Overcome Evil with Good

OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD (September 16, 2001)

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21

Almost 38 years ago America came to a stop, just as it did this week, with the assassination of President Kennedy. A pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Dallas told his congregation that Sunday, just two days later, that he had wrestled all day Saturday with what to say and even as he stood in the pulpit he still wasn't sure. Many ministers, priests, and rabbis felt that way that fateful weekend.

On Tuesday that is the way I felt. That morning at 9 Gaby called me to tell me what was happening on TV. She was in tears. The rest of the day I was in shock. In the office we received an email from a church in Arkansas asking how they could help. That buoyed my spirits immensely. The service Wednesday evening helped a lot. And then as the city and the nation has responded in such a tremendous way it was as if we were seeing the words of the apostle Paul lived out before our eyes in a way we've never seen it before: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Unlike the Kennedy assassination, this was an event in which we could respond. And people have.

You turn on the TV - and I can only get one channel now on my TV so I don't have to worry about making a selection - you turn on the TV and here you see the effects of the greatest evil most of us have ever seen, and then you see countless stories of enormous good, of strength of character, of incredible sacrifice and heroism, of utter and complete selflessness, just when we began to think we were all so utterly selfish and materialistic - here this great altruism and self-lessness comes to the fore, and the whole country is saying we will not be overcome by evil, we will overcome it with good.

Last night I talked with Bill and Joyce Stark, now in New Mexico. He was pastor of Jamaica church. He told me that New Yorkers are getting rave reviews in the local media and press. The tremendous diversity of the victims and the families, the constant parade before the camera of love and courage from all walks of life, the sheer will to help. This has changed forever the image the country has of New Yorkers, he said.

We have all seen many times the interview with the president of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond trading company. They have become an extraordinary symbol. The 40-year-old head of the company lost 700 out of 1000 workers, and his own brother. But there they were back at work when the government asked them to re-open their market, and they wouldn't have thought of doing otherwise. Now that, my friends, is using good - simply going back to work -- to overcome evil.

We have seen the sacrifices of the 350 or more firefighters and the scores of police and we know of the many days of mourning and funerals to come. "Greater love has no one than this than to lay down his life for his friends." Such sacrifice is the very highest good and it overcomes evil. That is the message of the cross and it is why Good Friday is called good and not evil.

Of course we have our feelings about those who perpetrated this evil. I spoke about this on Wednesday. Many of the psalms are about evil. The psalms have been classified in different categories and the largest category is the psalm of lament. These are psalms about suffering and evil in the world. Psalm 14 is a psalm of lament. How appropriate for us today. Psalm 141 says "the evildoers appall me…They shall founder on the rock of justice, their bones shall be scattered at the mouth of Sheol." Who has not had a similar feeling about the perpetrators of this evil deed this week? There are other passages in the psalms about evildoers so inflammatory that they truthfully cannot be read in church. Some people have wondered why they're in the Bible. After this week, no one need wonder again.

But as real as evil is it does not have the last word. That is consistently the message of scripture. Remember the story of Joseph, and at the end Joseph says to his brothers, "you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good," that is, God turned it to good.

On Wednesday night I read the story of Jeremiah. Faced with impending disaster and the Babylonians at Jerusalem's gates, Jeremiah went out and purchased a piece of property and made a big deal out of signing the deed, calling in everyone, who must have thought he was mad. There was an act of faith in God and the future as clear as could be. He was simply not going to fear evil even though it stared him in the face.

And today we read from the unknown prophet of the exile, known as second Isaiah. He lived among the captives in Babylon and was called by God to preach to them a word of comfort and hope. He was speaking to people who were in the pit of depression, cut off from their native land, without hope, in absolute despair. He wrote: The people are saying, "The Lord has forsaken me, my God has forsaken me" but the Lord replies, "Can a woman forget the infant at her breast? Or a loving mother the child of her womb? Even these forget, yet I will not forget you. Your walls are always before my eyes, I have engraved them on the palms of my hands. Those who are to rebuild you make better speed than those who pulled you down!" How about that!

As a nation we must remember the apostle's injunction to overcome evil with good as we respond to this act of terror. The aggressors certainly must be held accountable. Every effort must and will be made to see that happens. St. Paul said government is a terror to bad behavior. But we must be guided by justice and not revenge. Justice is a "good" and it is also a good guide. Revenge is an understandable human emotion, as some psalms show, but a terrible guide for action. To be guided by revenge will mean the certain loss of many innocent lives, and what will we have gained by that except to reap more hatred?

On Wednesday Charles G. Boyd, a retired air force general wrote in the Washington Post: "Not to respond would be unthinkable; it would diminish and demean American leadership and would surely invite further attacks. But to react excessively or inaccurately would put us on the same moral footing as the cowards who perpetrated yesterday's attack."

And before justice is meted out, we must be absolutely sure without a shadow of a doubt we have found the right devil.

We must also be clear as a nation and in our own lives that we will not let these events lead us into stereotyping others. That would also not be overcoming evil with good, but allowing evil to dictate how we will live. After Pearl Harbor thousands of innocent Japanese Americans were herded by our government into internment camps. We now recognize this was a great wrong. Innocent people suffered. We must learn from that mistake and not let hysteria lead us into similar wrongs against innocent people. Let us keep the watchword we have seen so much this week: "overcome evil with good".

Many have thought this week I'm sure what they would have done if they had been a passenger on one of those planes. I am sure I would have quoted some favorite Bible verses to myself. But I hope I would also remember the great Heidelberg catechism: "What is your only comfort in life and in death?" And the answer is: "That I belong body and soul in life and in death not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who loved and gave himself for me." When you know that you have within you the greatest strength to face anything.

St. Paul wrote to the Romans, nothing in life or death or angels or principalities or powers or height or depth, nothing can separate us from his love.

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