Jesus went up the
mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named
apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to
have authority to cast out demons…. Then
he went home; and the crowd came together again…. When his family heard it, they went out to
restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem
said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out
demons.” And he called them to him, and
spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that
kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is
divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and
is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and
plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the
house can be plundered.
Tonight we have word via the
news media that the younger brother of the “Boston Marathon Bombers” has been
captured alive, and can now be a source of information for a nation that is in
love with information, and ever anxious to find the locus for blame. We must know.
We must understand. We feel compelled
to learn as much from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as possible, and in due time, exact
judgment and punishment upon him.
Whether or not we are aware of it, this is part and parcel of how we
reassure ourselves that we are on the side of good/God, as opposed to the ones
we have identified as being on the side of evil/Satan.
(I confess to inconsistency since I often speak of God in anthropomorphic terms: having a broken heart, desiring our wholeness, weeping with us, dancing with us, etc.) For me there are two problems with the idea of Satan: it gives evil potentially equal power to the power of good, which I attribute to God, and even more importantly, it takes the heat off you and me. Mark’s Beelzebul was the ruler, or god, of all demons. Some of us might think of the Tsarnaev brothers as subjects of Beelzebul, the lord of demons. It might even be comforting to think of them as lesser demons themselves, manipulated by Satan. Still, this explanation is too simple.
Evil exists. That
is obvious. But I don’t believe these
two young men were evil. The death and
destruction and terror they caused are signs of evil working through them. Their choices resulted in evil. But I cannot pronounce them evil. I look at Dhokhar’s photo on the TV screen,
and I see a very handsome young man just a year older than my firstborn
grandson which means I know something of where he is in his development toward
adulthood. My heart breaks a little. I
see what seems to be a photo of him with his prom date. I see photos of my grandsons and their prom
dates. I see a photo of Suspect #1, and know that this is Tamerlan who was
Dhokhar’s brother. I see in my teenage
grandsons a love and fierce loyalty to one another that belies their occasional
fighting. My heart breaks a little more.
I cannot imagine the depth of
grief that befalls Dhokhar and his parents today over the death of Tamerlan, or
the grief of their friends who have expressed shock and disbelief over this
tragedy as it unfolded. My heart is
broken.
The idea that we can point to “others” as definitively
evil makes it extremely convenient to excuse ourselves from possibly being
related to evil. It is them, not
us. If evil is personified and given a name such
as Satan or Beelzebul, thus resembling a human being that embodies, encompasses,
and therefore contains all that is anti-life, anti-God, anti-grace, anti-good,
then we can make that one the target of our retaliation, and maybe destroy “it.”
Evil is not such an entity. Evil exists instead, as a force or an impulse
permeating all that it can, as is good.
Each is charming and even seductive, and each is exercised, expressed,
revered and elevated by good people. The Tsarnaev brothers were/are not evil, but evil
had its way in and through them. If
we borrow the imagery from Jesus’ metaphor in Mark, they simply were not strong
enough to resist the evil that invaded their house. If you and I can humble ourselves enough to
find the grace to admit it, that means that sometimes evil has its way with and
through us. Evil can only “plunder our
house” if we are too weak to resist it… only if the “strong man” or woman who
owns the house is bound up can evil plunder the household, robbing the house of
its goods.
When I was in seminary at
Claremont School of Theology in California, our professor of New Testament
listed a number of scriptures for us to choose from, to explore as the basis
for our exegetical papers. “The Beelzebub
Controversy” (this story from Mark) was one of them. I explored a little, and then watched as all
of my classmates (and ultimately I) avoided it completely. This conundrum is
daunting, and frankly even today it makes me uneasy to deliberately look for
the truth hiding in it. Lately, however,
I’ve been compelled by so much that is happening around us to revisit and
reconsider digging for meaning in this scripture. How can evil win if God is in the world?
I’m fascinated with our
resourcefulness in distancing ourselves from evil by projecting it onto someone
else. The “other” is the evil one. We play the role of the good, the Godly. Personifying evil and calling it Satan makes
it ever so much easier to compose our own disclaimers. When it’s possible to point to a person that
embodies evil, we are more free to affirm our separateness from it, to define
ourselves as NOT the evil one. Yet
it appears to me that what makes evil so insidious is that it works its way
through the actions and inactions of good people… even people who don’t
intend harm… even sometimes through people who passionately believe that they
are doing the right thing or the only thing they can do.
