Being Brothers

by Reader Lou Pizzuti, OP

A few days ago was National Siblings Day, and it got me to thinking; what examples do the Scripture and Tradition give us of siblings.

The first one is pretty bad.  Cain and Abel (Gen 4:1-16).  The gist of the story is that Cain’s sacrifice to God was not accepted, whereas Abel’s was. So, Cain got jealous and killed him.  Why was Abel’s accepted and not Cain’s? The text isn’t clear, but Abel says to his brother, “If you do well, you’ll be accepted”. As so often happens with many of us, it seems that Cain had decided to do things his own way, to offer the sacrifice as he saw fit, rather than as God saw fit.  And then he refused to own up to it, and he took out his disappointment on the one closest to him.

The next example is Jacob and Esau. Esau was the elder, and the birthright should have gone to him.  But, Jacob was a conniver, a greedy man, so he tricked Esau out of it.  And, in the process, he deceived their father, Isaac. As you might expect, things were not right between them for years.

Jacob’s sons is an interesting tale.  He had 12, with the two youngest being Joseph and Benjamin, and they were the sons of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel.  Jacob favored Joseph, and gave him a coat of many colors. So, in jealousy, his 10 older brothers attacked him, sold him into slavery, and made it look like wild animals had killed him.  Of course, this broke their father’s heart.

But God had another plan.  He used Joseph’s misfortune to allow him to rise to a high position in Egypt, second in power only to Pharoah. Through Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams – truly a grace – he stored up grain to supply Egypt with food for seven years of famine.  And, it was during this period, as a result of the famine, that he was reunited with his father and brothers, forgiving them, and providing food and home for them.

Notice the motivations of the brothers.  Envy, jealousy, greed.

St. Paul wrote of such things to the Galatians:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  (Gal 5:16-21)

So of these are pretty obvious, even when they don’t apply to these sets of brothers – immorality, impurity, and licentiousness are various sins arising from sexual activity outside the confines of a marriage of one man and one woman.  Sadly, this is all too prevalent today.

Idolatry is allowing anything become your object of adoration.  Some people will be more excited, more enthusiastic, about a concert or a sports team than they are about God, won’t they? And even the word “enthusiastic” is telling here. The word comes from the Greek words ‘en’, meaning ‘in’, and ‘theos’, meaning God.

Sorcery? Controlling nature through spiritual means, or using nature to find spiritual direction.  The Greek word here is where we get our word “pharmacy”. So it would include drug use.

Enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, envy – isn’t that what we see in all those brothers? Cain was mad and jealous because Abel’s sacrifice was accepted, but his was not.  Jacob was jealous of Esau for having the birthright, so he stole it, resulting in strife and anger.  And Joseph’s brothers were jealous and angry because he was Jacob’s favorite.

Dissention – isn’t that what Cain did? He dissented from God’s outline for worship. When the Greek Church (later known as Orthodox) split from Rome in 1054, it was ultimately over their refusal to accept divinely instituted role of the Papacy. 500 years ago, western Christendom was split by the Reformation, another example of dissention.  And it happens at the parish level, and at the family level, even.  God has given  the Church laws to govern its conduct as an organization, and opposition to that is dissention.

Party spirit, drunkenness, carousing - if you drink to get drunk, aren’t you acting this way?

And what happens if you live this way? “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

But, St Paul doesn’t just give us a warning. He gives us hope, and qualities, virtues, to replace these works of the flesh.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another.  (Gal 5:22-26).

Let us use this as a blueprint for our behavior.  Let us walk together in the spirit of the Risen Christ!

Христос Воскрес!