As we are moving forward in our quest to look at some of ?Life?s Great Questions? from the book written by Jean Vanier, we are going to ask questions and probably not receive many answers. We especially won?t always agree on what I share as well, but I do hope it continues to cause us to think and reflect. I think this is one of the reasons that these types of questions continue to be on our minds. Last week, we thought about the question ?why is there so much suffering?? In that sermon, I encouraged us to change the question. What if we asked the following questions instead: How can I live in such a way that this suffering becomes a source of life? How can I love this person in their fragility, in their time of need? How can I help them to see that they are beloved and precious? How can life spring from disaster? And in a way, a natural follow up to the questions about suffering lead us to the question ?Why is there evil in the world?? As we approach this question, I invite you to pray with me.

Last night, Lamont and I watched the movie ?The Shack.? The Shack is written by William Young about 10 years ago and somewhat changed how many people thought about and experienced God. The movie was incredibly well done and followed the book well. The thoughts lurking throughout the book are about pain, loss, and love and where is God throughout these moments in our lives. There was a great clip that talked about evil and judgment. I invite you to watch it with me.

There are so many times when we put ourselves in the place of being the judge of what is good and evil. It is almost a natural thing for us to do. So we are going to jump right into this question today. And it comes from the question John asked me last week as he was leaving worship. John asked, ?How do we define evil?? I wanted us to spend a little bit of time naming evil and defining it. What do you see as evil in our world? How would you define it?

These are all great! Let?s keep these things in mind as we continue in our message today. So we all know there is evil in the world. In this world, there are horrifying things that occur; murder, rape, abuse, genocide, sex trafficking, torture. Greed is also evil, knocking down all these trees when we know that this will cause run-off, destroy the land, harvests and cause people to suffer and die. When we see evil, when we begin to touch it, it is so horrifying that we want to look away. We recognize evil because it is horrifying and repulsive. Evil is the destruction of stamping out of life that is so repulsive that we want to run for protection before confronting it. Yet its curious power is that when we shield our eyes, cover our ears, and keep silent, we participate in it. We silently participate with evil.

To participate and collude with evil is to refuse to love and to resist the movement of life. Refuse to love. That is powerful. When we begin to look, we may be astonished to find how prevalent this is and how unconsciously it occurs. We so easily get caught up in a desire to win, a desire to be the best, and a desire to succeed that we are willing to crush others. We become so focused upon a single goal that we lose sight of the primacy of truth and love. In a culture of normality defined by competition, mistrust, and greed, everybody loses.

Many of us have heard the story of Adam and Eve. The first chapters of the Bible describe how they were created and given a wonderful garden in which to live, a garden with trees of every kind, bearing all manner of delicious fruits and things to eat. God said to them, ?You are free to eat of all the trees in the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat; for the day you are to eat of that, you are doomed to die (Genesis 2:16-18).? You probably know what happens. Eve, encouraged by the serpent, takes some fruit. She shares the fruit with Adam. ?Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked (Genesis 3:7).? God comes to the garden searching, ?Where are you?? ?I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid,? confesses Adam. ?Who told you that you were naked?? asks God (Genesis 3:9-11).

To face the reality of our humanity, we need a special source of life, we need grace, so as to live in and be part of God?s kingdom. If we are to live with our nakedness?which is our human vulnerability?in God?s garden, we must have the courage to say, ?Here I am!? when God comes looking. We must open the

doors of our hearts so that God may enter in and give us that strength. As we are all broken people and the tension of sinfulness is within us, it manifests in the moments when aren?t truly listening to someone, when I want to do my own thing and not take time to be grateful for everything given, when I am not really listening to my conscience. This struggle is within all of us. The important thing is to grow, to grow to greater love, to greater truthfulness, and to the audacity that witnesses to truth. The important thing is to heal those places of brokenness within each of us, to overcome the places of division, and to work through the barriers and the layers of protection.

So we cannot say where evil came from or why there is evil in the world. The important things is to be aware that some kind of evil spirit does seem to exist. I don?t mean that there is a devilish-looking fellow creeping about, ready to spring from under the stairs or a closed door. I am talking about a way of being, about an evil that we all too easily become part of. It is all too easy to plant seeds of hatred, greed, and judgment. It happens quite unconsciously! When we are repulsed by evil to the point that we must turn away and pretend we never saw anything, we allow a division to form within us. How subtly evil works! In protecting ourselves, in turning away, in failing to witness to life, we become complicit in evil.

