How Did Jesus Address Systemic Evil?
Good Morning Friends,
Something is indeed wrong in our violent and xenophobic world. The problem is that there is a little anger and fear and even evil in the best of us. Pointing fingers is a bit pointless for like Pogo we soon find the enemy and he is almost always us. Christ’s precise response to evil is the only hope we have got. The response is goodness and resurrection in the face of death. And here the destiny of Christians is bound together with the destiny of Christ. In the end the resurrection of Jesus foretells that death is not the end of man, but that life persists through death and emerges from it. And for anyone who has jumped into the stream of the Holy Spirit knows…one dies to self not just once but over and over again. This is hard to grasp on one level and then makes perfect sense in the hope that the resurrected Christ will eventually conquer all evil and all promoters of evil. The problem is that in our efforts to do good, evil somehow sneaks into the picture all because we do not do good things in unity. So we wait for Jesus but until He returns our role, I think, as the church and with the power of the Holy Spirit, is to deliberately challenge systemic evil, policies and practices which enslave people and communities. We are to confront the complex webs of exploitation that exist in our culture. Easier said than done for we are supposed to confront with love and sometimes that just seems to make evil all the more virulent. Perhaps the first thing to do in this work is to realize that the greatest evil we must face is that we are not whole. And that brings us to today’s question. How Did Jesus Address Systemic Evil?
Scripture: Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘All things are put in subjection’, it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.
1 Corinthians 15:24-28 (NRSV)
Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”
Job 19:25-26 (NIV)
What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:” Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
1 Corinthians 15:50-56 (NRSV)
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21 (NRSV)
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
Matthew 5:44-45 (NRSV)
Message: In Jesus’ most famous sermon he gives us a succinct answer to our probing of God’s justice. Jesus says that God makes the sun shine on the just and the unjust and makes it rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Before he commands us to not retaliate revengefully against the evil of the world…he tells us to love our enemies. Ok, no one wants to accuse Jesus of being ignorant about evil. For God’s sake, Jesus died at the hands of evil. And we do not want to accuse Jesus of being an irresponsible pacifist either. But Jesus does not suggest flight or to fight in the traditional sense. He offers a third alternative that addresses evil head on…Jesus tells us to love…to return evil with good. And Jesus tells to approach the challenge in unity when facing not just our own death but also all the little deaths and perhaps especially the evil embedded in the structures of a society and even its laws. We are to have hope in this process because the day that Christ rose from the dead death died. So too the darkness in us must die. And if we make that long term commitment to God’s Kingdom day by day the darkness in us will be swallowed up in Christ’s light. We can learn from our failures, learn that a battle is not the war…that our self-image is not success…that we are here to enjoy life and its processes…that we can learn from struggle… sharing what God has made possible so others can be nourished….not that we impress but that we serve God’s purpose. So be realistic. Get your act together. People change over time. Be encouraged in the never ending forgiveness of Christ. Remember that Satan tried to get Jesus to quit. Remember that Jesus did not get lots of credit. So never underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit when it comes to God’s plan in your life. Believe that physical death comes before the resurrection for Jesus and for us too so that our soul might be saved… and it might bring forth fruit. Friends, Jesus prayed spiritual Life into existence sending sin, guilt, death into oblivion. Even as we labor in prayer let us learn the better way.
Pray in the great mystery… the profound and troubling mystery of our birth, life, death and resurrection. Pray that though we are shaped by the earth we will be completed by the Potter in heaven. Pray we become new creatures in Christ. Pray we realize how little resurrections work and that we are just seeds that when planted and raised by the Lord live on forever. Pray that even now that our corruption be turned to incorruption, our mortality to immortality, our dishonor to glory. Pray that God would take our weakness and turn it into power, take our natural state and turn it into something spiritual. Pray Jesus becomes the head of the body and we get our act together to work in unity. Pray now that in the moment of our physical deaths the Holy Spirit will descend on each of us as it did when Jesus prayed before His baptism… as it did for the disciples gathered in the Upper Room to pray before Pentecost… as it was most assuredly present in the resurrection of Christ. Pray that the Holy Spirt would train us for this day as God helps us to overcome all the little deaths of life. Pray that the Lord’s purpose will prevail in us…that the plans of our hearts will submit to God’s peace. Pray we understand that we must die to self before we are resurrected. Pray we realize that to live, our sins need to die on the cross. Pray we learn that we do not bear fruit for the Kingdom until the seeds of our priorities, possessions and personality are broken for Christ just as His body was broken for us. Pray we realize that Jesus understands evil much better than we would like to give him credit. Pray we learn to work in unity so we do not get picked off by the enemy.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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