Am I My Brothers Keeper?

The risky business of kindness.

If you’re like me you have probably wondered about some of the questions found in the Bible for which God doesn’t always provide a direct answer.

The first big one that caught me by surprise is found in Genesis 4:9 when Cain, after brutally beating his brother Abel to death, had a surprise visit from God who asked him:

“Where is thy brother Abel?”

To which Cain sternly replied,

“I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Let’s face it: if you or I got caught red-handed by God doing something that bad, we might not have been as creative as Cain was.  His response was a first-class job of spontaneous ‘shifting of the heat.’  Cain might just as well have come right out and tried to put the blame on God himself with something like:

“Don’t ask me.  You’re the one who seems to know everything around here.”

If there is any reality to the concept that our children inherit the behaviors and personality traits that we have lived out in our own lives, this story of Cain and Abel is a benchmark that could be pointed to as proof that such things are real.

You might recall Cain’s father Adam when, after the big mishap with the Tree of the Knowledge Good and Evil, Adam shifted the heat to Eve, who then followed suit by passing the blame off on the serpent.  

To paraphrase the first couple, Adam’s response to God was:

“The woman You gave me, she made me do it.  To which Eve replied, “The serpent tricked me and I ate it.”

I mean, you can’t really blame them since no one had ever been found guilty before.  They were just taking their best shot at self-preservation.  As for Cain, he was simply following in his parent’s footsteps and carrying on the family trait of shifting the heat.

But I digress.  Let’s get back to the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  It’s a good one if you really think about it.  We hear a lot about personal responsibility these days. Maybe Cain had just been wondering about that himself and he decided to test the theory to find out what the answer was.  Hey, it’s a thought!

A couple of years ago I heard about a situation in our town where a street panhandler was run over by a generous elderly woman who handed him a dollar while sitting at the traffic stop where he was plying his trade of begging.  Apparently, he had one of those, “Help please, I’m homeless, anything will be appreciated,” cardboard signs, and the nice lady rolled down her car window and attempted to hand him a dollar bill. 

Unfortunately for the panhandler, the wind blew the money out of his hand and, in a desperate effort to retrieve it, he crawled under the lady’s car, after which she then drove over the top of him, totally unaware that he had fallen under the wheels of her vehicle. 

From what I understand she just drove off, probably feeling good about doing a nice thing for the poor stranger, and didn’t even notice the big ‘thump’ under her wheels as she pulled away.  She probably thought it was just one of those annoying speed bumps that keep popping up everywhere these days.

No, it seems like no matter which way you go with the brother’s keeper idea, it’s no guarantee that someone won’t have a bad day.  Sometimes no matter how good your intentions are, fate can turn on you and you can end up making things worse than they already were. 

I remember one time when I was retrieving my wife Jolyn and our eldest daughter Julia from the local Barnes & Noble bookstore where they had been perusing the latest children’s books with some of our grandchildren. While I was exiting my van to go in and get my family, a disheveled woman in her mid-thirties approached me in the parking lot and asked if I would give her thirty dollars to catch a cab to her sister’s house.  She said her husband had beaten her up and she was trying to get to her sister who was apparently waiting to help her.

When I asked where her sister lived, it turned out that it was only a couple miles away and happened to be in the same direction we were headed on our way to a meeting I was speaking at later that day.

“It won’t cost you thirty dollars to get there,” I told her, “it’s only a short distance from here.  Besides” I said, “you’re in luck. I’m headed that way when I leave here.  Let me get my family out of the bookstore and we’ll take you right to your sister’s house.” 

“I haven’t eaten all day,” she said, “so I am also trying to get some money to eat too. That’s why I asked for thirty dollars.”

“You’re in luck again,” said I.  “We are going to have dinner somewhere, so you can join us and I’ll buy your dinner as well before we take you to your sisters.”

Then came the greatest follow-up line I had yet to hear from a panhandler, and I’ve heard plenty in my time I assure you.

“I hope this won’t offend you”, she said, with a sudden look of pride on her face, “but I don’t ride with strangers.”

Needless to say, I sent her off in another direction to continue looking for the next sucker, while I stood there pondering the age-old question:

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Being in the ministry for nearly forty-five years together, and focusing our efforts primarily on people with life-controlling problems, my wife and I have had to ask ourselves that question on a regular basis. We have generally found no response quite as suitable as a simple, Yes!

Now that our children are grown with families of their own, I can see that they tend to lean in that direction as well. In fact, a few years back our youngest son was in the process of helping an old friend he had just run into again who had fallen on bad times. She had gotten into drugs and had just been released from jail and said she was trying to get her life straightened out with the help of her newfound faith in Jesus.

I said to my son: “This could be a heavy load to take on with all the things you are already dealing with in your own life. Are you ready to dive into her broken life and help her try to get back on her feet?”

His response took me pleasantly by complete surprise:

“Isn’t that what we do dad, help people?”

It seems there is no escaping the harsh realities of life and the needs of those in desperation all around us. Even if the problems they are having are not, like Cains, the results of our own bad behavior.

As I round the bend toward my 75th year on this planet, I have seen that there is no escaping life’s problems and the needs of those around us. There are not enough gated communities to hide in to avoid seeing the misery that often shows its ugly face to us during our everyday walk through this life if we are paying any attention at all to the groaning of the creation that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:20-22.

Apparently, the fault of it all goes back to the Garden of Eden when our first parent’s disobedience brought sin into the world Adam was given to manage, and corruption came upon all living things from that moment on.

Maybe it’s in these verses that we find the answer we have been looking for to the age-old question:

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Verse 19 tells us that “. . . the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” (NKJV)

That is us if we are Christians. The New Testament tells us we are sons and daughters of God and, while we are awaiting the return of Christ to straighten everything and set up a permanent home for us where righteousness dwells, part of our responsibility is to be our brother’s keepers.

Jesus told us that we are to, “love God with all of our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves.”

With that in mind, it seems to me the next question on the list that takes priority for us as believers while we are alive in this current world is:

“Who is my neighbor?”

That doesn’t mean that we are to load up every person we see on the street with a sign that reads, “Will work for food” and take them into our home or empty our wallets to fill the hand of every panhandler we see.

There is a difference between poor and bum and not everyone who cries for help out there is really being genuine about their situation. I have seen many people begging while standing right in front of a sign that says:

“Now hiring. Apply inside.”

It’s a dangerous world out there and there are many current examples in the news that should remind us to be careful in our attempts to help others. However, at the same time, we should not always pass the problem of helping those in need on to others who seem more able or eager to help than we are.

It starts with prayer. Ask God what you can do to help and He will guide you in a way that is reasonable and safe at the same time. It may not be financial help. It might be something as simple as a word of encouragement, or helping to fill a need for someone that would be relatively simple for you to handle.

It’s not always ability that counts. Often it is just availability that can make a big difference for someone in need of help.

If we are willing, God is willing and able to help us find ways to answer the age-old question for us:

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

It seems in the end that we are. It’s just a matter of going to God and looking around us with a willingness to hear His answer to the next question:

“Who is my neighbor.”