Jesus describes how easily this can occur (Luke 11:24ff).

24?When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, ?I will return to my house from which I came.?25When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. 26Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.?

This is a strong message. The ?swept and put in order? may be a person who assumes that she is rid of all possibility for evil. Her cleanliness may blind her to the presence of the unclean spirit and make her all the more vulnerable. It is almost as if her blindness has brought on more evil. Her ability to turn and not witness the evil that is around caused even more evil to happen. She become complicit in the evil and didn?t even realize it. The church, the people of God, are not immune to this at all. How has ?the church,? meaning people like you and me, been responding to these evils that we experience? Are we standing up against

the injustice, are we attempting to do what is right? Are we a church that fosters life or do we collude with death? The gospel text continues,

27While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ?Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!? 28But he said, ?Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!?

We are never delivered from this possibility of evil. Even if our parents are wonderful people, even if we give birth to the most righteous of children, life is movement. It is a continuous journey of growth. And every step of the way, we can be open to life or we can participate in the crushing of it. We all have the possibility to ?hear the world of God and keep it.?

The first chapter of the Gospel of John helps us to see more clearly what might be implied by this ?word of God.? (John 1:1-5)

?In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.?

A few take aways: The word of God that we can hear and keep has something to do with fostering life?in him was life. Choices are made that give live or crush it. We get sucked into a world of competition, ambitions, and individual success. We can enter into the refusal of the Word. Keeping the word means choosing to live a life worth living. If we look at the light and the darkness. Know that life persists. It cannot be overcome. Think of the persistence through these examples: A blade of grass pushing up between concrete slabs on the sidewalk; the persistence of the butterflies who seem so fragile and migrate from Canada to Mexico; at the loyalty of geese, who while migrating, form a V to protect one another. And what about the stories of community, of compassion, of unexpected love that come up in war zones and places of human catastrophe?

Life persists, even where it would seem impossible. Evil never dominates; ?the darkness has not overcome it.? And I thought this to be fitting from the The Shack as well.

?Sarayu turned to Mack; at least that was his impression. ?Mackenzie, evil is a word that we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence. I am Light and I am Good. I am Love and there is no darkness in me. Light and Good actually exist. So, removing yourself from me will plunge you into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart from me, you can only draw upon yourself. That is death because you have separated yourself from me: Life (pg. 136).?

What does all this mean in more everyday terms? It means that rather than seeking to destroy of enemies, rather than seeking to eliminate terrorists or shun multinational corporations, rather than fighting bullies or jailing delinquents, rather than judging Lazarus or blaming the rich man, we can pray that the light of goodness that exists in every human person may rise up. That Light and Good are visible in all people.

Sometimes I read the news and I feel powerless. There are hundreds of people leaving home to join the radical militant groups every week. What can we even do in the face of such situations? How can peace ever be achieved? It is not clear what our role is in a conflict that in many ways is over and above us. At a conference, Jean Vanier, was participating in a workshop on the topic of seeing goodness in each person. Someone posed the question, ?What about the jihadists, cutting off people?s heads and everything? The keynote speaker, Lytta Basset, looked at the group and asked, ?Who here prays for the jihadists? Not a single hand went up. Even in the face of such a feeling of powerlessness in the face of such evil, we can do something. We can pray. Sometimes that feels trite.

Yet, praying implies that we take a moment to hold places of overwhelming conflict and injustice, to be there in spirit with the people whose names and faces we do not know but who are part of our one human family. Praying means that we create a special place in our hearts for those who are invaded by violence and cruelty, who are victims of deep fears and anguish. Praying means that even in our inability to take action, we prepare our hearts to welcome that little light of goodness and life that cannot be overcome, even in people who are violent. Praying means transforming our own hearts. It means asking Jesus for the

strength and wisdom to love the way that he does?open and fearless. And this is what it means to grow in our humanity. It means to grow in our capacity to forgive and welcome those who seem so far from us, so difficult to love. This is essential for overcoming divisions. It is by simple reverence and forgiving growth in love that evil is overcome.