14th Sunday after Pentecost
Ephesians 6:10-18
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.
The Problem of Evil
Before I was ordained as a minister, I worked for many years as a youth leader for the church, for junior high and high school age kids. I started when I was nineteen years old, and over the course of about twenty years, I ended up doing this for three different churches. I worked with a lot of kids during that time, and working with so many different personalities and backgrounds really tested what I understood about faith, and spirituality, and God. I’m definitely not the same person that I was when I started youth work as a nineteen-year-old. My faith has changed and grown; it had to. And, I learned that there is a difference between perseverance and steadfastness in the face of challenge, and stubborn obstinance in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
During my years as a youth leader, I was faced with more challenges than I can remember. To this day, I still don’t know if the way that I handled some of them was the correct way, or if I should have done something different. It’s not even the fact that these kids’ parents were entrusting me with their children; I never even met some of them. It’s the fact that these kids were looking to me for guidance, and they were expecting me to have the answers. Sometimes, you just don’t know if all of your education, all of your experience, up to that point in your life is up to the task.
I remember one night, I was driving one of the kids home, and there was something going on with her life that she was struggling with. I don’t remember what it was, because there was always something going on. She had lost her parents when she was younger, and the rest of her family wasn’t that easy to get along with. She had a difficult time in school and she struggled with bullying and with making friends. Youth group was one of the few safe havens that she had, and even that was hard for her, sometimes, because she often felt like the other kids were picking on her, or leaving her out of things.
Well, that night, the dam broke, and she was sobbing as she was telling me about her latest hardship. And, I will always remember this: she said, “I know that God only gives you what you can handle, but this is too much! I can’t handle this! Why is God doing this to me?” Why is God doing this to me. This theology of “God only gives you what you can handle,” or “God challenges you to help you learn and grow” was hurting her.
The idea that God is in charge of everything is pretty ubiquitous. When something good happens, we thank God for it. When something bad happens, we sometimes wonder if God is punishing us, or if God is trying to teach us something. If we look at our prayer list, we can see so many people who are suffering because of illness, the loss of loved ones, or some other difficulty. There are millions of people suffering around the world. Why isn’t God doing anything to help them? Why is God letting them suffer? If God really loves us, why doesn’t God just make the suffering go away? Is God trying to teach them something or punishing them?
Now, I confess that I am at least partially responsible for some of the things that this kid believed about God, and at that point in my life it’s possible that some of my beliefs actually lined up with what she was saying. But, that moment has always stuck with me, actually seeing the damage that theology can do, and I’ve had to think about it a lot, especially as I was making my way through seminary and had to challenge a lot of the things that I thought about faith and Christianity and God. Things that I always took for granted before, like the flood and the plagues in Egypt, are much harder for me to wrap my mind around, now. I’ve always believed in an all-loving, all-benevolent Creator, but until someone forced me to really examine what that would look like, I never really questioned how inconsistent the Bible was with that idea of God. But, we have to. If we are going to take our faith seriously, if we want to grow in our faith and understanding, we have to ask these questions. And, these questions are hard. Is God to blame for the suffering in the world? And, if God is not to blame, why does God allow it to happen?
These questions and the answers to them fall under the umbrella of apologetics, which is the discipline of defending religious doctrines using logic, philosophy, and reasoned arguments. More specifically, these questions are a part of apologetics called theodicy, which are arguments that attempt to resolve the problem of how evil and an all-good and all-powerful God can exist at the same time. The reason this “problem of evil” exists is because for thousands of years, people have wondered, if God is all-powerful, and if God is all-good, then couldn’t God control the events of the world in such a way that bad things would never happen? Doesn’t the fact that evil exists mean that God is either not all-good or all-powerful?
Our epistle reading today mentions “the spiritual forces of evil,” and then tells us to protect ourselves with the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. We wouldn’t need to defend ourselves if there was nothing to defend ourselves from, and the Bible is not shy about pointing out the many and various evils of the world. It’s important to note, here, that the armor is mostly for defense, rather than attack. All of the pieces mentioned, but one, are for protection. The one weapon mentioned is the sword of the Spirit. But, the sword is the word, and the word is the gospel of peace. There may be evil in the world, but God gives us the tools that we need to face it, and stands beside us when we do.
This still doesn’t answer the question of why there is evil at all. As an artist, one way that I’ve come to think about this is to think about God as an artist, and creation as God’s continuing masterpiece. Art exists on a spectrum. On one end, you have artists that exert absolute control over their medium, think of fine porcelain or hyper-realistic painting, you know, those paintings that look like photographs. The amount of talent and skill that’s required to produce one of those works of art is incredible, not to mention the patience and the time involved. These are perfect works, flawless, unchanging, like marble sculptures…perfect, flawless, frozen. Can you imagine a “perfect” world? A world where everything is flawless and beautiful? A world where nothing ever changes? A world that is stark and frozen…hard. Some people would say a world like that would be the opposite of good. I might venture to say that a being who created such a world and demanded such a world might actually be evil. The God that we know and love would never create a world like that.
God created us with the ability to make our own choices…free will. It’s a gift; we are free to be who we are. But, even while we live and exist in this freedom, we are still the component parts that God works with to form this world. And, God really is in control, and knows what the world is supposed to look like. But, God will never override our freedom. God doesn’t force us to do anything. Only with the utmost love, encouragement, and desire for what is best for us does God graciously appeal to our better selves, that we might participate in this grand symphony of creation.
And, this gift of freedom doesn’t stop with us. What good would our freedom be, if our world wasn’t free? There would be nothing for us to do, nothing for us to participate in or interact with…nothing for us to help create. When God set this universe spinning, matter and energy flying out in every direction, and the forces of nature were set in motion, it was all set free to do what it was going to do. Dogs are free to be dogs, cats can be cats. A mountain or comet or flower is free to be that thing that God created it to be, even if that means that there will be earthquakes, and hurricanes, and radiation, and people doing bad things in the world.
Yes, there is evil in the world, but God did not create that evil. God does not control that evil. But, God does give us the armor that we need to protect ourselves from it, to challenge it. And, God is always here, guiding and coaxing and loving us and all of creation, to help us be the best versions of who we were meant to be, and to make sure that all of this, all of us, will always have the freedom to be and to choose. So, choose the armor. Choose to do good, and oppose evil, for we are the components through which God brings goodness into the world.
Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
