“The Answer”
How we are to deal with evil in the world
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Text: Mark 5:1-20
This past Wednesday I had the good fortune to attend a debate at Hart House put on by the Leacock Club. The debate was over a question that I, being born in the United Kingdom, found most fascinating: “Resolved that cricket and all that it entails is vastly superior to baseball.” Now, I must admit that I was astounded by the level of wit and insight by those participating in the debate: everyone, from the Master of Massey College to the former treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada, to a journalist, to Mark Kingwell, the philosopher at the University of Toronto.
All of these characters elevated our thoughts and our minds to a higher plane of debate as we contemplated the aesthetic beauty and serenity of cricket and the wonderful waste of time called baseball. After it was over there was only one thing that I could actually affirm: Without any shadow of a doubt, rugby is better than either of them. But, I was not afforded the opportunity to make such a case.
As I was leaving that esteemed group of people and my mind was contemplating the higher levels of sport and philosophy - of Aristotle and Plato and Yogi Berra - I was driving up Avenue Road (on a very clear night) when I was blinded by a truck coming towards me. Across the top of this truck was a bar covered with bright spotlights, the grille down below had four fog lights and the headlights, xenon ones, were on high beam. I couldn't see a thing! I didn't know whether I was going north or south or whether I was on Avenue Road or Bloor. My reaction to the thoughtlessness on the part of this Neanderthal was to flash my own high beams and turn on my own fog lights, but it dawned on me that indeed, such an activity might cause him to swerve, be blinded and mow into me! So, through self-preservation I kept my eyes on the curb and carried on to my destination.
But I was angry. I wanted revenge. Who else had he done this to driving down Avenue Road on a clear, moonlit Wednesday evening? What thoughtlessness was in this man or woman's mind? You know, as I pulled into my driveway later in the evening, I thought about how within my own soul there is this tremendous propensity - a natural thing in many ways - to respond to evil with hatred, vitriol and anger. Not only in such basically unimportant situations as that truck, but also in much more serious ones, deep down within the human soul and psyche there is often this desire to respond to evil with evil. To beget hatred with hatred.
Picking up the newspaper yesterday morning, after having once again come back and read our text from the Gospel of Mark, I was struck by that very sense that is often in the hearts of human beings, that desire for revenge, that hatred, that fear and loathing. I don't know if you read the Toronto Star yesterday morning, but I'm sure it was in other newspapers as well: the picture of a young man in a red shirt, lying on the ground in Haiti after being shot by the gangs who had gone by. A seemingly innocent character, mowed down, clearly in the flower of his youth.
Right below it was another headline: “Who killed Kempton Howard?” Fear is now gripping his community to such an extent that people do not want to come forward to say what happened to this young man who was riding his bicycle, and again, was mowed down in the prime of his life.
I read on, about the history of abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, of children and boys in the United States, and as I continued to read through this newspaper I thought to myself, “There is fear and there is hatred in this world. There is vitriol and anger and there is despair.” Within the human heart this is often born out of a thirst for revenge. It is born out of a desire to hand back to the perpetrators of evil what is evil again and in an evil manner. It is amazing what hatred and fear will do. It is not just psychological. It is not just sociological. It is not just political. It is very often born out of something more, something deeper, something that we call “evil.”
Now, I do not want to look at the origins of evil in a philosophical way or a theological way, that can be done at another time. I want to look at how Jesus of Nazareth encountered a singular situation in an unfolding drama. How he came face to face with evil and dealt with it. For in Jesus there really is the answer to the question: “How do we respond to evil and hatred in the world and in our own souls?”
What is very telling about this story is that Mark goes to great lengths to set the scene so we understand its importance and its implications. We're told by Mark that Jesus sails across the Sea of Galilee to the place of the Gerasenes, or in some versions the Gadarenes. This was an area halfway down the Sea of Galilee on the eastern shore. That is important because on the eastern shore on the Sea of Galilee were not Jews but Gentiles. It was a place where non-Israelites lived.
But we are told something more. We are introduced to the fact that around there were swine and pig farms. To a Jew the swine was a symbol of the cloven hoof, the symbol of the unclean. Furthermore, we are told that the man had been living in a tomb. Now, the tombs in those days were none other than the burying place for the dead. To get away from the rejection of society many of the demented, many of the tormented, would actually go and live in those tombs because they knew that nobody would bother them for fear of being in the presence of the dead.
