadic life, but God provided protection against his death.  The scriptures list some of Cain's descendants, and show the beginnings of civilized city life.

      His child, Enoch, builds the first city. His successors learn to play and enjoy music - also to forge iron and bronze. So that is the way the Bible presents this story to us.

CLASS DISPUTE

      Abel kept flocks.  Abel personifies all who work with livestock and the communities that herd, maintain and consume them. Animals issue living offspring, they suffer pain and disease, they compete for food, they eat and they pollute.

      Cain worked the soil. Cain was the farmer. He depended upon nature for the nutrients of the earth, the seasonal rains and favorable winds. He saved enough seed from the previous year to create the crops for the following year.

      The brothers fought, seeking not only profit but also favor. In this story, one was blessed, the other was not. It is pointless to speculate why.

      What lingers is Cain’s question to God:  “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

      Perhaps the answer Cain expected was “no.” But the lesson derived is “yes.” Yes, we are each other’s keepers. We are parts of a world of interdependent systems, and overlapping bio-spheres. We cannot win at the expense of our brothers and sisters. Civilization and nature cannot be separated.

      This is just one of a string of stories about dysfunctional families remembered in scripture:

·        Isaac and Ishmael were the sons of Abraham.  Their family was no more functional than Cain and Abel’s. One became the father of the Jews, the other became the father of the Muslims.

·        Their descendants included Jacob and Esau. Jacob tricked his older brother out of his birthright.

·        Then Joseph, the son of Jacob, was taken to a pit and left for dead by his brothers, who then lied to their parents about his disappearance.

HOW CAN WE GET MORAL
GUIDANCE FROM THIS?

      The Bible begins with the stories of four dysfunctional families. How can we turn to examples like this to provide the moral lessons for the Jewish faith, and its descendant, the Christian faith?

      We learn something fundamental.

·        We must learn to affirm the other’s right to choice.

·        Choice is fundamental to democracy, and it is fundamental in a nation of immigrants.

AFFIRMING THE OTHER’S CHOICE

      The ties that bind us together as small communities are vital to our lives, but they can also be twisted into a noose.           Bill Moyers

      Once this pattern of competing small communities is established, it’s played out in the story of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, and down through the centuries in generation after generation of conflict between Muslims and Jews, Jews and Christians, Christians and Muslims. The red thread of religiously spilled blood runs directly from East of Eden to Belfast, Bosnia, Beirut and Baghdad.

      I keep a file marked “Holy War,” says Bill Moyers.

      It bulges with stories:

Of Shias and Sunnis in fratricidal conflict.

Of teenage girls in Algeria shot in the face for not wearing a veil.

Of professors whose throats are cut for teaching male and female students in the same classroom.

Of Muslim suicide bombers bent on the obliteration of Jews.

Of the young Orthodox Jew who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and then announced to the world that “Everything I did, I did for the glory of God.” (Bill Moyers)

      The Orthodox Jew who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and pronounced, “Everything I did, I did for the glory of God,” was wrong.

 

HOLY WARS ARE THE INVENTIONS
OF PEOPLE, NOT GOD.

 

      The reason the Bible begins with the gruesome story of Cain murdering his brother Abel is not to say that it is right, but to condemn it as wrong.

CUSHMAN AND RHODES TO ISRAEL

      In three weeks, Chris Rhodes and I will be standing in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, where the Jewish extremist took the life of the Prime Minister of Israel. Rabbi Eugene Korn and I will share in conducting services of remembrance at this memorial in the center of Tel Aviv.

      Chris Rhodes and I will be traveling together from Oakland to Jerusalem where we have meetings with prelates and clergy, both critical and supportive of divestment; there will be meetings with economists, scholars and religious leaders.  (I have put a more detailed letter in the bulletin this morning about our fact finding mission.)

ITINERARY

      Meetings are currently being scheduled with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Armenian Patriarch and Syrian Orthodox Archbishop. Individuals to be interviewed include Dr. Naim Attek, Dr. Mitri Raheb, Patriarch Michel Sabbah among others.  We will visit professors at Hebrew University, and meet with the President of Israel, Moshe Katsav. An Arab Imam will speak to us about the prospects for peace.

      There are many details to arrange as we assemble this fact-finding itinerary and our departures for the Middle East, but I begin with the request for the prayers and encouragement of our own congregation for this delegation as we travel, and for our families at home.

COVERAGE

      In terms of time and church coverage, I have asked the Rev. Kate Clayton to provide worship leadership and emergency coverage while we are away, backed up by the Rev. Ted Crouch and Frank Hamilton.

      While this travel is focused on fact finding and reporting to our denomination, it will also be an educational event I hope to share with our congregation. I will send daily diary pages to Marty Thompson who will edit and distribute to anyone who wishes to be on our Internet mailing tree. Marty will collect addresses and arrange distribution.

REPORTING

      This will be my fourth visit to the Holy Land. I will have a major role in recording and interpreting our conversations. Following our return, I will staff an information booth at the General Assembly in June with pictures and documents from this fact-finding mission.

