Am I my brother’s keeper?

For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 30 June 2013.

Last Sunday a special commemoration service was held at St Barnabas’ Anglican Church, Broadway, to honour those who have lost their lives at sea, in particular the scores of asylum seekers who drowned when their boats sank off Christmas Island earlier this month, and whose bodies were left in the water on the instruction of Australian authorities.

Reflecting on the tragedy in an article published on the Sydney Anglican website, Moore College lecturer Michael Jensen, who preached at the commemorative service, said:

These are people who I don’t know. But there’s something about these unwanted, stateless, desperate unburied people, who died beyond the borders of any state and with no-one to care for them, that moves me.

‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ said Cain, as he fled from Abel and denied responsibility. The corpses floating off Christmas Island cry out from the sea… Surely the answer to the question is ‘yes.’

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.