RCL Proper 27B
6 October 2024
Anglican Church of the Epiphany
Surrey BC
In my final year of seminary I was privileged to participate in an advanced seminar in theology facilitated by Fr Jim Griffiss of blessed memory. Fr Griffiss was quite particular about who could register for his advanced senior seminar, so places in his course were a hot item on the school’s calendar. Not only was Fr Griffiss a great teacher, but it was rumoured that he always had cold beer on hand for the seminarians who participated! I’m able to say that both were true: Fr Griffiss was a great teacher whose influence on me I still feel and treasure AND he had a commitment to great local craft beers.
He kept the topic of the seminar a bit of a secret until the first week of class. As we gathered in the seminar room, Fr Griffiss unveiled with a bit of a dramatic flourish the books for the semester. ‘This seminar is going to be evil,’ he said. At first we thought he meant that it was going to be really good, but he really meant ‘evil’. For the next three and a half months we dove into an exploration of ‘evil’. We spent the first session debating whether we should call the seminar ‘a theology of evil’ or ‘the problem of evil’ or ‘the question of evil’ and any number of other names. With each new name Fr Griffiss would quickly point out the twists and turns hidden in each possible title that we would need to navigate. So, by the end of the first session, all of us having enjoyed a beer or two, we settled on simply calling it ‘the Evil Seminar’.
I do not tell you this story lightly. I tell you this story because every human being who has ever lived, every human culture that has ever existed, every human religion that has ever been founded, has wrestled with what we call ‘evil’. There is an entire branch of theology devoted to exploring the relationship between God and evil. Pages and pages, book after book, have been written trying to understand why bad things happen to good people and why human beings seem to be unable to shake off evil despite all the progress we have made.
You and I are keenly aware of evil in its many expressions. We are made more aware because of our access to all the various forms of contemporary media – the internet, social networks, digital news, printed media, radio, television and podcasts. There are some who think that evil is more prevalent in our times than at other times in human history, but I think that evil has always touched the lives of human beings in many and various ways. Our curse is that we know about, read about, talk about in ways that are faster than our ancestors.
We are probably all familiar with the story of Job. A wealthy man who is known to be a righteous man, a generous man, becomes the object of attention in the heavenly court. The scene is set almost like a Hollywood movie: God, here called the ‘Lord’, has called together the heavenly beings. Among those heavenly beings is one whose is called ‘the accuser’, ‘haSatan’ in Hebrew. This being is not the Satan of horror movies; this being is not in themselves evil, is not seeking souls to steal from God. Their job is to go throughout the world checking up on how human beings are keeping faith with their Creator. When they find someone who is not behaving faithfully, it’s their job to bring that person to God’s attention.
For whatever reason the Lord decides to bring dear Job to the accuser’s attention and to hold Job up as an example of faithfulness. The accuser simply states the obvious – why wouldn’t a wealthy man be faithful to God, someone who has everything they could want or need. ‘Just put Job to the test,’ the accuser says, ‘and you’ll soon find out how deep his faithfulness goes.’ And so the Lordaccepts the accuser’s dare, and Job experiences the reality of suffering that he does not deserve, that he does not comprehend, that he does not accept as fair.
There are no words to explain why bad things happen to good people. There are no words to explain why evil prospers while the good struggles. There are no words to explain the violence consuming the Middle East, the war between Ukraine and Russia, the violence that is experienced by so many people throughout the world. There are no words to explain the desperation that causes thousands of people to flee their homes, to sell their possessions and to trust themselves to people-smugglers who put to sea in over-crowded, danger-ridden boats that capsize in the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel.
There are no words to explain why young people are drawn into the world of drugs that kill. There are no words to explain why people have to live on the streets. There are no words to explain the whole litany of tragedies, disappointments and injustices we have seen, we have known, we have experience.
Evil is not a problem that can be solved; it simply is. Evil is not a question that can be answered; it simply is. Evil is not a theological category; it simply is. Why do bad things happen to good people? I do not have nor do I think that anyone has an answer to that question that will satisfy those whose homes have been destroyed by terror from the skies.
But at the end of today’s reading, we are given a hint of what ought to be the question we ask: “Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as any foolish [person] would speak. Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 2.9-10 NRSVue)
When we read, “Job did not sin with his lips,” the writer is telling us what Job, a good man, did when bad things happened. It is not in our power to banish evil from our world. We may ponder in the depths of our souls and in the recesses of our mind the question as to why God permits evil to continue, but we are unlikely to receive an answer that we satisfy us or that will heal broken hearts.
But we can direct our minds, our hearts, our souls and our strength towards answering this question: “What do good people do when bad things happen?” Good people, despite evil, do justice in our neighbourhoods and wherever our resources permit us. Good people, despite evil, love kindness extended towards friend and stranger, towards family and neighbours, towards those whom we have never met but whose needs call us to action. Good people, despite evil, walk humbly before God trusting that God is working God’s purposes out even when we cannot the traces of God’s handiwork as clearly as we might wish to see.
Good people can be angry with God, but they will still press on. There is a story told about St Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth -century nun, who faced many difficulties in her efforts to reform the monastic communities of her time. It is said that once, during prayer, she asked Christ why she was facing so many difficulties. She heard Jesus say, ‘This is how I treat my friends.’ Teresa is said to have answered, ‘If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them!’ But she did not stop the work that she believed God has given her to do.
Friends, evil is real. Evil has touched all of us in some manner or another. It is a mystery that we cannot yet see into clearly. But good people do not let the evil of the world stop them from doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God. Our prayer is the prayer of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, certainly someone whose experience of apartheid made him well-qualified to know how to face evil:
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is strong than death;
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.
