Sermon

"What Does the Bible Say About
Responding to Evildoers?"
A Sermon by Dr. David Ourisman
September 1, 2002 - Second Sunday in Kingdomtide
Romans 12:9-21  [Back to Sermon Index]

I usually try to avoid preaching on a Pauline text for all of the usual
reasons. But when I first read the text a number of weeks ago that
Nancy just read for you, some of the words that Paul wrote to the
Romans jumped off the page and me and grabbed me, and I knew that I
would have to preach on this text.

We are ten days away from the first anniversary of September 11,
and in the context of that national tragedy, I find Paul's words strongly
compelling and deeply thought-provoking.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
Live peaceably with all.
Never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.
If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Five times in this passage, Paul uses the word evil. The word evil has
certainly crept into our national vocabulary over the last year.
Presidential rhetoric has been marked by phrases like "evildoers" and
"axis of evil." The whole focus of the Bush Administration has been, over
the last year, to respond to the evil that took place in New York and
Washington, D.C., to bring to justice those who are responsible for
these crimes – which is a totally appropriate and necessary thing to do.
But beyond that, the Bush Administration, I think, is seeking to root
out the source of evil we know as terrorism. Toward that end, we have
invaded Afghanistan and overthrown the Taliban government.
Toward that end we have seized people who we think are possible
terrorists and, in some cases, are holding them without charging them
with a crime, or giving them access to an attorney, or giving them the
right to respond to the charges made against them in a court of law.
Now in its most adventuresome mode, the Bush administration is trying
to sell us on the idea of invading Iraq and overthrowing the government
of Saddam Hussein.

So we are finding ourselves as a nation engaged in a battle against
evil. I think it is important to think about the nature of the battle
that we are a part of. The nature of evil is such that it cannot be
dealt with simply by the criminal justice system. It cannot be dealt
with exclusively, or even partly perhaps, by military campaigns. When
you talk about evil, you are talking about something mysterious about
this strange creature, the human being: our capacity to do such great
things but also our capacity to be drawn into such inhuman acts as
occasionally take place in history.

I want to ask this morning the question that the sermon title asks:
what does the Bible have to say about responding to evildoers?

Lest you think that what I am about to say is going to be overly
simplistic and reductionistic, I want to make a few observations first.
I want to acknowledge, first of all, that when Paul was writing to the
Romans in the year 56, he did not have in mind the national security
interests of any nation on earth, much less the interests of the United
States of American in the year 2002. Paul is not an expert on military
policy. He is not an expert on diplomacy (obviously!); he got himself
into lots of trouble and never got himself out. But what Paul is is a
more than credible theologian who has a deep understanding of human
spirituality and of the dark side of the human spirit. Because Paul
himself, although he was motivated by the Torah and was a zealous
believer in Judaism, found himself drawn into evil, persecuting the
young Christian Church.

What he has to say about evil might be summarized by the final verse
that Nancy read: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with
good." There are two parts to this statement. The first part is this:
"Do not be overcome by evil." We especially, who are people of faith,
are especially prone to being drawn into evil unwittingly. I do not think
that human beings are inherently bad. I do not believe in any doctrine
of original sin. I think we are basically good and well-intentioned,
and yet we cannot deny that we are capable of doing evil things.
I think evil happens, ironically, when people set out to do what they
think is good but end up doing evil instead. That happens because we
look at good with a myopic vision. We have blinders on. All we can
see is that little piece of the world right in front of us. We might see
the injustice we want to right. We might see the frustration we want
to correct. We might see the good we want to do. So we will go out and
do it, totally blind to the consequences beyond our little circle of vision.

Evil happens because people pursue good with blinders on. The people on
9/11 who did that thought they were doing something good, but they did
something evil. I wonder: in our own national battle against evil, are
we unwittingly being drawn into evil ourselves? I don't want to answer
that question this morning, but I just want to raise it... and point to
what I think are some danger signs.

One danger sign is when people demonize their opponents, when people
look at their opponents as being something less than human. That is
what happened with the 9/11 terrorists. They looked at us as being the
Great Satan, the enemy of Islam, as less than human, and so it did not
matter to them what they did to us. In responding to them by calling
them an "axis of evil" and looking at them as being subhuman, are we
becoming their mirror image?

