Good versus Evil

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago when considering the nature of the poor among us that good and evil seem so much easier to sort out in stories about oppressed poor people than in real life. Actually, it doesn’t take poverty to complicate the division between good and evil in our day-to-day lives.

The Proverbs (and Psalms) speak often of the reward of righteous living and the ultimate destruction of evildoers. The world seems to be divided easily into good and evil in these passages. In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks of the “sheep” and “goats” being divided at the end of the age. Again, the split seems so clean from the viewpoint of the King. However, the righteous and unrighteous are both surprised by the acts assigned to them. It seems that the division between good and evil that is so easily made by our Lord is not nearly so obvious to the casual human observer.

Drama reflects the division of good and evil. I don’t watch much television. Sometimes if I happen by when my husband has the TV on, I’ll stop and watch for a while. Of course, I’m coming into the middle of the story, which prompts me to occasionally ask annoying questions such as, “Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Are we supposed to like him?” It’s not often that the reply is ambiguous. Once in a while there’s a complex character that isn’t easily identified as either good or bad, but those are exceptions.

I find it interesting that we so easily accept the presence of villains in drama, whether they’re oppressing the poor or plotting murder. Do we observe such people in our daily lives? How many of your acquaintances would you classify as bloodthirsty? Do you know anyone who fits the label of murderous?

The evildoer in this week’s passage has characteristics such as concealing his sins, hardening his heart, lacking judgment, and being unconcerned about justice for the poor. I can certainly think of people who fit that description at times. I might slip in there somewhere myself from time to time. However, many of the people I know who sometimes speak harshly and hurt others and harden their hearts toward people don’t fit the “bad guy” image of drama well at all. Many times they are just ordinary people who are “out of sorts” for some reason.

An elderly man of my acquaintance is rude and demanding. He’s much more concerned about justice for himself than for the poor or anyone else. Any cordial words that come out of his mouth seem designed to bend the will of those around him to meet his needs. As far as I can tell he doesn’t have many friends and my natural inclination certainly wouldn’t lead me to number myself among the few. I’m polite to him if I can’t avoid him, but I prefer to avoid him and save myself the bother of trying to be patient with his manipulative demands. Is this an evildoer? He certainly wouldn’t take kindly to being characterized as such. In fact, he told me just recently that he is a Christian.

I often observe parents speaking harshly to their young children. The child is crying and the impatient parent responds with unkind words and threats as to what will happen if the tears do not stop. I observe no compassion toward the little one, only a hard face. Are these evildoers? Hardness of heart and harsh words directed toward innocent little children is surely one of the worst examples of unkindness, yet how many parents can claim to be innocent in this area?

I meet few people who readily confess their failures. Most seem to prefer to put on the best face possible and conceal their darker side. Are these evildoers?

I can’t tell that compassion and vulnerability and good judgment are more prevalent among those who claim to be righteous or that hardness of heart and disregard for the poor and innocent victims is any less evident in the church than elsewhere.

Until we find a surefire way to distinguish the good from the evil, maybe we can fall back on Romans 3:10, where Paul reminds us that “There is no one righteous, not even one.” Rather than attempt to classify ourselves among the exceptionally righteous, maybe we need to admit that we sometimes fall into the characteristics of the wicked and experience the consequences of wrongdoing. When we harden our hearts toward the poor and oppressed, we can expect the natural consequences for such an attitude as revealed in scripture.

What do you think?