22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 20:7-9 | Romans 12:1-2 | Matthew 16:21-27

God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of your name so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your 

Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen.

One of the great mysteries in salvation history is the role of evil.  Why is it there?  Why does God allow it?  It’s clear in the Old Testament evil seemed to be much stronger than good, in the sense that human beings were so susceptible to all of its lies and illusions.  In the New Testament, we see Jesus dealing with it in an interesting way.  He would recognize it in people as if it reveals somehow it does exist.  And when he would find it in someone, he would demand that they leave, but he never tried to destroy the evil that was in them, even the time when the evil that Jesus discovered in someone begged the Lord not to destroy them, and Jesus didn’t.  He sent them into pigs, and then the pigs destroyed themselves.  So evil is this destructive force in the world that we need to learn why it’s there, and how do we deal with it, and what is its most deadly trick that it plays on us.  

I want to go to Jeremiah, because I think he’s so interesting as a human being called to be a prophet.  He accepted the role of prophet when he was very, very young, and the words that God used when he called Jeremiah into his work, he said, “I want you to do two things.  I want you to break things down and destroy things, and I want you to build things up.  I give you the power to destroy and the power to save.”  And the saving would be, in Jeremiah’s mind is, “I love this idea of being one who can build people up.”  But then he realizes, when he’s in the work, all he’s able to do is to tell people that they’re doing something awful, and if they don’t stop, they’re going to be destroyed.  So his message to people is always, “You’re in trouble.  You’re going to be destroyed.”  And the response from that to Jeremiah was they want to destroy him.  So he said, “I’m constantly in this problem of I proclaim what you ask me to proclaim, but then I just ⎯ everybody hates me, and I’m terrified that I’ll be destroyed by them.”  But he said, “Inside of me, there’s still this deep longing to help people, but I don’t seem to be able to do it.”  And I think that’s so beautiful an image of the work of dealing with evil, because the Old Testament dealt with it in a way that was dangerous, and the Old Testament dealt with it just as Jeremiah experienced it, condemnation, judgment against someone, telling them that they are wicked, and if they don’t change, they’ll be destroyed.  It was maybe necessary to stop people’s actions, because some people would listen to that, but most people returned evil for evil.  And that is the key to understand how evil works.  

It was easier in the Old Testament, a place of judgment where it was ⎯ you had a right to punish someone who punished you, but in the New Testament, it’s radically different.  And all through the Old Testament, you see this violence everywhere.  In the New Testament, you see this God made man revealing something quite different.  It’s called the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, and it’s a place where there is no real violence against anyone, even though they may deserve it.  So what Jesus is teaching is something radically different, and when we listen to Jesus saying to his disciples, when he was close to the end of his life and he reveals the fact that he is going to ⎯ he’s revealing the fact that, “There is a force against me, and that force is going to win, because that force is going to put me in a situation where I will be destroyed by it, or at least it wants to destroy me.”  So what will be the thing that Jesus wanted his disciples to understand?  In the most powerful way, he’s saying, “Look, I’m going to give in to this, because that’s what the Father is asking me to do.”  And even on the cross, Jesus said to ⎯ cried out, “If I wanted to, I could call down legions of angels and destroy this entire gathering of people around me and all the people that put me here.  I could just destroy them, obliterate them.”  But he chose not to, because he’s saying, “There is one thing I want to teach, the last major thing I want to leave with you.  Don’t try to use violence and destruction to establish my kingdom.  My kingdom has nothing to do with that kind of power.  I want you to just pay attention, that when things happen that you cannot explain, you cannot understand, when a disease or a death of a loved one or a horrible experience with the culture you’re living in, whatever it is, don’t return evil for evil, because if you do, you will create a kingdom, not like my kingdom, but a kingdom of the world where people are in constant tension with each other.”  And when people don’t agree on the same thing, is they’ll turn and try to destroy the other, and we’re living in a world where that’s so clearly out there, people using other people, destroying other people, using the situation to make their point, to make them more important than their opponent.  In other words, there’s a destruction in the hearts of people who are in conflict that eliminates any kind of communal work of working through a problem and solving it.  They’re not interested in solving the problem.  They want to destroy that which is keeping them from doing what they want to do, and so if you understand that evil longs for you to be like it, and if you can understand how, when negative things happen to me, you often act in a really negative way, then you have an understanding of what I’m trying to say.  Negativity creates negativity.  Hate creates more hate.  That’s the danger of evil, and Jesus, when he says, “I want you to understand that this is the will of God.  It’s not ⎯ I’m not going to go into Satan’s world anymore.”  And it was hard for Jesus to make that decision, so the phrase that he uses to Peter and says, “Peter, you sound like Satan to me.  You want to destroy these people that are going to destroy me, and that’s not my message.  And so I’m leaving you with this really important realization.  Evil is not going to go away, but you have a power greater than evil.  And the power that you have is in the realm of forgiveness, understanding, compassion and not wanting to add anything to a world that is in the bondage of evil and self-centeredness.  I want you never to try to get revenge but simply understanding.  It’s the only way my kingdom can come.  No more violence, no more destruction.  Acceptance and trusting in God to do the work that only he can do, and that’s to relieve the world of fear and shame and anger and blame.”  It's a beautiful kingdom, and we long for it.  It’s that burning desire that was in Jeremiah.  “I want this world to be what I believe it is intended to be, a place where we grow and evolve and change.”  Amen.

Father, bless us with understanding and patience, kindness.  As we struggle with things that are different than we want them to be, give us the spirit of acceptance so that we can live in a place of peace, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.