Another danger sign: when we hold our own losses and grieve them and
consider them important but trivialize the losses that others suffer.
What happened in our country 355 days ago was a great tragedy and
especially so in the lives of the friends and loved ones of the three
thousand or so people who died that day. They are in pain. They are in
grief. They are mourning their loss. They are angry; they are
depressed. They are in grief, and we share their grief, and we honor
their grief – and appropriately so. But when, for instance, our Air Force
accidentally drops bombs on a wedding celebration in Afghanistan,
killing dozens of people, and we just call it "collateral damage," are
we trivializing that human loss? Because the friends and relatives of
those people who were accidentally killed hurt and grieve and are angry
and are depressed just as much as we are. They are flesh-and-blood
human beings, too. They are our brothers and sisters. As long as we
keep that in mind, that we are all part of one human family, we're OK.
But if we start trivializing the losses that others have suffered, then
again we fall prey to looking at them as being less than ourselves,
less than human beings.

A final danger sign: when people suffer from the delusion that they
possess absolute truth, they are especially prone to committing evil
deeds. The people on 9/11 were religious fundamentalists. They thought
they had absolute truth. They thought they understood the Koran and
interpreted it correctly. They thought that they were bringing glory to
Allah and that they would die as religious martyrs and go straight to
Paradise. It is so important – especially in this dangerous world in
which we live – to keep open minds and always be open to the possibility
of new truth, new understandings, and a new way of responding to
problems... thinking outside the box, like I talked about with the kids.

So the first part of what Paul says is "do not be overcome by evil,"
because the nature of evil is that we can slip into it without
intending it. The positive side of what Paul has to say is this:
"overcome evil with good."

You cannot stop war with more war. You cannot stop bloodshed with
more bloodshed. You cannot stop violence by being more violent
yourself. The only thing stronger than evil is good.

The story is told of St. Francis of Assisi who one day was visiting the
village of Gubbio in Italy. When he arrived at that village, he found
that the gates of the village were bolted shut and the people were all
hiding out behind the walls of their walled city. He went in and he
found them armed with knives in their hands and fierce looks on their
faces because their village was being terrorized by a wolf. That wolf
had devoured some of its citizens, and they would send posses out into
the hills to try to capture the wolf, but the wolf always eluded them.

St. Francis saw the way that they were forced to live, the fear they
were living with, and he said to them, "I must go and talk to my
brother the wolf."

They said, "Oh, no. He is dangerous. He will hurt you. You must at
least take a weapon with you."

But St. Francis refused. He went out unarmed into the hills as the
people of Gubbio watched from the top of the city walls. Sure enough
the wolf appeared – snarling and drooling and baring its fangs. He came
up to St. Francis, but St. Francis just stood his ground. He was not
afraid. He looked the wolf in the eye, and the wolf stopped and sat
down.

St. Francis said, "Brother wolf, what you have done is a terrible
thing. It is a sin against God, terrorizing these people."

The wolf hung his head in shame and looked down to the ground.

But St. Francis went on. "But I think I understand why you are doing
these things. There is not much food up in these hills. You are just
very, very hungry."

The wolf looked up at him.

St. Francis said, "Let's make a deal. If the people of the village
agree to put out a bowl of food for you every day, will you promise to
stop terrorizing these good people?" St. Francis put out his hand, and
the wolf lifted up his paw, and they shook.

Well, the people of the village kept their end of the deal. They
started putting food out for the wolf each day, but they did not trust
him, at least not at first. But as time went by and the wolf kept his
end of the bargain, they let their guard down. They opened their hearts
up. They opened the gates of the city. In time the wolf was free to
walk down the city streets and in time even in and out of the houses of
that village like a household pet. He became a great favorite and
played with the children of the town. A few years later when the wolf
died, the people of Gubbio wept for many, many days.

A miracle had taken place, but the miracle was not so much that
St Francis tamed the wolf. The miracle was that St. Francis tamed the
citizens of that town. He got them to open their hearts. He got them to
consider a different possibility.

I think that this story might be a parable for the situation we find
ourselves in. We are in a locked village with our gates barred shut,
hiding behind the walls of our security system, afraid of the
terrorists who lurk all around us despite our attempts to send out
posses and capture them.

The only hope is if we can start to see things from the point-of-view
of the wolf who was hungry. You know, there may be a few thousand
psychopathic individuals in the world who are capable of doing the
inhuman things that were done on September 11. But for every thousand
terrorists, I bet you there are a million good members of the Islamic
world who may have their legitimate grievances with us, who may be
angry about some things, but who would never dream of harming innocent
human life.

What if we were to open our minds and our hearts and our ears? Listen
to them and hear their grievances? Find out what is bothering them,
discover what the problem is, and then resolve to work with them to
deal with the problem as best we can? I might be naïve, but doesn't
that approach offer more hope than calling Iraq part of an axis of evil
and bombing it back into the Stone Age?

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.

Oh Lord, make us instruments of thy peace. Amen.

 

Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley, CA
David Ourisman, an ordained member of the Epworth congregation, is the
author of From Gospel to Sermon: Preaching Synoptic Texts.

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