Third Sunday After Epiphany

Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2020, Dr. Tamilio

I began writing this sermon last Monday on Martin Luther King Day.  I thought about a different day, almost fifty-two years ago, when he was gunned down in Memphis.  I thought about the hate that must have filled the heart of James Earl Ray when he pulled the trigger, ending Dr. King’s life.  I think that same hate can be found in the hearts of suicide bombers, rapists, and child molesters.  That same hate resides in the soul of the torturer, the arsonist, and the Klansman.

Why do we hurt each other?  Why do we inflict such pain on our sisters and brothers?  Sean Illing asks this question in his article “Why Humans Are Cruel” on the online news-site Vox.  Let me read you the opening to his piece:

Why are human beings so cruel to each other?  And how do we justify acts of sheer inhumanity?

The conventional explanation is that people are able to do terrible things to other people only after having dehumanized them.  In the case of the Holocaust, for example, Germans were willing to exterminate millions of Jews in part because Nazi ideology taught them to think of Jews as subhuman, as objects without the right to freedom, dignity, or even life itself.

Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at Yale, thinks this explanation of human cruelty is, at best, incomplete.  I spoke to him about why he thinks it’s wrong to assume cruelty comes from dehumanization — and about his grim conclusion that almost anyone is capable of committing staggering atrocities under the right circumstances.[1]

Anyone?  You?  Me?  Anyone.

The movie Schindler’s List was released in 1993.  Many people left the theater feeling numb.  The violence was not only horrific, but it was presented in a very matter of fact manner.  The scene the horrified me the most occurs during the liquidation of the ghetto in Cracow, Poland.  This part of the film is brutal in and of itself for countless reasons, but, in one scene, the SS, with rifles blazing, are running up and down the stairs of a particular tenement house.  In a room off of one of the landings, a soldier has paused to play an upright piano.  He sits upright as his fingers flow over the keyboard with mechanical accuracy.  Two other soldiers stop to take a breather and listen to him.  As they do, they discuss what the pianist is playing.  “What is that, Bach?” one soldier asks.  “Nein,” says the other, “it’s Mozart.”  The smiles on their faces reveal their appreciation for this amazing music.

This scene terrified me.  In that moment, you didn’t see anyone being tortured, or gassed, or shot.  What you did see was three very cultured men: one playing the piano with exquisite skill and two others admiring the music.  I like to think of myself as a cultured person.  I play an instrument.  I love Bach and Mozart.  Am I capable of committing such atrocities?  According to Prof. Bloom, I am — and so are you.

We call Nazis and Klansmen monsters, because what they do is inhuman, yet to deny them their humanity is to deny the reality of evil.  (It’s everywhere — every place and time-period.)  The other danger of dismissing the humanity of people who commit atrocious acts is to place the origin of their deeds elsewhere, which is what I want to discuss today.

First of all, God is not the source of evil.  You’d think he is, though, when you hear people respond to tragedy.  “God doesn’t give anyone more than they can handle,” they say, as if the bad that happens is all God’s doing.

Yet we know that evil exists, that people commit the most horrific acts.  You don’t have to go far to find them either.  You can do it from your desk.  The dark web is a part of the internet that you can access with a special browser that you can easily download for free.  The dark web will give you access to all sort of illegal activity — everything from counterfeit money to fake licenses, Social Security cards and birth certificates.  But it gets darker.  The sick and twisted can find videos — videos in which people torture animals.  You can also find snuff films.  (A snuff film is a video in which someone is killed.  Sometimes they are tortured first.)  If this isn’t evil, then I don’t know what is.

It begs the question: does the Devil exist — the same Devil that appeared in today’s Gospel Lesson?  It’s easy to dismiss Satan’s existence, and many of us have.  He’s the counter to God that we’re told about when we are kids — a kind of boogeyman that parents concoct to frighten us to behave.  Ration adults don’t believe in Satan.  Satan also doesn’t seem to gel with the idea of an all-loving God.  Why would such a God create a Satan or allow him to exist?

Science tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Many philosophical systems speak of the dualistic nature of existence: mind/body, presence/absence, light/dark.  It would be only natural to take this thinking to the spiritual level and conclude that if there is a source for all good then there must be a source for evil.  The righteousness, love, and grace of God must have a counterpoint.

Whether or not Satan exists, there is certainly a force for evil in the world.  If not, how do we justify the horror we see all around us?  Sins of commission (the bad we do) and sins of omission (the good we leave undone) abound.  There does seem to be a dark, sinister force behind it all.  Is Satan a being?  All I can say is that I love the quote I’ve shared with you before — the quote attributed to the nineteenth century French poet Charles Baudelaire: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist.”  Why is this the greatest trick?  Maybe because we’ll point the finger at God when evil rears its ugly head.  Maybe because we’re more apt to chalk-up evil deeds to mere happenstance.  Maybe because we will be more willing to compromise our values if we know there are no consequence — no Lucifer we’ll have to answer to.

The psychologist Carl Jung once spoke of “the shadow side of the human condition,” the sinister part of ourselves that we repress.  Call it the Devil, if you like.  Give it a name.  Give it a face.  It seems to have a personality of its own.  It is an entity.

Notice something in the passage we read for today, though.  Jesus withstands temptation by remaining rooted in the Word of God: the Scriptures.  Satan quotes the Bible to goad Jesus.  As Shakespeare wrote, “The devil can cite Scripture for his [own] purpose.”  That is exactly what the Devil does in today’s Gospel lesson!  But Jesus responds citing Scripture as well — and doing so in a more accurate, responsible way.  The Devil will use whatever tools he has in his arsenal to get us to turn from God.  If we remain rooted in the Word of God, though, just as Christ did, we will be able to stand firm as well.

In our closing hymn, we will sing the words of the great Reformer, Martin Luther:

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word is God’s Word: revealed in the Scriptures and made flesh in Jesus.  Hold fast to it and it will hold fast to you.  The Devil won’t have a chance, try as he may.  Amen.

[1] Sean Illing, “Why Humans Are Cruel,” from Vox (online), December 1, 2019.