Sunday January 16, 2011 Evil

Welcome, I’ve been mulling over a blog I read on Monday about the awful events in Arizona. The author stated that “We are so awash in the language of disorders and dysfunction that we don’t know how to talk about good and evil.” (Kevin DeYoung) We want to place blame, find the one thing that is responsible, eradicate it and move on never considering we ourselves must change too. We place labels on the behavior that is present but don’t want to admit that evil is in the world and could be behind it. We want free speech but then ignore the responsibility that comes with it, instead slinging words that hurt at each other. We have minimized in our minds that words have power and need to be used responsibly. Last evening in bible study we talked about this observation that evil hadn’t been mentioned with this horrible incident and then we went home. Some of us watched the President’s speech at the memorial service and were surprised that he was the one who finally talked about the evil that exists. Why haven’t the Christians in this country been discussing it? We are the nation with the largest number of Christians and yet we too ignore evil. Why? If we think it will go away by ignoring it the events of Tucson prove otherwise.
Yesterday Sarah Palin made comments in a press release and while I may not agree with everything she says, she does have a right to make them. Today on the noon news there was a story that she has received so many death threats from her comments that her security detail has to be revised. Why do we as a society think that if we don’t agree with statements made by people we need to threaten them with death? How about a conversation with her on how the words she chose were hurtful to others or inappropriate and in the future she needs to make better choices. Is everything that we’ve been pointing to the problem or are we ourselves the problem?
The Jewish people at the time of Jesus saw the Roman oppression of them as the problem. Rome was evil and they were its victims. If only the promised Davidic Messiah would come he would set all things right. In an oppressed society the people see the oppressor as evil and ignore the evil they themselves harbor. Their Messiah would come, begin a political revolution which would over through Rome and then rule the world with them. Their Messiah came but his message was different. He told them that they had missed the real enemy. The enemy wasn’t Rome, although Rome was oppressive, the real enemy was Satan (evil). His mission wasn’t to do battle with Rome but to do battle with “the ruler of this world”. In John 13:31, in his last public discourse Jesus says “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” Jesus battles Satan (evil) all through the Gospels. In voluntarily going to the cross to die, Jesus defeated Satan. We as Christians are to continue the “clean up mission” of defeating evil. We can’t get rid of it if we won’t admit it exists. This is not a license to go around calling people evil, anyone can do that, but to eradicate it through loving our enemies. In the Gospel of John, John 15:12, Jesus gives his commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”. This commandment doesn’t replace the others but supersedes them. By following this commandment we will automatically keep the others. If we love others we will not murder them, we will not covet their partners or their things, we will honor our parents, we will put God above all else. If we love we will defeat evil. Now neither I nor you can change the whole world but we can change our families, our neighbors, our coworkers and our spheres of influence by our examples of love. We need to think about what we say and how we say it, what we do and how we do it. We need to admit our poor choice of words and behaviors to those we have hurt. We need to follow the commandment of Jesus and love others as Jesus has loved us, unconditionally. Let each Christian start their own ripple of love that will travel out from them to others and maybe together we can change the world.
This isn’t the blog I sat down to write but this is the one that came out. I urge each of us to be more introspective in the days ahead and consider who or what we can influence by our love that ripples out from each of us and maybe, just maybe the world will change.
Shalom, Kim