MUCH HAS CHANGED SINCE
MY LAST VISIT TO THE HOLY LAND
FOUR YEARS AGO.

·        Yassir Arafat died in Paris in 2004. He has been replaced by Mahmoud Abbas.

·        Ariel Sharon has been in a coma for months. Ehud Olmert, former Mayor of Jerusalem, has created new coalitions in Jerusalem.

·        The Hamas have been elected to run the Palestinian Authority. (Hamas is a militant anti-Israeli Palestinian Islamist organization. Its charter, written in 1988 and still in force, calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and of any secular Palestinian state, and replacement with an Islamic state based on Sharia. Hamas won 74 out of 132 seats in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election and is now the majority party of the Palestinian Authority Legislative Council.)

      What is the impact of the separation barrier?

      Are there any successful models for cooperation?

      Has the General Assembly acted wisely in recommending divestiture from companies doing military business with Israel?

      But the most urgent question is not the question of immigrants coming to the Middle East, but what are the prospects for peace and where do we go from here? Can brothers learn to live in such a way that they can respect the rights of others?

CHRIS RHODES

      Chris Rhodes will be one of the delegates to General Assembly from Presbytery of the Redwoods. Together we will depart from Oakland on May 21st and return on May 28th. General Assembly is in Birmingham, Alabama, June 15 to June 22.

 

It is my sincere hope that you will pray, with me, that our delegation can contribute even in a small way to understanding the complex dynamics of life on the borders. Help us learn if the sons of Abraham are destined for perpetual conflict.

 

IMMIGRANTS

      The Holy Land has become a land of immigrants in modern times.

·        Israel is trying to accommodate its population of 6.5 million in an area about the size of New Jersey. 

·        Palestine has 2.5 million in an area the size of Delaware.

      But I only need visit my grandchildren in Salt Lake City and Reno to see how America is being re-created by immigrants right before our eyes. Once upon a time Salt Lake City was largely populated by the descendents of Brigham Young. But even in Salt Lake City, they are joined by the heirs of Martin Luther along with the descendents of Montezuma and Genghis Kahn. America is dotted with mosques in places like Toledo, Phoenix and Atlanta. We have huge Hindu temples in Pittsburgh, Albany and our own Silicon Valley. There are Sikh communities in Stockton and Santa Fe, and Buddhist retreat centers in the mountains of Vermont and West Virginia. The world keeps moving to America bringing new stories from the four corners of the globe. Gerard Bruns calls it a “contest of narratives” competing to shape a new American drama.

      Immigration has added more than thirty million people to our population since the late 1960s. With them they have brought not only labor, but religion. Some have suggested that the religious values of the immigrants are stronger than those who have lived in the United States for a generation.

      In Santa Rosa, boycott organizers will begin a march from Sebastopol Road and West Avenue to Julliard Park sometime before noon tomorrow. The event is called “A Day Without Immigrants.”  Participants plan a daylong rally at the park featuring music, dancing and speeches from local leaders. The boycott, which has grown out of pro-immigrant rallies across the country, is an effort to pressure Congress to craft legislation to allow millions of illegal immigrants to obtain legal U.S. residency.

      United Farm Workers regional director Casimiro Alvarez, a principal organizer of the local boycott and rally, said his organization has encouraged students to stay in school and attend the rally afterward.

      "We tell them that our founder, César Chávez, always instilled in young people the need to educate ourselves to get ahead," he said.

A DAY WITHOUT IMMIGRANTS

      The people who do the unseen jobs will walk off the jobs so that we can see what the impact of these illegal immigrants is. Churches on the borders have been involved in the political aspects of undocumented workers coming to America for political asylum, but we also have a stake in those who are here for economic reasons.

BROTHERS MUST LIVE
TOGETHER IN PEACE

      There are serious issues before us this morning.

      We treat our neighbors with respect.

      When we travel to the Holy Land, we go with humility and respect, not swagger and American bravado.

      Cain and Abel remind us that it is important for brothers to learn to live together in peace. They are not lost in a forgotten Garden of Eden, but Cain and Abel are found today on the frontiers of the Middle East, on the borders of India and Pakistan, in Darfur and the streets of Santa Rosa.

      The message from this pulpit is that religious boundaries are not political and they are not geographical. Sometimes they are broader, and sometimes they are smaller.

      How important it is that brothers learn to live together in peace!

WE ALL HAVE HANDS

      We are our brother’s keepers.

Whether it is Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Jew,

we all have hands, organs, dimensions, sense, affections and passion.

We are fed with the same food and hurt with the same weapons.

We are subject to the same diseases and healed by the same means.

We are warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer.

If you tickle us, we laugh. If you prick us, we bleed. If you poison us, we die.

      Yes, we are our brothers’ keepers.

 

Dr. John H. Cushman

Presbyterian Church of the Roses

2500 Patio Court

Santa Rosa, CA 95405

April 30, 2006