Evil

Proverbs 28: 4-8

Hebrews 4: 12-13

Mark 6:14-29

Evil

This summer has seen the “resurrection” of an old tale of family rivalry and betrayal. The show that started an industry of prime time “soap operas” is back on the air. It was so popular that some organizations had to schedule evening meetings around its night on the air. Do you know show I’m talking about? . . . . Dallas.

The ever-evil “J.R.” Ewing and all his battling, back-biting, embittered family have returned, with new generations, all of whom are admirably carrying on the family tradition of unabated greed and hatred. Added to yet another season of “Kardashians” and the History channel’s presentation of “The Hatfields and the McCoys,” “family life” is looking pretty grim. That is not even to mention the recent scientific study that put a question mark over the value of nightly meals together as a family. It found that eating together on a regular basis could be bad, not good for teenagers, if the family is dysfunctional. The family routine of eating together is very good for you if the family dynamics are good, very bad for you if the family dynamics are dysfunctional. Dysfunction too often leads to evil.

Herod’s actions were evil. There is no question. He really did not expect that he would be asked for John The Baptist’s head. He could have said no, but he made a promise, and to save face he ordered John’s execution.   

Yes, there are times that we wonder about God. It is true there is horrible evil out there. There are evil people - the sociopaths, the mass murders, the vicious child and spouse abusers. There are evil moments when otherwise good people are drawn in - that scene played over and over on TV several years ago of a dozen police officers beating and kicking a wounded suspect.

There are evil systems in which, unfortunately, we all participate - people going without food and shelter in a nation of abundance, people not getting medical care because of no other reason than lack of money (and greedy insurance companies). There are even evils born of sheer stupidity, like the stupid promise Herod made to Salome.

Do you remember the novelist William Burroughs? He wrote a lot of short stories and several off -beat novels. Burroughs died in 1997 at age 83. During a drunken party in Mexico one night in 1951, he undertook to play William Tell - he used a pistol to shoot a glass off his wife's head. He missed...and put a bullet in her brain instead. How stupid. How evil.  Unintentional, but the result was evil. Yes, it often seems that the evil wins.

Not all evil is huge, like Hitler, or what we see in Syria, or the streets of Chicago. Evil often begins with what seem to be innocent decisions or events, that result in things happening against God’s will. It is just as often the result of sins of omission as commission. There are two kinds of evil: Physical and moral.

Physical evil includes all that causes harm to persons, whether by bodily injury, or by preventing the full development of his God given capacity, or through the various social conditions. Some evils are ones over which we do not have full control, such as accidents, or death itself. Poverty, oppression, and some forms of disease are instances of evil arising from imperfect social organization. Mental suffering, such as anxiety, disappointment, and remorse, and the limitation of intelligence which prevents humans beings from attaining all God wishes for them are forms of evil.

Moral evil results from failure to live according to Christ’s teachings and commandments, to love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, all our strength, love others as he loves us, and to make and mature disciples in his name.  Moral evil too often causes, or perpetuates, physical evil.   

But the message of our faith says that evil does not have the last word. God does, and the word is "love."

One real lesson of John The Baptist’s life is that doing good and right things cannot protect you from being badly hurt. There is real danger in identifying what is wrong in the world and trying to change it.

Why is this awful story even mentioned in the Bible? Well, it just might be that some of us who try to follow Christ have been following too safe a course, sitting in mighty comfortable seats at the banquet, so much so that we need this awful story to help us ask if we are following the One whose way was full of danger and whose final destination was a cross. How willing are we to follow Christ wherever he leads regardless of what in means to us in inconvenience or even danger?

John loses his head but gains the kingdom. Herod saved his face but lost his soul. Here there is another triumph in the midst of suffering. John's martyrdom is not a defeat. Twelve more preachers are sent in his place. Ironically even Herod suspected that John would ultimately triumph when he said, "John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead."

When we attempt to live a life worthy of the Gospel it is because our understanding of "worth" is far different from the world's. John the Baptist was not beheaded because he went along with the status quo. John gave his life because of his commitment to truth as he understood it, much like Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his struggles with Nazism and Hitler during World War II. As a pastor in the German Lutheran Church, Bonhoeffer was forced to choose between his loyalty to God or loyalty to an insane ruler. He was executed in 1945 for the opposition he voiced to the satanic rule of Hitler.

Few of us will ever face any challenge to our faith like Bonhoeffer.  But loyalty to Christ is challenged every day, and the decisions we make have an impact on the lives of others, most who we do not know, and in ways we do not suspect. But if we are loyal to Christ and his commands God will guide our decisions to keep our actions from doing harm, and instead result in good.

Life has many roads to travel. However, as Christians we choose the road on which the shadow of the cross falls. It always leads to freedom and to victory when the final lap of the race is run. Some 2000 years later, we speak of the reigns of the Herods and Caesars with pity and disdain, but the names of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ live on as those for whom life was lived with devotion and courage.

As  the religious writer and philosopher G.K. Chesterton so concisely wrote: "It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but tried and found difficult."  Amen