The Mystery of Evil….and Goodness

Scripture: Psalm 73

Sermon: The Mystery of Evil….and Goodness

Topics: evil, goodness, mystery, meaning, order, chaos

Preached: August 11, 2013

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble: the Book of Psalms is actually divided into 5 books;

1-41; 42-72; 73-89; 90-106; and 107-150.

Psalm 73 is the first Psalm in the middle book of the Psalms.

It is in the middle.

It has 2 main sections,

1-14

15-26

with a concluding thought in the last 2 verses: 27-28

Psalm 73

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹ Truly God is good to the upright,^*

to those who are pure in heart.

² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled;

my steps had nearly slipped.

³ For I was envious of the arrogant;

I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴ For they have no pain;

their bodies are sound and sleek.

⁵ They are not in trouble as others are;

they are not plagued like other people.

⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;

violence covers them like a garment.

⁷ Their eyes swell out with fatness;

their hearts overflow with follies.

⁸ They scoff and speak with malice;

loftily they threaten oppression.

⁹ They set their mouths against heaven,

and their tongues range over the earth.

¹⁰ Therefore the people turn and praise them,^*

and find no fault in them.<sup>*

11</sup> And they say, ‘How can God know?

Is there knowledge in the Most High?’

¹² Such are the wicked;

always at ease, they increase in riches.

¹³ All in vain I have kept my heart clean

and washed my hands in innocence.

¹⁴ For all day long I have been plagued,

and am punished every morning.

¹⁵ If I had said, ‘I will talk on in this way’,

I would have been untrue to the circle of your children.

¹⁶ But when I thought how to understand this,

it seemed to me a wearisome task,

¹⁷ until I went into the sanctuary of God;

then I perceived their end.

¹⁸ Truly you set them in slippery places;

you make them fall to ruin.

¹⁹ How they are destroyed in a moment,

swept away utterly by terrors!

²⁰ They are^* like a dream when one awakes;

on awaking you despise their phantoms.

²¹ When my soul was embittered,

when I was pricked in heart,

²² I was stupid and ignorant;

I was like a brute beast towards you.

²³ Nevertheless I am continually with you;

you hold my right hand.

²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,

and afterwards you will receive me with honour.<sup>*

25</sup> Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.

²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength^* of my heart and my portion for ever.

²⁷ Indeed, those who are far from you will perish;

you put an end to those who are false to you.

²⁸ But for me it is good to be near God;

I have made the Lord God my refuge,

to tell of all your works.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

On August 19, 1942, over 6000 troops, American, Canadian, British,

stormed the shores of the French town of Dieppe

in a daring World War II raid.

It was a colossal failure.

Over 60% of those troops were killed, captured, or wounded.

And it caused people then, and even now, to ask why?

Why did the Allies do this?

Was it supposed to be some sort of prelude or practice for the big D-Day invasion that would come later?

Why?

I recently watched a documentary that offered a new answer.

Apparently the Allies were pretty sure the Germans had the latest version of their Enigma Machine, their code-making machine, in Dieppe.

According to this documentary, this large-scale invasion was meant to hide their much smaller-scale objective — to steal that machine.

As part of the documentary, they interviewed some of the few remaining veterans of Dieppe.

When one 90 year old veteran was told this latest theory for Dieppe,

his face lit up,

and the look of relief came to his face ,

and he said, “Thank you. Thank you for telling me.”

For finally there was a reason.

Finally he had been told a clear reason for all the chaos, for all the suffering

that he and others had endured 70 years earlier.

II. ORDER and the GOLDEN AGE of DETECTIVE NOVELS

We are meaning-seeking creatures.

We want things to make sense of things.

We like order.

Perhaps that is why we like the genre of the mystery:

Mystery novels, mystery shows.

I read this week that there are 3000 new mystery novels published in English every year. 3000 – that is a lot.

The genre of the mystery novel was born in the 1880’s.

It had its golden age in Britain in the 1920 and 30’s – let’s just call this the Agatha Christie Era.

Most of these mysteries were set in some quaint English countryside.

Into this tranquil and serene setting, suddenly a dead body would be found.

Chaos, disorder would disturb the countryside,

until the detective would solve the mystery.

With the murderer exposed and arrested,

all would be quaint and peaceful again.

It is remarkable how there is almost a Biblical flow to this type of mystery:

an Eden-like setting;

a misdeed and chaos in paradise;

the exposing and expulsion of the wrong-doer;

and finally a Restoration of Order.

The Classic Murder Mystery loved that flow:

Order, Chaos and the Restoration of Order.

The wicked are exposed.

The innocent receive Justice.

Order and the Restoration of Order is also strong theme in the Priestly tradition of the Old Testament as well.

Orderliness was next to Godliness.

So take Psalm 1 for example.

Here is a Psalm of order:

those who follow the Lord will flourish and be blessed;

those who are wicked, will wither and fade.

