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Been studying the sibling relationships in Genesis lately–Cain & Abel, Issac & Ishmael, Jacob & Esau, Jospeph & his brothers, all of ‘em wracked with rivalry.  And the women in Genesis are no better, like Sarah & Hagar, Rachel & Leah.  In fact, the twelve tribes were born in a riot of jealousy among and between Jacobs wives. The Bible is trying to tell us something here.  Envy, rivalry between brothers-sisters-peers is running riot in the human condition.  And God seems to inflame it with his willingness to prefer, to favor, to choose.
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Doesn’t work the righteousness of God.  Said James, the brother of Jesus.  The brother of Jesus: a man who grew up with Jesus as his brother.  Imagine growing up with Jesus as your brother.   Would it be easy?  Your mother hid secrets in her heart about her firstborn son, your elder brother. He stays behind in the temple because he believes it to be his father’s house and sends the family into a worried frenzy.  In Mark’s gospel the brothers of Jesus seek to do an intervention, thinking he’d gone mad.  In John’s gospel one of the brothers of Jesus sarcastically urges him to go to Jerusalem where all the would-be prophets make a name for themselves.   So perhaps by personal experience James understood that the anger of man doesn’t work the righteousness of God.   Do we?
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