The struggle between good and evil

Preached at 11am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull, on Sunday 22/06/08
Year A – Trinity 5 (Proper 7)
Readings: Jeremiah 20: 7-13 Romans 6: 1b-11 Matt 10: 24-37


When I was little I used to enjoy the Narnia stories by C. S. Lewis. It was fascinating to see how the great struggle between Alsan the good and the wicked white witch was played out in the history of Narnia.
When I was a bit older I saw the first Star Wars film. Here the good Jedi Knights struggled against the evil empire, through the history of the universe. I have to say that I found the Star Wars film slightly less convincing because the notions of good an evil were rather more commercialised and slightly less Christian. “Good” meant good looking, wearing white and on our side. In Narnia the portrayal of “good” was rather more subtle, and in particular it included the forgiveness and reconciliation with those who had been bad.
Our scripture readings today cause us to reflect on the struggle between good and evil. This is the great struggle, that goes on all the time in individuals, and families, in communities, in nations, in the whole of humanity and indeed in the whole of creation.
In our Old Testament reading we hear about the struggle between God’s prophet Jeremiah and God’s people Judah, who have become complacent and corrupt. Jeremiah was a sent by God to the people of Judah, in the period shortly before they were conquered by the Babylonians and sent away into exile, in the sixth century BC. At this time Judah had strayed far from God and was in desperate need of repentance. Jeremiah was the prophet of doom who was for ever saying, “Repent, repent or disaster will come upon us!” He was working hard to sell a message that nobody wanted to hear. The people mocked Jeremiah, and isolated him and wanted some good reason to lock him up in jail. In the passage that we read today we hear Jeremiah wrestling with himself. He knows that all him problems come because he preaches such an unpopular truths, and yet he cannot help but preach it. The word of the Lord is like a burning fire within his bones and he cannot keep it in. It is a terrible struggle, but Jeremiah has to be forever proclaiming God’s word of judgement and the destruction which is about to befall Jerusalem.
In our reading from the book of Romans St Paul talks about the very personal struggle between good and evil that takes place within each one of us. This is the battle between our old self and our new self, our sinner and our saint. We notice this battle whenever we try to do good, we try to love God, we try to love our neighbour, but we find it difficult to love, or perhaps we fail completely. Paul insists that we must not be put off by difficulty or failure because we have been baptised into the death and resurrection of Christ. When we try to love, our old self, our sinner, dies, just as Christ dies on the cross. This death of “self” is painful and comes with a sense of loss, but we can afford to let it happen. We can afford to let it happen because of the resurrection of Christ. As our old self dies, so Christ shares with us his resurrection life and our new self, our saint, grows and matures within us. What is more, death and sin have no dominion over Christ’s resurrection life, so our new life in Christ has an eternal freedom. This is why Paul urges us always to see ourselves as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
In the gospel reading that we heard today, Jesus is briefing his disciples as he sends them out to proclaim the good news that, “the kingdom of heaven is near!” Actually it is quite a long briefing, but in the part that we homed in on today Jesus is emphasising what a struggle it will be to proclaim the gospel to God’s chosen people, the people of Israel. He warns the disciples that he has already been accused of being Beelzebub, and if they accuse him, Jesus, of that, how much worse will they treat the disciples? He tells the disciples to trust in him and not to fear, because the truth will always come out in the end. He tells them not to fear even if they are put to death, because those who kill can only kill the body, not the soul. Jesus gives the disciples many other reassurances and then he comes to the real heart of the struggle:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother…Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me…Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
This are hard words, which really emphasis the complete difference between the life that Jesus wants to share with us and the normal values of everyday life in the world. The life that Jesus wants to share with us is radically incompatible with evil and sin, and it will cause problems; it will upset the peace. Jesus absolutely demands the first place in our lives and we have to be ready to choose Jesus above everything else, even above our closest family relationships; mother and father, son and daughter. Obviously as Christians we are called to love our other family members, but we love them as an expression of our love for Jesus. We must never allow our love for Jesus to be compromised by our attachments to other people.
And just like St Paul, Jesus mentions the cross, and the need to be ready to lose our life in order to find it. Losing our life does not simply mean being a martyr. It means being ready to put aside things from our own life, our own desires and agendas, in order to love the people around us. It might mean putting down the newspaper to help in the kitchen. It might mean making time and space for someone who it would be easier to ignore. It might mean taking a risk; reaching out to greet someone who is very different from us, a child, a foreigner, someone in difficulty.
So, as we think about the struggle between good and evil, and as we think about the contribution that we personally are called to make, let’s focus our attention, in the first instance on that part of the world over which we have most influence; ourselves, our own personal lives. Let’s take to heart the teaching of St Paul who wants us dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let’s, as much as we can, live in our new selves, and let’s be ready to let our old selves wither and die. As Jesus suggests, let’s be ready to loose our lives for Jesus’ sake. And let’s trust Jesus, who rose from the dead, to help us find our new life in Christ, our eternal life, the life for which we were created. Amen.