Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 22
May 00
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
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in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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Love and Evil
Reflections on the lessons for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Exodus 22:21-27
Psalm 1
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46
How people see themselves,
feel about themselves,
love themselves,
directly connects with the way they see their neighbors,
and the way they see God.
I have never seen a person who
hates herself,
yet still loves God
and treats others with generosity and charity.
And I have never seen anyone who is
a basically happy person,
genuinely and realistically pleased with himself,
who could simultaneously judge,
and cheat,
and abuse other people.
And, whatever they may say about
who or what God is,
people who love themselves and others
never speak with bitterness and anger about God.
Examples would make this clear.
But, as I tried to make good illustrations,
I painted myself into one corner after another:
Telling too many things best kept in confidence.
Telling stories that seemed too plain to be as beautiful as
they really are.
(Tolstoy said that happy families
are all alike,
but every unhappy family is in unique in its misery.)
Worst of all, I found myself
dredging up some of the saddest stories I've ever known,
people who wind up living with none of the comforts of
loving anything,
or allowing love to come in.
Touching on the subject of love of
self
and the way that controls our relationships with God
and neighbors
is like open-heart surgery:
The essential is laid bare.
Someone asked a legitimate
question:
Why don't I ever talk about evil?
What do I have to say about Satan?
Other preachers talk about evil a
lot.
I never do.
I don't talk about evil much because I'm not very interested
in it.
And so I don't think about it much.
But I do think about God as much as
I can.
Today's lessons speak very much to the heart of what I keep
saying to myself:
Strike a balance of love,
compassion,
loyalty,
and forgiveness
and God is in the midst of that.
Apply that blend of goodwill to
yourself and to other people
as equitably and consistently as possible,
and you will see,
and feel,
and know
something about God.
Something invincible and life changing
that puts evil outside the perimeter of your life.
Renders evil essentially non-existent.
The reading from Exodus touches on
this best of all.
In it, God is said to be compassionate.
But some very uncompassionate behavior is mentioned.
Evil behavior, I suppose.
And God seems to be some kind of
clearinghouse for good.
God seems to be that which reflects peace in a peaceful
situation
and mirrors back wrath in an unjust system.
How God looks has everything to do
with how one is behaving.
Maybe, evil is no more than things that happen
sometimes,
and God is that which draws us toward a loving
and ennobled response to things,
rather than toward a bitter and angry reaction.
I have never seen Satan.
But I have seen people living in the most wretched
conditions radiate goodwill,
and generosity.
And I have seen people squander great riches and grace,
being destructive and angry when they didn't have to.
The same sorts of things happen to
everyone.
But it's those who have been able to see something good
passing back and forth among God,
and neighbors,
and themselves
that wind up living a sanctified life,
instead of one plagued with evil.
Hopelessly abstract?
But the Bible's call to us is not so.
You can be free.
You can live in places where evil seems small and
powerless.
Here's how to do it:
Love yourself.
Love your neighbor.
Love God.
Start anywhere.
Every step toward one of the three
will automatically move you
in the direction of the other two.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
http://www.secaucus.org/oursaviour