WHEN SIBLINGS FALL OUT

Be here now. And they were. At the end of summer 2024, several million people queued on Ticketmaster to obtain entry to see Noel and Liam Gallagher perform together as Oasis for the first time since 2009 when they broke up after a bitter sibling row. It was perhaps inevitable – not that the endlessly feuding brothers would make up – but that the financial lure of reforming would bring them together, not least when there was a costly divorce settlement to finance.

 

In making up, the brothers are allowing the Britpop generation to indulge its memories of the 1990s – an era when it felt like the world was sleepwalking naively into a torrid future; a decade when we all assumed the next generation would have it better still as the information technology revolution gathered speed. How wrong we were.

 

The writer of Ecclesiastes once said, there is nothing new under the sun. His point could be argued, given the technological advances made since the Bronze Age, but not much changes with the human condition. The sibling rivalry and animosity of the Gallagher brothers can be traced back to the dawn of storytelling, not least in the Book of Genesis.

 

The first named brothers, Cain and Abel, were the Bible’s first murderer and victim. Abel offering was accepted by God; Cain’s was not. We do not know why – an early indication that there are things about God we will not understand, for if we understood everything, we would become his equal. In hot jealousy, Cain lured Abel into an open field and murdered him.

 

The family of Abraham was riddled with deep grievance. Esau is described as a ‘skilful hunter’ and Jacob as ‘a quiet man, living in tents’. These brothers were, if you like the archetypes of the jock and the nerd beloved of every American high school movie. Their difference was magnified by unapologetic favouritism of their parents, where Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah, Jacob. In his quietness, Jacob was a plotter, whose quick-wittedness led him to rob Esau of his birthright and his blessing as first born. Esau, impetuous and violent, was ready to murder his brother until Jacob learns of his plot and he escapes to a faraway place.

 

The rapprochement of Jacob and Esau many years later is epic in scale, and initially full of anxiety and fear on Jacob’s part. This is not surprising, when you consider Esau was accompanied by four hundred unidentified men at the reunion gig.

 

And then there is the tale of Joseph being sold into slavery by brothers who were, not unreasonably, aggrieved by the outrageous favouritism that their father Jacob bestowed on Joseph; a not uncommon case of favouritism being passed down generations of parents with all the attendant risks. Joseph’s story is the grandest of all, played out over decades and involving lasting suffering and despair on his part. When the reunion with his brothers happens in the courts of Egyptian power, the siblings are terrified at the reversal of fortune which they must have feared came from God as a punishment. But the arrogant youthfulness of Joseph had been replaced by a mature and forgiving man, aware of God and his grace: do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.

 

In Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, and the earlier case of the half-brothers Isaac and Ishmael, there is deep sibling tension and bitterness caused not simply by their actions but by the behaviour of their parents. Yet in each case, there is restoration. Isaac and Ishmael bury their father Abraham side by side in shared grief. Jacob and Esau embrace with shuddering bodies and flowing tears. Joseph saves the lives of his family, including the father who loved him.

 

It is fascinating, and significant, that the first recorded stories of salvation history are located in a family, not in the courts or palaces of an early era’s great powers. The family of Abraham was often spectacularly dysfunctional, but God’s grace and purpose was always in play. There is no fatalism about each story – those involved had genuine agency and choice – yet we are left with the sense that God can make good in the midst of it all. Families are always complicated and, because we know our relatives inside out, we can be quicker to spot their weakness and foibles – and them, ours. But family is also the chief means by which God mediates his loving purpose to us. This is why it is so distressing when there is familial abuse, because it spills black ink over the story God is writing.

 

We sometimes have much to forgive in family life; the story of Abraham’s family shows what can be achieved, even after decades of dwelling on grievous injustice. Not maybe. Definitely.