We're told that this man was mad, that he was literally out of his mind. As someone who was out of his mind, he could do almost anything, even without provocation. He was dangerous. The picture that Mark paints is of a most unseemly situation. If you were a religious person, over there on the other side of the lake, in those tombs amongst the mad people, where the swine are, is a place that you should avoid at all cost. It was an anathema. It was tainted with evil.
Now, we read that Jesus got on the boat and sailed over there. Jesus willingly and knowingly went over to the place that others rejected and avoided. As the envoy of God, rather than staying away from this unseemly situation, with its unpredictable demon-possessed man, in this terrible and unclean situation, Jesus went directly and faced it head-on. Jesus of Nazareth takes us in this drama into the darkest of all possible places imaginable.
What does this tell us about God? What does it tell us about His ministry? What does it say to us in a world where we are often tormented with the fear and evil and loathing of the world around us?
It tells us a number of things. The first thing that it tells us is very clear: That the man whom Jesus actually went to, the man who rushed to Him when He got off the boat, was someone who was clearly enslaved by torment. His torment was born not just out of an inner psychological struggle, but also out of the fact that in many ways, by being in that tomb he was condemned to hell.
There is a moment in Christopher Marlowe's, Doctor Faustus where Faustus talks to Mephistophilis and this is how the dialogue goes:
Faustus asks Mephistophilis, 'Where are you damned?' Mephistophilis says, 'In hell.' Faustus then asks, 'How comes it then that thou art out of hell?' Mephistophilis responds, 'Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it. Thinks thou that I who saw the face of God and tasted the eternal joys of heaven am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of ever-lasting bliss?'
Mephistophilis, you see, is tormented. In the very depths of his soul he is tormented. He feels that he will never experience the bliss of heaven, that he is in hell not only eternally but currently, in the presence of Faustus.
So, too, this man in the story is like Mephistophilis. He is tormented at the depths of his being. He feels that he has no hope and comes out of the tomb, and we read that he had been shackled but had wrenched apart the chains, such was his desire to get out. He wanted to see Jesus and said to him, with a divided mind, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” Then he says, “I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”
In other words, don't really deal with my problem. He's divided in his mind. We read that he is cutting himself, he is damaging himself. Such is the nature of his inner torment that he is desperate. In him is evil and he wants that evil out, but by staying in the tomb it will only remain, so he comes to Jesus.
My friends, there are many people - you might be one of them - who in your heart of hearts are tormented in mind, divided in allegiance, self-loathing. You might be a person who has no real sense of your own identity or, if you do, that identity is clouded. If that's the case, then you'll understand how this man felt. He was in agony.
Carl Jung wrote, and I often quote him:
Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides and inundations, the modern person is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche. This is the world power that vastly exceeds all other powers on earth. The age of enlightenment which stripped nature and human institutions of gods overlooked the god of terror who dwells in the human soul.
You see, my friends, at the heart of violence, at the heart of inhumanity, is an often tormented soul. Tormented variously by fear, by division, by evil. Jesus, though, rather than walking away from the tormented soul, met him head-on. But there is something else: Not only is this man enslaved by his own torment, he is also estranged from others. It is ironic: A man who needed God and needed a change in his life was left in a tomb and shackled.
Very often, my friends, it is with people who are on the outside, who are isolated, who cause us out greatest fear. It was part of the culture of the day: Jesus knew that people feared the likes of this demoniac. Just as in the story of the good Samaritan, where there was a man lying on the side of the road dying, and many very religious people just walked on by in fear. Just as these people who were kept in the catacombs and the tombs for fear of what they might do. Very often fear isolates the world.
When we isolate people, not only do we fear them, but very often out of that fear we hate them. One of the things that is often lacking in the world is an attempt to try to understand those who are isolated, those who are not part of what we are. Jesus, on the other hand, rather than maintaining this man in his isolation, raised the boat and went over there. He initiated the contact. Rather than being tormented by fear, Jesus gave of Himself completely.
