Breaking sibling relationships

After Solomon’s blessed birth to David and Bathsheba, life in David’s family takes another dark turn — just as God, through Nathan, said it would. The text says one of David’s other sons, Amnon, was in love with his half-sister, Tamar. He hatches a plot to get her alone, where he plans to sleep with her:

Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the chamber, that I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the cakes she had made and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.” She answered him, “No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this outrageous thing.”

But he would not listen to her, and being stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her. (2 Sam. 10-12,14)

Amnon, tormented by conflicting feelings of love and lust for his sister, develops a plan to get her alone. Once there, he asks her to lie with him. She refuses, and he rapes her. He’s committed an unspeakable act, harming his sister and forever altering sibling relationships in the family. (King David unwittingly facilitates the encounter, our focus for next week.)

Sibling relationships in the family business are often fraught with conflict. In some instances, the unraveling of a relationship is slow, perhaps even unintentional. In many cases, there are key moments, events, or decisions that irrevocably shatter the ties between brothers or sisters. It might be an act of dishonor, harm, or trust-breaking by a family member we expected to be loyal, supportive, and kind. Sadly, it is an event which forever alters the foundation of the sibling pact.

In your generation, or the generation before yours, were there events that caused a break in the sibling relationship? If you have experienced such a break, have you or someone else taken any steps to explore the rebuilding of the relationship?