"Dealing With Evil"

Exodus 14:19-31

Sunday, September 14, 2014

First Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

“There is hardly anything more obvious than the fact that evil is present in the universe.”[1]

These are the opening words of a sermon given by the 27 year old Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at St. John the Divine in New York City. The title of the sermon was “The Death of Evil on the Seashore.”

Can we just pause for a moment to recognize that by the age of 25, King had a doctorate degree, was ordained, and was preaching powerful prophetic sermons? At the age of 26 he was leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott. To anyone who looks at people in the 20s and says, “This is the future of the church,” I would offer a gentle correction. When I look at children, youth, young adults, middle-aged adults, older adults I see the NOW of the church. Leaders, prophets, teachers, preachers, wisdom-sharers come in all ages.

Okay, but back to his sermon, because that opening line makes us sit up and take notice. “There is hardly anything more obvious than the fact the evil is present in the universe.”

Evil does seem to be glaringly obvious in our universe, and yet we seem reticent to name it as such. When was the last time you used the word evil in everyday conversation? We often say things like tragedy, horror, atrocity….but I don’t hear people throwing around the word evil very often.

But Dr. King wasn’t afraid to use the word. He says, “We may debate over the origin of evil, but only the person victimized with a superficial optimism will debate over its reality….The Bible affirms the reality of evil in glaring terms.”

There is certainly no doubt that we’ve been grappling with evil in the narrative we’ve been following from Exodus. Dr. King names it explicitly, saying, “You will remember that at a very early stage in her history the children of Israel were reduced to the bondage of physical slavery under the gripping yoke of Egyptian rule.”

Last week we struggled together with the difficulty of a vengeful, murderous God in the Exodus stories. If you weren’t here, you might want to check out last week’s sermon online to see how we dealt with the yuck factor of a God who ruthlessly murders children. This week we have a similar problem – an angry God who casts the Egyptians into the sea, leaving their bodies washed up on the shore in the early morning sun.

I appreciate that Pastor King provides us with yet another way to work through the nastiness of a God who would do such a thing. King sees this story as an allegory – one that falls into a larger Biblical tradition of telling the stories of good vs. evil. He says that in the Exodus narrative, “Egypt was the symbol of evil in the form of humiliating oppression, ungodly exploitation and crushing domination. The Israelites symbolized goodness, in the form of devotion and dedication to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These two forces were in a continual struggle against each other.”

Good vs. evil. This storyline was not invented by C.S. Lewis or J.R. Tolkein or George Lucas or J.K. Rowling. Human have been grapping with the problems of good vs. evil since the dawn of time and the Exodus narrative is just another powerful tale in a long line of stories that seek to make peace with the existence of both forces in our world.

King says that the story of the Red Sea crossing is a story that “symbolizes something basic about the universe. It symbolizes something much deeper than the drowning of a few men, for no one can rejoice at the death or the defeat of a human person. This story, at bottom, symbolizes the death of evil. It was the death of inhuman oppression and ungodly exploitation.

The death of the Egyptians upon the seashore is a glaring symbol of the ultimate doom of evil in its struggle with good. There is something in the very nature of the universe which is on the side of Israel in its struggle with every Egypt. There is something in the very nature of the universe which ultimately comes to the aid of goodness in its perennial struggle with evil.”

Sixty years after Dr. King first preached this sermon, we are still in need of stories that lift up the triumph of good over evil, are we not? Because evil is still a reality in our world.

My dear friend the Rev. Lynn James is an ordained UCC minister and a licensed mental health counselor in Indiana. Lynn works with trauma survivors and, in particular, works with a lot of survivors of horrible abuse. So Lynn has spent a lot of time pondering evil. I would venture to guess that she has held space for people to voice evils that are far too grotesque for most of us to even imagine.

When I checked my email on Tuesday I had an email from Lynn. She had been pondering theodicy and had collected some of her thoughts on the subject and sent them to me. Now, theodicy sounds like a really fancy high-falutin academic word, right? But, in reality, it’s something we all know intimately, even if we haven’t heard the word before. Theodicy is the struggle to understand how a good God can permit evil and suffering to take place. 

Lynn laid it out in very simple terms. She says, “Theodicy seeks to explain how these three assertions can coexist:”

1)    Evil and suffering exist

2)    God is all good

3)    God is all-powerful

It’s as simple as that. How can these three things all be true? If evil and suffering exist and God is all-powerful, then God is a sadist. If God is all-powerful and all good, then evil and suffering can’t exist. If evil and suffering exist and God is all good, then God surely doesn’t seem to be all-powerful, right?

Let’s cement these three things in our minds because we’re going to keep using them throughout the rest of the sermon. So…people over this way, you’re going to represent assertion #1: “Evil and suffering exist.” Say it with me, “Evil and suffering exist.” You folks over here, you’re going to be assertion #2: “God is all good.” Say it with me, “God is all good.” And dear ones back here in the choir, please represent #3, “God is all-powerful.” Here we go, “God is all-powerful.”