A congregation terminated me
after I had a stroke, their leaders apparently convinced that it was the best
or only thing to do for the good of the church.
It ended my profession in congregational ministry. It was devastating and created financial
fallout for me that I am still trying to sort out. Evil worked its way through good people who
just couldn’t see the full impact of what they were doing – or didn’t care, and
I can’t quite believe that. The damage
was not just to me. In fact the greater
damage may have been to the congregation.
How will they teach their children to choose the Jesus way of caring for
others, for “the least of these,” for the broken in mind, body or spirit? How will they ever be able to convince their
elderly that they still have worth when their bodies betray them, now that
their elderly have watched as they dismissed me because I had a stroke? What will these leaders do when they,
themselves, suffer loss of their full, vibrant, middle-aged fitness… when they
become the dispensable ones?
These people were/are not
evil. They just were not strong enough
to resist the force of evil when it broke into their house, telling them to cut
ties, quick and clean. Some have even
said to me that they have no power in the
church. They do
not feel like the “strong person” who is owner of the house. The question that
comes to mind is how can a church so effectively disempower its members that
there are few if any who are strong enough to resist evil when it intrudes? I ran into a dear woman, a senior member of
the congregation, in the grocery store just yesterday. She exclaimed over how good I look and how
great it is to see me getting around so well.
“We loved you,” she said, “and we were so excited to have you be our
minister. All of us get sick and have things go wrong
with our health, but we recover and we go on.
I’m so sorry it didn’t work out. I
was so angry, but no one listens to what I have to say. Other people make the decisions there.” I
wondered if she even knew that I had submitted an extensive proposal for how we
would work together, pastor and congregation, through this recovery time…
learning and recovering together, being stronger than we might have ever been
were it not for my stroke. I also wondered if she knew that her words were a powerful ministry to me. I wonder if she knew.
It is so easy to recognize
evil when an IED explodes in a public place and lives and property are
lost. But when evil slowly erodes the
personhood, the dignity, the ability of people to speak with a voice that is
heard and respected, when we take away their power, it is harder for us to
recognize evil working through us. I
don’t believe in Satan… because I think personifying evil can be a cop out – it
could too easily relieve me from responsibility for my own occasions of
weakness when evil invades my house and I fail to resist, and the goods of my
household are plundered.
Evil has broken into our
house. What shall we do? I am reminded and therefore would be remiss if
I didn’t bring to your memory the words of Paul to the Romans (12:21): “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome
evil with good.” Paul seems to be
echoing what Jesus, according to Mark was saying… that when evil breaks into
your house, you cannot conquer it with evil; the only way you can overcome it
is with good. Be strong, God's people. Be strong.
Lord have mercy, Christ have
mercy.
Holy One, be with us
yet. Amen.
For all the times we seek revenge and
ignore our own culpability...we pray.
For all the times we point to the sins of others and ignore our own...we pray.
For all the times we make decisions based on the color of someone’s skin or the language they speak or the country they call home, but fail to see the times we have been outsiders...we pray.
For all the times we have made assumptions about another, but railed against the assumptions placed on us... We pray.
For all the times we point to the sins of others and ignore our own...we pray.
For all the times we make decisions based on the color of someone’s skin or the language they speak or the country they call home, but fail to see the times we have been outsiders...we pray.
For all the times we have made assumptions about another, but railed against the assumptions placed on us...
For all the times we have lived in fear,
but forgotten the times we have been the aggressor… we pray.
For all the times that we have forgotten
that God does not pick and choose who to call Loved… we pray.
And for all those living in fear and exile…
those living in terror and heartache… those living in anger and hatred… those
living with loss and emptiness… we pray.
We pray for all of God’s children… that
they may know solace and peace and hope… and that the ugly bits of the heart,
broken and bruised, might turn to the light and know resurrection. Amen.
~
Rev. Tricia Thompson Winters 4/2013