Overcome Evil with Good

 Make yourselves comfortable.

I'm going to mention some hard and upsetting things today.

If you're not in a mental place to be able to deal with hard or upsetting things today,

please zone out for a little while.

For all of you who normally write your grocery list during the sermon,

the cherries were looking particularly good yesterday at the store.

I'm going to talk about evil today.

Evil is a fascinating subject.

You might think that evil is not a particularly good theme for Labor Day weekend,

however,

Labor Day has its roots as a celebration of good overcoming evil.

Labor Day is a celebration of workers.

The Labor Day holiday was created after the union developments of better benefits, official work hours, and better company representation.

Which all came after the exploitation of laborers and the Haymarket riot in Chicago before 1882.

Unfortunately, despite Labor Day

people are still exploited for their labor.

People are still abused and bullied by companies, managers, and supervisors.

People are still abused in our communities.

Evil is still part of our every day lives.

The Poppy Family on their album Poppy Seeds in 1971 sang,

"Evil grows in the dark

Where the sun, it never shines

Evil grows in cracks and holes

And lives in people's minds

Evil grew, it's part of you

And now it seems to be

That everytime I look at you

Evil grows in me"

I recently heard this as part of a soundtrack for something I was watching.

It made me pause.

How we think and talk about evil is largely dependent on the type of culture we grew up in

and the experiences we have had personally.

Evil can be highly abstract or it can be personified.

The Merriam Webster definition of evil is "morally reprehensible".

Evil is morally reprehensible.

Sounds right, but rather abstract.

That definition is dependent on our morals,

which is dependent on our culture,

and our understanding of importance.

This definition makes evil a part of us,

because morality is concerned with human thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

On the other hand, this morning we hear Jesus call Peter Satan

when he rebukes him for trying to protect him from what is coming.

In Hebrew, ha'satan means an accuser, an adversary.

However, the word has become a personified version of evil.

Satan is the one doing bad things in the world.

Evil as a force outside of us.

Interestingly, because of the different centuries in which they lived,

Jeremiah understood evil in one way,

Paul in another,

and Jesus shows us an altogether different way of understanding evil.

Which is why we are so confused about the nature of evil.

The ancient Jewish concept of evil was different than the ancient Greek idea or even the ancient Roman idea,

and then on top of all that, we have the interpretations of translators into English

and centuries of connotations with words and implied theology.

So when it comes to questions about evil,

what is evil?

why is there evil in the world?

There aren't a lot of good answers.

Theologians have debated the questions, the potential answers, the reality of evil in the world,

and every aspect of human problems throughout the centuries.

Of course, we can't just say, evil exists and walk away.

Evil isn't the elephant in the room, it is part of the architecture of the church.

If we don't realize there is evil in the world

we don't know we have done evil

if we don't think we have done evil,

we don't care about salvation or our Savior

or God at all

its only when you recognize the lack of good

do you realize how much we need morals and religion

and how amazing Jesus is.

Thank God almighty for Jesus.

In the Episcopal Church, our belief is shaped by our prayer and our prayer is shaped by our belief.

That is the way we do doctrine.

As it stands, the most comprehensive understanding of evil

comes through the Baptismal Covenant.

In our Baptismal Covenant there are three questions which give us an understanding of evil.

They are on page p. 302 in the BCP if you don't have them memorized already,

we have done a fair number of baptisms the last couple of years.

"Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?"

We are instructed to say, "I renounce them."

Renouncing means stopping using or rejecting something.

Renouncing evil is a spiritual practice.

We can't say it once and then we are done.

I know, wish that we could.

What we learn from these questions are that

rebelling against God, corruption, destruction, and separation

are some of the defining characteristics of evil.

Renouncing these things in the world means saying no to them.

Two year olds everywhere are going to be thrilled to hear,

Saying no, to evil, is also a spiritual practice.

We say we are going to say no to these things

we need to practice saying no

we need to remember to say no.

Almost every toddler goes through a phase of saying no constantly

yet, we seem to lose that ability later on in life.

No is a complete sentence.

When it comes to systems which hurt people's bodies, we need to say no.

when it comes to systems which hurt God's creation, our environment and home, we need to say no.

We can say no with our words, by speaking out, by sharing our stories with others,

we can also say no by not giving our money to companies which do these things and take part in systems which exploit people and the environment.

There are some cliches about preaching.

One, that preachers are always preaching to themselves.

Two, that preachers only have a few sermons.

I don't know if all of my sermons sound the same,

but I have identified a few major categories of my sermons.

One category is my God loves you sermons.

God loves you.

I have specific categories for weddings and funerals.

Another category is my make good choices sermons.

I don't usually, consciously think about anyone's specific choices when writing these sermons.

I strongly believe that as a whole,

as a community of God, a world full of people going every which way,

we all do need to think about the choices we are making.

We have to think about what we are doing in order to not support evil.

Evil is all around us.

We are going to fail sometimes at saying no to evil.

We are going to commit evil acts,

knowingly and unknowingly take part in rebellion, in destruction, in corruption, in exploitation and abuse.

This is why we do the general confession every week.

Sadly, despite our confusion over what is evil,

we do need to learn to identify it.

Otherwise we get caught up in it.

All of us are tangled up in evil.

Paul is very clear in his letter to the Romans:

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

This is the example of Jesus, overcoming evil with good.

This is the work of God in the world.

God overcomes evil with good.

With love and grace and forgiveness and healing.

Before we can overcome evil with good

we have to be able to recognize evil for what it is.

All that separates us from God, all that destroys health and goodness in this world,

anything that corrupts God's mission to bring love and peace to the people of the world

these are the evil things of this world.

Once we recognize it, we can say no to it,

we can say, I am not going to collude with, participate in

or go along with this kind of behavior

and we can find good ways to respond

we can find ways of working around the systems of destruction to build up people and communities.

In the context of Labor Day weekend,

we can continue the historical overcoming of evil with good on behalf of workers

by making sure our companies, our churches, our favorite retailers,

have good human resource policies,

have ways of holding everyone in the system accountable for their actions,

have pay transparency.

We have the power to overcome evil with good through advocating for public records on companies, governments, and agencies.

Through sharing stories, and

doing better once you've learned better.

By learning to say no to evil in all its insidious ways.

It isn't easy work.

In fact, it requires us to act like adults

to think, to find perspective, to respond to the world

instead of simply reacting without thought.

Jesus is our example and role model.

We need to learn to say no to evil,

and yes to overcoming evil with good.