#AdventUs - Day 3

Day 3 - "Am I my sister's/brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9

"Sibling Rivalry" is one of the oldest story types in the bible, closely following "It's All About Me" and "Now You've Done It" as recorded in the first few chapters of the book of Genesis.

I don't know about you, but there have been a few bouts of this in my family and in other families I have known, but nothing close to what happens in this primal Hebrew story. Even so, as Cain responds to God's question about where Abel is after Cain has killed him, I hear in his voice a level of defensiveness that is not unfamiliar to me.

We expect that there will be a certain level of discord between enemies, based on differing belief systems and assumptions about truth and world view. But it seems more and more that there is a rising level of distrust among friends. We allow small matters to divide us and eventually treat one another as if we had never had anything in common at all.

What would happen if we did believe that we were our brother or sister's keeper? Not in a way that binds them, but in a way that frees then to know that someone cares about what they think and do and how they live? What if we followed the early church instructions to love in all things and to keep unity as a primary goal of what it means to be a community of faith?

I hope it means the world would look a little different than it does now... that our churches would love more and fight less... that our world would live a little less on the brink of disaster...

Do you think that's even possible? What would it take to make that happen?

Peace, Deb

Finlandia: lyrics by Lloyd Stone, music by Jean Sibelius 

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

but other hearts in other lands are beating

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;

but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,

a song of peace for their land and for mine.

"This is My Song" sung by Cantus