What is God's answer to evil?

“Deliver us from evil.” We say those words each time we pray the Lord’s prayer. And for us Episcopalians, that is quite often. We pray the Lord's prayer at virtually every service. What are we asking for?

In today’s first meditation, I suggested that whenever, wherever evil happens, God is there, that when humans suffer as a consequence of evil, God is there. But is being present, comforting us, getting us through it, God’s only or primary answer to the problem of evil? Is that all we mean when we pray, "deliver us from evil”?

I think not. We Christians believe in a future in which God’s triumph over evil will be complete. In Revelation (21:1-4, NRSV), “the Lamb that was slain” will reign over a new heaven and a new earth. God will wipe away tears; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

John is describing a world beyond the reach of evil, beyond even the shadow of past wrongs done to us. Jesus himself spoke of this (John 16:21-22, NRSV); he likens it to a woman who is in the great pain of childbirth, but the moment the child is born, the power and joy of new life pushes the pain into the background. Our joy will be complete, Jesus says.

These and many other passages point to God’s answer to the problem of evil. And that answer is forgiveness, forgiveness as enacted and represented by Jesus on the cross.

God did not shun evil. God did not come to earth in military might to overthrow evil by force—as the Jews long expected. Rather, God came in the form of a peasant carpenter, a pacifist at that, to wrestle with fear and dread, but nevertheless to embrace evil and suffering, to experience the feeling of having been abandoned by God, and to forgive… even as he still hung dying on the cross.

Forgiveness is God’s answer to evil. But the point of the cross is NOT that the victory was won, and so now there’s nothing left to do. Rather, the cross has won the victory so that redeemed people can begin living out God’s forgiveness in the world.


The church is not merely the “community of the saved,” although some church communities seem to focus almost solely on that. Rather, we are the community of the redeemed, now become a kingdom of priests to serve God in this time between the cross and the ultimate victory of God in the new heaven and new earth. There's a difference between being merely "saved" and being "redeemed." (See N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God.)

And, of course, forgiveness is one of those odd things. We can only experience it by also giving it away. “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” we pray.

I wonder how often those words roll easily off our tongues without a thought to their implication. Jesus sought to make them real by telling the parable of the servant who was forgiven a debt by his master, then failed to forgive those who were indebted to him. If you don’t forgive, said Jesus, you won’t be forgiven.

Some people interpret this to mean that God withholds forgiveness until we have done something to earn it, like forgive someone else. I don’t think so.

Jesus died for the sins of the world! And he doesn’t have to keep dying over and over again every time we screw up! It’s done. God enacted forgiveness for the sins of humankind, past, present and future, by embracing the evil and suffering of the cross.

What I believe Jesus means is that until we forgive, we are conditioned and controlled by the evil done us. We have no peace. We are driven by anger and hate that sap our energy and deaden our spirit. Nothing eats away at the human soul like the inability to forgive.

And even though God’s forgiveness is already in place, ready and waiting, we cannot accept it or experience the peace it brings as long as we are stuck in unforgiveness.
                                         

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young is the story of a man’s journey back to God after the abduction and murder of his little girl. The following bit of the conversation between “Mack,” the protagonist, and God comes right after God asks Mack to forgive the man who killed his daughter (p. 225):

      "I don’t think I can do this," Mack answered softly.
      "I want you to. Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver,” answered [God], "to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly."

AMEN

For this second quiet period, I invite your reflection on forgiveness, both that which you have received and that which you have given--or perhaps not yet.

*September 11, 2010, I led a Quiet Day at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in West Monroe. Here is the second of three meditations, each guided by a question that will serve as title for these postings. I will post the last meditations in the next few days.