My friend Lynn says that when people try to harmonize these three things, what they most often seem to do is get rid of #1 (“Evil and suffering exist”).

Lynn notices people saying things like, “Everything happens for a reason.” So, you know, it may SEEM to be evil, but it’s actually GOOD masquerading as evil. Or, “Suffering teaches us what we need to learn,” so, again, not actually evil but let’s turn it around and make it into a positive. Sometimes we hear people say, “Your thoughts manifest your reality. If bad stuff happens to you, it’s because your negative thinking attracted those things,” a la The Secret. So horrible atrocities aren’t really evil, they’re more like negative things we bring upon ourselves. I can’t help but notice that when we shame those who stay in abusive relationships and blame them for the atrocities of their abuser, we’re doing some version of this, yes? “You brought this on yourself,” instead of, “This is evil. Let’s name it and stop it.”

All of these things are ways of denying that evil and suffering exist. Because if we can get rid of #1 (“Evil and suffering exist”) we are freed up to happily believe #2 (“God is all good.”) and #3 (“God is all-powerful.”)

But it’s awfully hard to look at the world around us and deny the existence of evil and suffering, is it not?

So now, of course, we have a problem. Because if #1 (“Evil and suffering exist”) is true then what are we supposed to do with #3 (“God is all-powerful.”)? If God is all-powerful, then God is causing or allowing evil and suffering to exist. And we are stuck with a sadistic God. This is where the Exodus story leaves us. All those dead Egyptians washed up on the shore. All of those plagues. All of those dead children, struck down because their parents didn’t know enough to paint the doorway with lamb’s blood. This is a powerful God. But this is not a kind God. If evil and suffering exist and God is all-powerful, it’s awfully hard to also say #2 (“God is all good.”)

Which brings us to #3 (“God is all-powerful.”) Can we talk about that one for a minute?

Because that’s where my friend Lynn has seen the most movement in her ponderings and I have to say it has been the same for me.  Lynn writes, “The notion of an ‘all-powerful’ God is what I have had to let go, to redefine.  I miss it.  I often find myself inadvertently believing it again, seeking comfort from it again and I smile because that too is human.”

Boy, am I right there with her. The notion of an all-powerful God is so firmly rooted in me that I often find myself coming back to it again and again. Because I grew up with stories like this one from Exodus. Because when I’m sheltering in a basement with the tornado sirens going off overhead, I find myself reflexively praying, “God keep me safe.” Because when a loved one gets the diagnosis, I want to scream out, “FIX THIS, GOD!”

I spent some time this past week on the 13^th anniversary of September 11 Googling for a video that I remembered from that day. I had a memory firmly planted in my head of a doctor who had gone down to the twin towers to help. While there, one of the towers collapsed and he sheltered behind a car, the camera still running. In my memory, he said, “Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.” Or maybe it was, “Please let me live. Please let me live.” I was certain, though, that he was begging God for his life. I searched and searched with these phrases and couldn’t find it.

Finally, I just searched for “9/11 doctor behind car” and I found the video.[2] Dr. Mark Heath was his name. The video was mostly how I remembered it, with one key difference. As the building collapses and the debris comes rushing towards him, the video camera shakes and he says, “I hope I live. I hope I live.”

He was not begging God. He simply proclaimed his deepest hope. He hoped he would live.

He wasn’t asking an all-powerful God to control his destiny.

As I grapple with theodicy – the harmonizing these three assertions: #1 (“Evil and suffering exist.”), #2 (“God is all good.”) and #3 (“God is all-powerful.”) I really find myself convinced that God is not up there like some sweet old grandmother or angry, vengeful man in the sky, deciding who gets to live and who has to die. God is not up there punishing people. God is not allowing evil and suffering to occur. God can be good AND evil and suffering can exist….and all of these things can be mixed up in the midst of our wonderful, broken, joyous, brutal, beautiful world.

I think that’s a lot of what Jesus showed up through his living and dying, actually. This child who was brought into the world in a dusty, dirty stable. Young and inexperienced parents who were the talk of the town because they didn’t look like a Norman Rockwell painting. And yet this baby – like all babies – was so beautiful. So perfect. People came from miles away to gaze upon his face and worship.

And years later this same baby – all grown up now – died a gruesome death at the hands of some who were behaving in truly evil ways. But even in the midst of that suffering and pain, as his friends and family grew quiet and the world was hushed, the rocks cried out and the thunder rolled and the stars themselves sang….because even in the mist of that suffering, a newness was being born.

Because our God is always walking with us into Resurrection….even when it is very hard to see that reality through our tears.

Our God may not be all-powerful….at least in the ways we traditionally think of all-powerful. …big muscles, lightning bolts and all that. But our God is still awfully busy. Next week we are going to do some pondering about what it means to live in community with a God is active in the world. Stay tuned….

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[1] http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol3/17-May-1956_DeathOfEvil.pdf

[2] You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8mz09VQQ2M