The Money I Took From My Brother

It was four hundred and twenty, twice, and there was a third time he has never been sure about, and that is the part that sits worst.

Nabil is thirty nine. His brother Faris is forty four and has never once mentioned it, in six years, at any family gathering, at any point, in any tone.

It was from the drawer in the shop. Faris ran the shop and Nabil worked in it, and that is how it was possible. And it stopped being possible because Nabil stopped, and the stopping was not connected to being caught, because he was never caught, because Faris never said anything.

Which is worse. He has thought about this many times and it is definitely worse. If Faris had shouted at him in 2019 there would be a scene to remember instead of six years of a thing that was never said.

Twice a month there is family at his mother's. Faris is there with his wife and the three children, and the youngest climbs on Nabil like he is furniture, and Faris passes him the plate and says something about the football, and Nabil talks and laughs and is fine, and does not look at his brother's face for longer than a second at a time.

Six years of not looking straight at somebody.

You know that thing. It might be money, or a lie, or a night, or something you said. It has a shape and a size and you could tell it in one sentence, and it lives between you and one particular person, and it may be that nobody has ever mentioned it.

You are invited into a conversation rather than summoned to a hearing, and you were never the one who had to open it. Isaiah says come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord, and it is God who proposes the meeting; that is exactly what stands written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that invitation live for a man in his mother's front room twice a month.

Come now, and let us reason together

Let me be careful and let me be clear about what this article is not doing.

I am not telling you to go to your brother. That decision belongs to you and to people who know both of you and know the whole of it, and there are situations where speaking would be right and situations where it would land badly on somebody who has chosen their own peace, and I cannot see yours from here. Nothing in what follows depends on it. This is about what is settled between you and God, and that is a separate matter with its own door.

Here is the verse, and look at the first three words.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.Isaiah 1:18

Come now. The invitation is issued by the offended party. God is the one proposing the meeting, and He proposes it in the middle of a chapter where He has just listed, in detail, everything that is wrong. He does not wait to be approached. He opens.

You are being invited by the one with the grievance, and you were never in the position of having to request an audience. That is what stands written in Isaiah 1, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that invitation current for a man who has spent six years not looking straight at his own brother.

And let us reason together. That phrase carries the sense of arguing a case out, settling a matter between two parties. It is a legal room and not a shouting match. Which means the thing is not going to be smoothed over or minimized. It is going to be dealt with, properly, in the open, with the facts on the table.

You are having it dealt with rather than smoothed over, and you were never being asked to pretend it was smaller than it is. Scripture uses the language of a case being settled, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps that honest for a man who knows the exact amount twice and is not sure about a third.

And then the colors, and this is the part I want you to sit with. He says scarlet. He says crimson. He does not say your sins are small, or understandable, or a product of what you were going through. He names the color at full strength first, and then says what it will become. The honesty about the shade is what makes the promise about the change worth anything at all.

You are being told the truth about the color and then the truth about the change, and you were never handed a comfort that had to lie first. The written word names scarlet before it names snow, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes both halves of that sentence land in the same breath.

And notice what is entirely absent from that verse: any mention of a repayment schedule. It is not that restitution never matters in Scripture; it does, and that is a real thing to weigh with real people who know your situation. But this verse, the one about the color, does not condition the whiteness on it. The change is God's work, described in the future, done by Him.

You have a change that is God's work rather than a balance you clear, and you were never able to pay for a color anyway. The written word puts the change entirely on His side of the sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man from turning grace back into a payment plan.

And the plain things. Six years of not looking at somebody's face is heavy, and it is worth telling a person about: a counselor, a friend outside the family, the room where people say true things out loud. That is God's kindness with a face on it. And whatever you decide about your brother, decide it there, with people who know you, and not on a Tuesday night by yourself with the lights off.