Last Sunday, our focus was on Jesus' retreat at Mt. Tabor, and his transfiguration. In my sermon, I urged you to imitate Jesus, by going apart to pray--by going on retreat. As a follow-up, I have put a list of retreat places on the information table in the narthex for anyone to take.
Then on Ash Wednesday, our focus was on self-examination, on looking within and becoming aware of our sins, confessing them and receiving God's forgiveness. Today we come at these same themes in a different way. Once again, Jesus has gone on retreat, but this time it is the 40 days in the wilderness, and his focus is neither on confessing sins, nor on seeking guidance. In the wilderness, Jesus must wrestle with evil, personified as the satan, who comes to tempt him away from his call.
It is important to notice that Jesus is not alone in the wilderness; there are four parties with him. First, the Holy Spirit who drove him out to the wilderness is there. Second, the satan is there. Third are the wild beasts, who were with him as companions. And fourth are the angels, who came to minister to his needs. In the Gospel of Mark, and to some extent in other Gospels, the story of Jesus is presented as a contest with the satan, and with all the forces of darkness. Jesus has come in the name and power of the Creator, to defeat the power of evil, and to rescue the people of Israel.
When we jump from the ministry of Jesus, to the 16th century when the Great Litany was translated into English, we find a similar world view. The crafts and assaults of the devil are still at the top of the list of things we want to be saved from. Very little distinction is made among spiritual evils, such as everlasting damnation, moral evils such as pride and murder, and physical evils such as earthquakes, lightning and floods.
Until the Enlightenment in the 18th century, most people assumed there was a causal connection among these different kinds of evil. The person who was hit by lightning, or who died from the plague, was certain to have committed a moral evil, for which lightning or plague was the punishment.
The most interesting book I've read in the last year, concerns the way that thinking about evil has changed since the 18th century. The book is called Evil in Modern Thought, and it is written by a German philosopher Susan Neiman. She begins with the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which destroyed the city and approximately 15,000 inhabitants. For years, the theologians and philosophers had been debating the questions about how a beneficent and omnipotent god could permit so much suffering and evil in the world.
Early in the 18th century, the philosopher liebniz invented the word "theodicy" which means, God's justice, or the defense of God's justice. Liebniz argued that behind the apparent evil in the world, there was an order and justice which human beings could not see. When the earthquake destroyed the city of Lisbon, some people assumed that it was a punishment for sin inflicted on the people of Lisbon, who must have been very bad. But many others found that explanation hard to swallow: was it likely that all 15,000 were quite sinful? The positive idea that moral virtue is the cause of happiness, and results in protection from disaster, appeals to us all, but bears no resenblance to our actual experience in life. We all know good people who have had car accidents and gotten cancer, who didn't deserve those things.
Immanuel Kant was the one who insisted that there was no connection at all between what happened in the natural world, and how we act as human moral agents. Therefore, the Lisbon earthquake was not a punishment for sin, nor a sign from God--it was merely a movement of the earth. What this has meant, for the 20th and 21st centuries, is that we are left with moral evil as the result of human choices. Sometimes it is a deliberate choice, such as the terrorists made on Sept 11th, and sometimes it is a choice which seems to be good at the time, but lead to an evil result. We must also recognize that today, one individual can do far more harm, than one individual could do in the 16th century, or the 1st century.
I wonder how we would name the evils in our world if we were writing the Great Litany in 2003? Instead of asking god to deliver us from sinful affections, would we say simply, deliver us from addictions? Instead of the deceits of the world, would we say, deliver us from the deceits of advertising and politics? Instead of the deceits of the flesh, would we ask to be delivered from the desire for instant gratification? Instead of hardness of heart, from domestic violence? Instead of flood, from global warming? Instead of pestilence, from the pollution of the biosphere? Instead of famine, from the extinction of the species?
I raise these questions because we have quite a different view of the world than Jesus had, or than our 16th century (or medieval) Litany has. We know that earthquakes and lightning are morally neutral events; and yet we also understand that we have some pomplicity in global warming, in pollution, in the consumer society, and in our national demand for oil. Certainly, none of us intended these evil results: we have, I have, merely bought the cars, used the products, and responded to the advertising that is part of the daily life of our society.
What kind of temptations, then, do we face?
Although very few of us will make our retreat in a desert wilderness, probably all of us will face temptations such as these at some time in our lives. Let us remember that it was the Holy Spirit who drove Jesus into the wilderness to face his temptations, and therefore let us expect the strengthening presence of the Spirit when we are tempted. And may we have faith, that our choice of what is good and right, will make a difference in the world.
Amen