Tempting though it often is, it may not be helpful to frame too much of life in terms of a cosmic battle between good and evil. To do so makes it, perhaps, a bit too easy to suggest that there are only two kinds of people in the world, for one thing. But it would be a mistake to fail to recognize that there is evil out there in the world - sometimes cosmic, but much more often mundane. And it’s likely that each of us will have to contend with some measure of evil in our lives. Again, it’s more likely that we will confront a very mundane sort of evil than that we will engage in a cosmic encounter.
Evil presents itself to us, for instance, in the form of temptation to do something that’s hurtful to ourselves or to others. Or as resentment or jealousy. Or as despair in the face of a challenge we fear we are not strong enough to meet. Or as self-doubt, insecurity, or self-loathing. Or as greed or selfishness. Evil lurks behind these entirely mundane emotional realities that are part of our every-day lives. Evil sneaks up on us like a warming bath for a frog. And we don’t even have to have done anything at all, or even to have noticed that evil has slithered into our lives. And yet, most of us will have to contend with some measure of evil in our lives at some point, even if we never identify it as such.
One of the reasons that warfare is a fascination for us, I suspect, is that it magnifies encounters with evil - that can normally be hard to identify and observe when they are so small and mundane - and it purports to makes those encounters with evil easier to see. Warfare also makes the consequences of how people contend with evil more obvious: we can see that how you deal with evil matters when the conflict is blown up on a large scale. Of course, warfare is not so straightforward; and in the fog of war tremendous evil is carried out in the name of what’s good. But that’s part of the genius of evil: it lets you see what you want to see.
St. Paul knew that evil was most often confronted in mundane ways, far from the battlefield; that evil would be encountered on our way to work, in the subway, at the grocery store, and in the unseen silence of our emotional lives. And he provides us with practical advice:
“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.”
Read out loud in church, these words sound a little like they might have come from a greeting card. But have you tried being patient in suffering lately? And when was the last time you extended hospitality to strangers? It’s hard enough sometimes to extend hospitality to those we know. In fact, nearly every aspect of this advice from St. Paul is much easier said than done, and we have to be careful not to shrug off his admonition as so many nice words.
When we keep reading, it only gets harder: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Live peaceably with all. Including your neighbors who do that thing that drives you crazy. And your co-worker who you have taken to avoiding. And your ex, who.. well, you know.… Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
St. Paul goes on, quoting the Hebrew Scriptures, with advice that I strongly suspect has seldom been followed in the history of the world, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.” There is a cynical way to hear these words - the text provides that interpretation itself - but I think St. Paul means what he’s saying. Or at least he’s trying to! And then he finds a way to say in a nutshell what his various exhortations are meant to convey: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
As I say, it may not be useful to frame too much of life in terms of a cosmic battle between good and evil. But you don’t have to be living in Ukraine right now to be in need of this advice; you only have to know what it feels like to have been hurt by someone else whom you suspect meant to do it.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This is a prayer, not a bumper sticker, not a meme. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Again, you do not need to be in the trenches of Ukraine in order to be in need of this prayer. All you need to be is impatient, or jealous, or threatened, or feeling a little selfish or wounded, or short on cash, or insecure, or embarrassed, or bored, or hungry, or even a little self-righteous… and evil lies close at hand. All you need is to want to curse those who persecute you - which seems fair enough, right? Except that when we do, evil walks in the door, under the most mundane circumstances. Like, when it feels as though there are only two kinds of people in the world: either you are persecuting me or you are not.
It seems important to recognize how mundane evil is, and how likely we all are to encounter evil in these mundane ways, since Jesus’ answer to evil is somewhat radical, and we might conclude that he cannot possibly mean it for us. The Cross is Jesus’ answer to evil, for it is the place where love triumphs over evil. And love is the perfection of goodness. But the Cross is deeply confusing to us, and never more so than we we hear Jesus say that if we want to follow him, we’ll have to take up our own cross.
What? Why would we do that? How could that be good for us?
Think of Jesus on the Cross. A victim of injustice and betrayal. Failed by religious leaders, and by the state, and by his friends. Why would we want any part of that?
The Cross - which is a symbol of suffering, injustice, and death - is the center of Christian philosophy. Jesus told his disciples, before they could possibly have known what he was talking about, that the paradox of the Cross would be the center of Christian faith. And this is the paradox of the Cross: that “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
As long as suffering, injustice, and death are part of the human existence, the only God who will do us any good is a God who has known all three. And the Cross is the place where the awesome power of God meets suffering, injustice, and death with all the weakness of humanity.
Part of the strange mystery of Jesus’ death on the Cross is that he is the only loser. And part of the loveliness of Christ’s victory on the Cross is that it leaves no one but him in the dust. The glory of the Cross is that it curses no one, not even those who would have used it as a means of persecution. Quite the contrary, the Cross blesses anyone who falls beneath its shadow. And the only declarations issued from the Cross are declarations of forgiveness and hope. The wisdom of the Cross is that, having been built for the express purpose of accomplishing evil, the Cross overcomes evil with good.
Jesus’ followers must have been confused when he said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” But maybe he was not really speaking to them; maybe he was speaking to us. Of course, we are also confused by Jesus when he tells us to take up our cross. We are perplexed by the paradox of the Cross, and we allow ourselves to be confused and exasperated because his teaching is so hard to follow. Save your life, but lose it? Lose your life for his sake in order to save it? Yes, this is confusing.
So St. Paul tried to spell out for us the paradox of the Cross in clearer terms. After all, it was Christ crucified which he preached. He knew that the Cross is a paradox and a challenge. What does it mean to take up your cross and follow Jesus? How can we do it? This is what he said:
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Put it more simply, in a small enough space to fit on a bumper sticker or a meme: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. But don’t let these words become a bumper sticker or a meme, which are easily ignored and forgotten. Let them be a prayer for us in a world that is not free from evil, in our lives, in which evil intrudes in the most mundane ways, and in those places where the battle between good and evil seems to be under way at a cosmic level.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
3 September 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