There's a third thing. And this is the ultimate problem with the man in the tomb: He's in enmity with God. And here is the other irony: The man who needed God the most was not only isolated but also avoided by the people of faith. The very people who should have been going over there to help save him and redeem him, to give him a new life, were the ones who stayed away due to their own fear of being tainted or made impure. Jesus laid it all out. He was willing to go over to this man.
Jesus did not know why this man was tormented. We can try to psychoanalyze him all we want. Was this man a schizophrenic? We do not know. Was he someone who was poisoned by some psychotic disease? Was he a man who went mad because he had watched too many reality T.V. shows? (That's what sends me over the edge, I'll tell you. Although, our organist and choir director quite likes them, which makes me wonder.) Who knows what send this man over the edge.
Jesus didn't analyze him in that way. Jesus knew that all this man really needed was God. And Jesus did what everyone else was unwilling to do: He went to him at the place of his torment and stood before him and sought to change him. This man, who had no love of self. This man, who was estranged from others. This man, who was in enmity with God, who felt just like Mephistophilis, that the heavenly world had passed him by.
To this man, Jesus of Nazareth came, and what did He do? He asked him the most personal of all questions - He identified with him - and asked, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion” There couldn't be a word that would carry greater weight. The Romans, who were the governing power, came in legions of 6,000 soldiers. This man was tormented then, by many spirits, many ghosts in his life, many things haunted him.
Jesus, we read, took those evil spirits and placed them in the unclean animal - the swine - taking them away from the man and restoring him. He dressed properly and the people of the town saw him and noticed that he was now of sane and singular mind. Jesus had restored him and given him back his true identity.
There is a lovely story - I'm sure that it is apocryphal - of a minister who walks by a house and in the front garden sees a little girl batting a ball against a wall, all on her own. The minister approaches her and says, “Where is your mother?”
The little girl says, “My mother is asleep.”
The minister then says, “Well, where is your brother?”
The little girl responds, “My brother is asleep.”
The minister says, “Don't you feel lonely just playing on your own?”
The little girl looks up at him and says, “No, I like me.”
The tormented man did not like himself. He did not like the evil that lay within. He did not like the fear, the loathing, and the anxiety that dominated his life. But Jesus liked him. Jesus loved him. Jesus went to him.
My friends, I believe all of this story points to the cross. It tells me that Jesus of Nazareth goes into the darkest recesses of the human psyche in an attempt not at condemnation but at salvation. The man begged Him that he might be with Him. He wanted to show all those who had rejected him that he was just fine. But Jesus said, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”
Back to the catacombs, back to the tormented, back to the despised, back to the shackled, back to the isolated, that's where you are to go and you show them what God has done for you and give them hope. That is the power of the love of God.
Abraham Lincoln, when he was running for political office, had many foes, many people despised him. One in particular was most fervent in his hatred, so much so that he would actually stand up and make fun of him and wonder aloud why you'd want a tall, lanky and ugly man running your country. Lincoln was elected and when he chose his cabinet he spoke to his advisors and said, “I want you to bring that man to me.” His name was Stanton. “I want you to bring him to me because I want to ask him to do something.”
All his advisors said, “You are out of your mind. You're crazy. You should have nothing to do with him. He has belittled and made fun of you. He is a nasty man.”
Lincoln said, “Nevertheless, bring him to me.”
So, as Martin Luther King tells the story in his book, The Power to Love Your Enemies, Stanton met with Lincoln and was asked if he would join the cabinet and become the War Secretary. When Abraham Lincoln died, it was Stanton who stood up and said, “Now, here is a man for all time. Here is a man for all ages.” Stanton, the man who had belittled Abraham Lincoln, by the power of Abraham Lincoln's love, had become one of the great leaders in that country's history.
That is the power to turn around hatred. That is the way that Jesus dealt with evil. And, my friends, that is the way that the cross deals with us. In our enmity within ourselves and our inner torment Christ comes and says, “I want you to like yourself because I love you.” To a world where people are often in enmity because they are isolated, Jesus says, “I have come to all of you, that your hatred and evil might dissipate.” To those who are at enmity with God, Jesus said, “I have come that you might have peace.” And in that peace we find the answer. The answer that the world so desperately needs to know: the power of good over evil in Christ. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.