That is order.

And if there is pain or suffering,

it would have a purpose.

It would make some kind of sense.

That is order too.

The writer of Psalm 73 also likes order.

But there is a problem.

Nothing in life is making sense.

The wicked are not withering or fading or suffering.

No, the wicked are healthy, wealthy, and well.

The wicked do what they want

and people seem blind to their wicked ways.

They are getting away with their wickedness.

They are getting away with murder.

And what does the writer of this Psalm think?

Well by the middle of this Psalm,

the Psalmist is thinking:

What is the point?

What is the point of being obedient?

What is the point of following God?

WISDOM

Psalm 73 is a psalm of the hard-reality of our disordered world.

It is not a psalm of how things should be.

It is a psalm of how things are.

There is a meanness to the world.

There is an unfairness to how it operates.

The reality is that we are Not in Eden anymore – we are far from it.

There is a whole tradition in the Bible,

part of what is called the Wisdom tradition,

that speaks this language —

The language of Disorder and Injustice.

Like Ecclesiastes 9:11-12

Again and again I saw that under the sun

The race is not to the swift

The battle is not to the strong

bread not to the wise

riches not to the intelligent

recognition not to the skillful.

This is the language of Psalm 73.

Life is unfair?

People seem to get away with murder.

The challenge of this Psalm is,

what kind of person will you be in this

hard and often cruel world?

HARD-BOILED DETECTIVE NOVELS

With the Depression and the Second World War,

the golden age of the Agatha Christie type mystery novel ended

and a new type of mystery novel followed.

Pick up a modern mystery,

and it will probably not be in some idyllic little English village.

Chances are, it will be set in some grittier place,

in a society that is not nice, but mean,

among people who are not kind, but corrupt.

These are what are sometimes called hard-boiled detective stories.

The main character wades into a murky world,

into corrupt communities,

into sordid societies,

and the challenge of the novel is not simply to catch a killer or to solve a crime.

The challenge is to remain true to who you are.

The challenge is to remain steadfast in your quest for justice and truth.

PSALM 73: 15-26

This is, in fact, the main theme of the end of Psalm 73.

There is an acknowledgement of the hardness of life,

the unfairness of life.

And in the middle of that Psalm there is a wavering.:

Is it really worth it to follow God?

Is it really worth it to keep your heart and your life clean?

But then, in the second half of this psalm,

there is a new resolve.

Nothing changes:

the wicked are still prospering

and the innocent are still suffering,

But the Psalmist’s perspective changes!

The Psalmist refuses to be sucked into the ways of the world.

The Psalmist recommits herself/himself to be guided by the way of the Lord,

To be guided by the way of Truth,

To be guided by the way of Justice,

To be guided by the way of Goodness.

MYSTERY OF GOODNESS

I’ve talked about Psalm 73 through the language of murder mysteries mainly because I like murder mysteries.

I like reading mystery novels.

I like watching Mystery on PBS on Sunday nights.

They are, on the one hand,

kind of like puzzles to be solved.

But they are also character-studies:

what does it take to remain true to Justice and Truth

in our corrupt and misery-filled world

How do we keep going in our quest to do the right thing

when what we accomplish does not seem to make such a big difference.

The world seems as bad as ever.

The British theologian, David Ford, once wrote that there are 2 great mysteries in our life:

one is the mystery of evil;

the other is the mystery of goodness.

Each novel we read,

Each show we watch,

Each Biblical passage we meditate on

Deals with both these mysteries.

Even with everything written and everything told

regarding these two mysteries,

we still do not have an adequate or full account of either.

But what we, the Church, have is a story – The Story –

of a person who fully embodied the mystery of goodness.

This person waded into our hard and mean world

and engaged the mystery of evil at its worst.

The story of Jesus Christ

Of his life, of his death, of his resurrection

is a story not simply of

wickedness being exposed

or of justice being done.

No, here is a deeper story

that not only exposes evil but that absorbs it,

swallows it, extinguishes it, detoxifies it.

Here is a story

that adds mercy to justice;

that adds grace to a final reckoning.

CONCLUSION

Psalm 73 ends with a final resolution to be near God.

a final pledge to make God our refuge and our strength.

It is an important pledge to make over and over again in our hard-boiled world.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by how

the mystery of evil seems to pervade all things;

It is easy to be dismayed by how

the mystery of evil seems to be triumphing over all things.

But we have taken refuge in God.

In him radiates the mystery of goodness,

a goodness so deep,

so just,

so true,

that it seeks to redeem all things

to restore all things

so that even the worst of the worst

and the wickedest of the wicked

might be saved by his love

and reconciled through his mercy.

For in the end,

when all is said and done, and all things are revealed,

when the mysteries of evil

and the mysteries of goodness are exposed,

the only sure refuge will be

in the mystery and mercy of Jesus Christ.