Sun, August 28, 2005 - Overcome Evil with Good

Jeremiah 15:15-21
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28


"Do not repay anyone evil for evil... but overcome evil with good."

I’m sure you’ve all heard about Pat Robertson and his infamous comments this week. For those of you who haven’t, Pat Robertson is the founder of the Christian Coalition of America - he’s a heavyweight among the conservative Christians in the States. And, on Monday, this prominent Christian directly advocated for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Later he said that he was misunderstood by the press and then he apologized, but Robertson actually did say that since the US was being accused of plotting to assassinate Chavez, they might as well go ahead and do it. Now, I don’t know what Robertson’s reasons were for saying this - but I do know that his comments fly in the face of everything that Paul is trying to teach us today, and they are downright unChristian. They are, however, in sync with today’s culture of retribution and revenge, where we turn to violence in an attempt to suppress the evil in the world.

This culture is something that we’re experiencing in Toronto, with devastating shootings and murders on pretty much a daily basis. People somehow seem to think that the best way to avenge a hurt or wrong done to them is to go out and shoot the person who hurt them. Shootings pile up on top of shootings, violence upon violence, revenge upon revenge, until we are left with a city that is hurt and bleeding.

But we shouldn’t be surprised that that’s how people today are solving their problems. After all, what examples do we have for confronting evil? - We have the eminent role model of the President of the United States who is determined to wipe out the evil of terrorism by violent means. We have television shows that lift up violent confrontation as the way to solve evil - shows like Jerry Springer - you may laugh, but there are other shows, too. Can you recall the last time you saw a show where the conflict was solved by talking? Where the evil was overcome by good?

And it’s not only the television that gives us these ideas, but there’s video games, too. Now, the majority of us here don’t play violent video games, but I bet you know people who do - either your kids or your grandkids. And we may turn a blind eye to those games, and think they’re harmless, but games that perpetrate violence - where you can kill your enemies with handguns or machine guns or grenades or by beating them over the head with a bat - those games are evil, even when the so-called enemies are bad guys. And the evil and violence of these games comes out in real life. The American Psychological Association just released a report that clearly links playing violent video games to aggressive thoughts, behaviours, and angry feelings among youth. The reports says that "Showing violent acts without consequences teaches youth that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict."

But before we get up on our high horse about gangs and youth culture and violent media, we must a look at the moments of evil in our own lives. We all have those moments that we succumb to, moments that don’t necessarily seem evil, but certainly aren’t good. Moments when people make us mad and we swear at them - I’m particularly thinking of driving on the highway here - or moments when someone cuts in front of us in line and we mutter things under our breath at them that aren’t very nice, to put it mildly. Moments when, if someone has been especially hurtful, we badmouth them to our friends and acquaintances. All of us have moments when we nurse a fervent hope that the people who’ve hurt us get what’s coming to them.

But the Bible teaches us, very clearly, that it is not up to us to exact retribution and revenge. That’s left to God. All three of our readings are quite emphatic about that. In our Old Testament reading, the prophet Jeremiah, who has been attacked and betrayed by his own people, even his own family, prays that God would "remember me and visit me, and bring down retribution for me on my persecutors." He doesn’t take it on himself to pay them back, but waits for God to do it. And then there’s Paul in the letter to the Romans. "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord"." Again - we aren’t to make an assault on evil ourselves - we’re supposed to wait for God to do it. And lastly, of course, there’s Jesus himself, who reassures his disciples that "the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done." So we know that, whatever evil and wrong we see in the world, that has been done to us or to others, God is going to take care of it. God is going to come in wrath and vengeance and repay and overcome the evil and violence of the world.

So what is this day of judgement going to look like? Well, books like the Left Behind series would have you believe that it’s full of smoke and blood and even more violence. Writers like Dante would have you believe that God’s wrath takes the form of sending evil people off to the fiery pits of hell where they experience exactly the agony they inflicted on their victims, but a thousand times more painful. But is that what’s really going to happen?

