Ordinary Evil

Watch the movies and you'll get the impression that evil is everywhere. Oh ... and that's right. You'll also get the idea that evil is, well, quite spectacular. It wears a distinctive hockey mask and hacks up foolish kids in the forest. It is a hidden organization at the top of our government doing currently impossible things with technology to destroy its perceived enemies. It is a twisted face with murderous intent or, perhaps, a religious fanatic with twisted morals. But it's always quite clear. Evil is really spectacular.

Of course, that's what you'd like to think. "I'll know it when I see it." Hey, you've seen CSI and Law and Order. You know what Jason and Freddy look like. You'll know it when you see it. But ... we forget -- "The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" (Jer 17:9).

It is my suspicion (or, perhaps, my conviction) that the real problem is not spectacular evil, but the ordinary. We're all aware of the problem of smut on the Internet, but we're not quite as clear when it comes to the effects of a 12-year-old girl dressing for church in clothes that a prostitute would envy. We're all quite clear that certain types of music are evil ... you know, that angry, loud, shouting stuff like punk or metal or that dirty, rotten gangsta rap. We're all sure of that, but we seem to miss entirely the elevator music that encourages us to "spend the night together". I mean, when David Gates and Bread sang, "I want to make it with you," it was a sweet, melodic love song ... right? And, really folks, what kind of lunatic would suggest that certain rhythms encourage certain emotions like anger or lust? That's just ... conspiracy theory stuff, right?

So we bravely and with righteous indignation bar the door to those evils out there, those horror movie demons and those twisted mass murderers, and we do our best to stay away from Internet porn and sexually-centered movies -- that spectacular evil that we recognize so easily -- all the while gulping down a glut of ordinary evil, thinking we're safe.

I don't suppose it's coincidence on God's part when He had Paul write "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" (Gal 6:7) right after he wrote "Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted" (Gal 6:1).

The one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary (Gal 6:8-9).

Evil is quite ordinary most of the time. Avoiding evil is wise. Doing good is wiser. Perhaps we ought to stop looking for evil in masks and government conspiracies and work at being transformed so that we may prove that the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect. Remember, the mature Christians are those "who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Heb 5:14).