Scripture
Genesis 4:9
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (NRSV)
Devotion
"Well, that's awful for them, by why is it my problem?"
This question gets tossed around a lot when folks are trying to get out of helping someone else. The situation involved could be simple yet cause us mild inconvenience, It could be complex and require get risks or sacrifices. Either way, folks just don't want to get involved. Asking a modern day equivalent of Cain's question, "am I my brother's keeper" feel likes an easy justification for avoiding helping someone in their hour of need.
What Cain failed to understand is that in God's eyes, we are each other's keepers. God has created to be connected with and rely upon one another. What's more God calls us to treat one another with the same love and care that our Creator shows us. In South Africa, this lived reality is expressed in the word Ubuntu, which means "I am because you are." When one of us suffer, we all suffer; when one of us is blessed, we all are.
From this There is no you and me. There is no your problem and my problems. There is only us and our problems. And we are called to be there for one another in our time in our time of distress.
We may be tempted to argue that ignoring someone in need of help is very different from Cain's attempt to cover up the fact that he has actively murdered his brother. From a Reformed perspective, the difference is negligible. As John Calvin writes in his Institutes of Christian Religion,
Since God has joined all of humankind in unity, the salvation and preservation of all should be the concern of each one...if we can do anything to preserve our neighbor's life, we must faithfully do it, whether in procuring the things which are needed or in avoiding everything which is contrary to that; likewise if they are in any anger or difficulty, we must help and support them.
Calvin continues later, "Unless we use the abilities and opportunities which are given to us do to good to our neighbor, by that mercilessness we transgress [the commandment "you shall not kill"].
Calvin's position that refusing to do what we can to help people in need of aid may is just as bad as murdering them with our own two hands stings...especially in light of current world events. It leaves us wondering what our personal and communal responsibilities are when wars rage and bombs rain down on innocents. And how do we know that we--who are not directly involved the conflict--have faithfully done our part to preserve the life of others.
There are no easy answers to those kind of questions. Still, I take heart that as the political and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, people around the globe are trying to do what they can to help. Russians are risking arrest to Putin's invasion of their neighbor to the South. Other nations aren't just tightening sanctions. They are also welcoming refugees, sending aid, and offering to host negotiations. News agencies are telling people's stories in ways that move people thousands of miles away to find ways to aid those in distress. And people of many different faiths are calling for an end to hostilities as they pray for peace and seek tangible things they can do to help those on the ground.
This is what it means to admit that we are our siblings' keeper. This is what it looks like to admit that we are all interconnected children of the Living God who are who we are because others are who they are.This is doing our best to love others as we love ourselves.
This day, I invite each of us to open our hearts to those who live far across the sea...not just in Ukraine but everywhere people are suffering from war, injustice, famine, and the like. Let us ask God how we can help. What can we do here and abroad to preserve life and do good to our neighbors? When the Holy Spirit gives us an answer, I encourage each of us to act on it. For lest we forget, the God we worship is the God of every nation...and I know my Creator calls me to sing prayers of peace for their lands for mine.
Prayer
God,
We sigh. We sigh because words cannot express our anguish, our hurt, our despair, knowing that siblings in Ukraine are fleeing their homes for their lives, that the cities and towns that hold memories and culture and history may be destroyed.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And so we sigh. Let us breathe together.
<take a deep breath>
May our sighs remind us
that we all share the same air;
that what impacts one of us impacts all of us;
that life is precious to God and war is never necessary.
May our sighs be a prayer
for every Ukrainian who worries about surviving today;
for those who will not survive this invasion;
for those who will survive and be forever changed by the trauma of war;
for those Russian soldiers who question their orders and refuse to use their weapons.
May our sighs be a prayer
for nuclear deproliferation;
for an end to the sin of imperialism and colonization.
May our sighs be a prayer for truth, peace, and solidarity to guide each of us;
May our sighs be a prayer for Ukraine and the whole world.
May our sighs fill our bodies with air
to breathe through grief and fear and
fill us with courage and connection,
so that we are ready to act in solidarity with Ukraine,
for an end to this war
and all war.
(written by Rev. Emily Brewer, Executive Director of Presbyterian Peace Fellowship)
Works Cited
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