Ah, well, the funny thing about God is that God never works the way we think God should. And this is no exception. We get a hint that God might be doing something different in the payback department when Paul says to the Romans, "bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.... "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink."
And then we have Jesus’ quote from Matthew, "he will repay everyone for what has been done." There’s another place in the Bible where we hear that verse, and it comes from Psalm 62:12. The psalmist, talking to God says, "for you repay all according to their work." But just before that, we read, "Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord."

In fact, as it turns out, God’s method of payback, of ultimate retribution, of overcoming evil is the way of steadfast love. In God’s ultimate bid to overcome evil, God doesn’t drop the theological bomb on us, dooming us all to hell. That would never work - we know, we see daily, that violence and force can never truly take away evil. The cycle never stops. Genocides lead to more genocides, murder to more murder, hatred to more hatred. So instead, God takes the opposite path. God takes on the frail and vulnerable body of a human in the person of Jesus Christ, and even then he doesn’t go around leading military coups and hunting down bad guys and punishing them like a vigilante. No, he gets up on the cross and he dies. Motivated by love and a desire to save the world - the whole world, including all the evil, violent people - he overcomes evil with good. That’s how God gives people what’s coming to them, that’s how God overcame the cycle of violence - by committing the ultimate act of good - by loving us to death. After all, how do you pay someone back for loving you? How do you exact revenge on someone who died for you? There’s not way to do it - the cycle is broken.

We are called to follow this same path of overcoming evil with good. As Jesus said to his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." But, just in case you think that only Jesus is capable of doing something like this - of responding to evil with good, I want to tell you two stories about regular people who were, by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, able to do this.
The first story is very recent, it only just happened last week. Last Wednesday, in the Taize community, an inter-denominational community in France, the community’s leader, Brother Roger, was stabbed and killed by a woman in the middle of the service. You can imagine how shocking and appalling that must have been for the community, and how they must have felt towards the woman who murdered Brother Roger, but at his funeral, the words came forward, "With Christ on the cross we say to you, Father, forgive her, she does not know what she did." Their beloved leader was killed before their eyes, but they did not avenge his death, nor did they curse the woman who killed him. Instead, they prayed for her forgiveness - they blessed and did not curse. They sought to overcome evil with good.

The second story is similar, although a couple of years older. This, too, was a case of murder, but instead of a 90-year old man who was murdered, it was a 17-yr old, Jason Lang, who was shot and killed by his 14-yr old classmate at school in Taber, Alberta. It got a lot of coverage, and that coverage was renewed recently when the classmate ran away from a Toronto half-way house. But what has not received as much coverage, but which is most important for us today, is the response of Jason’s father, Dale Lang. At the memorial service for his son, Rev. Lang - yes, he is an Anglican priest - but nevertheless, at the memorial service less than a week after he lost his soon, he prayed and "asked God to bless the family of the 14-yr-old boy accused of the shooting, and for the boy himself." And, he and his wife have continued to pray regularly for the murderer of their son since the shooting. They, too, have chosen not to avenge their son’s death, nor to curse the one who persecuted them. Instead, they have chosen to bless him, and they have chosen to overcome evil with good.

Which means that there is hope when it comes to ending the presence of evil in the world. When we choose to overcome evil with good, instead of evil, we are doing the same work that Jesus did on the cross. When we bless people under our breath instead of cursing them, when we speak well of them to others, when we feed our enemies and give them something to drink, and most importantly, when we pray that they get what’s coming to them - that is, the grace and forgiveness of God, when we do all these things, we are invoking the same power that defeated the power of evil, that broke the cycle of violence, that proclaimed that in the end, life has the victory. No, that doesn’t bring back the people who’ve died, or make right the wrongs that have been done to you, but it does, over time, change the world so that one day there will be no more reason for payback or revenge. And when the Son of Man comes and repays everyone for what has been done, grace and forgiveness will be everyone’s reward, and peace will abound forevermore. Thanks be to God, Amen.