This is a post about. Am I my brother’s keeper: Looking at the Christian attitude towards others. In my mind I keep a collection of quasi doctrine of a generalized cultural Christianity. What these ideas have in common is they are wrong. Top of the list is the familiar saying: God helps those who help themselves. Maybe you are one of the countless people who believe that is direct from the Bible. It’s not. It is a quotation from Ben Franklin in his booklet, Poor Richard’s Almanac. The Bible is more liable to express the opinion that God helps those who can’t help themselves; all of us who can’t stop compulsively sinning.
Second on my list is the idea that when people die, they go to heaven and somehow earn their wings in order to become angels. It’s understandable that you might believe this as it is in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, and true of Michael Landon’s character in the TV series, Highway to Heaven. It’s just not Biblical. People are people and angels are angels.
Third on my list is the truly Biblical saying, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It is on my list because it is almost always misunderstood! God wants us to care about one another. Indeed, he wants us to love one another. We’ll get to that. But first let us dismiss this wrong attitude about others. God does not expect Christians, or anyone, to be Co-dependent.
Yes there are those who need “keeping.” Minor children, mentally disturbed, or those with “special needs” all need more or less supervision. We have a need to keep criminals in jails, and perhaps enemy combatants in Cuba. However, in creation God intended we should have the freedom and the responsibility to look after ourselves.
Remember it is the murderer Cain who asks the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” His words speak irony since it was Abel who was the shepherd and Cain the farmer. Plus, his words are a diversion that speaks the truth. Cain took it upon himself to be his brother’s keeper to the extreme. He took responsibility for his life when he took Abel’s life from him. That is precisely what we do when we co-dependently take responsibility for others. When we do for others what they can and should do for themselves. When we enable them to be irresponsible we become their keepers and it is wrong.
There are much better Bible lessons for Christians to use when forming attitudes about others. Even as you have done for the least of these so you have done it for me. No one who gives a cup of cold water in my name will lose his reward. When you visit the sick, the prisoners, feed the hungry and clothe the naked you do it for Jesus. There is a huge difference between helping and keeping.
Jesus calls us to seriously consider laying down our lives for our friends. We might do this in the midst of fighting injustice, as some did during the struggle for civil rights. However, we shouldn’t put our lives on hold to satisfy the negative desires of others. Let the dead bury the dead. Come follow me now.
Your neighbor might be a person in trouble on the road. Left for dead, he needs your help. On the other hand it says in James, those who do not work should not eat. We are not to rob our children of the respect of gainful employment by keeping them from standing on their own two feet and getting a job.