Evil

I suspect today’s word is something we all hope that we recognise. The antithesis of the good and the godly, the manifestation of vice and selfishness. In the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer we pray (in the traditional version) “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom…” (I may daily and weekly use the newer form, in contemporary English, with you and yours and a slight change of rhythm and order to reflect current speech, but the intention is the same). I find it hard to mentally parse the traditional form without hearing the sung version we did 30 years ago at St. Martin’s College in Lancaster, from David Fanshawe’s African Sanctus.

It struck me this morning, as the church ruminates upon the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness by Satan, how that very prayer reflects a formulation mirroring Jesus resistance to the same. According to the Good Book, Satan takes Jesus to high place, to survey all the powers and kingdoms of the world. To paraphrase, “all this can be yours” he says, “if you will simply worship me. Make me your focus and the rewards will be immense. All-encompassing.” It wasn’t his to offer, of course, despite his sway over a fallen and broken world. The ultimate power, a kingdom heavenly and earthly, is God’s. Stolen or appropriated goods are not yours to dispense with. “… deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom”.

And there is a problem with evil too. The grasping villain with the maniacal laugh, like Jafar from the Walt Disney Aladdin is an obviously, patently, over-the-top, pantomime trope in all his devilish glory. We know who to boo and hiss (and that good will prevail). The problem with evil, real evil, is that it isn’t so obvious. The fruit of the endeavours of the Nazi regime cannot be seen as anything other than evil now, to the vast majority of people, but it didn’t start like that. Evil is subtle and pervasive. It insinuates, casts doubt, twists the truth one step at a time, no less than water eroding rock, drip by drip by drip. For good reason King Theoden’s evil-serving counsellor in “The Lord of The Rings” is dubbed Wormtongue. Satan in the Gospel portrayals is not unreasonable but subtle, offering ways out of physical challenge and shortcuts to a glory that already lay ahead, just offering it in an easier and less painful way. (The Serpent in the mythical Garden of Eden tempts Eve in a not dissimilar way too. Both are partially selective of known truths, introducing doubt and alternative interpretations and ends).

More than subtlety, evil corrupts. Powerful figures abusing their positions can start with merely seeing it as a perk. Not really harmful. For a previous British generation it manifested in the expenses claims of Members of Parliament. In a contemporary context you only need think of Epstein and his web of contacts and friends, the questions of “common knowledge” and turning a blind eye – “not my problem”. The Third Reich was able to achieve so much of it because once compromises had been made it became ever harder to resist, and in failing to resist ordinary people became complicit in the evil. “I was just following orders”. In that form the corruption of evil is just mundane, banal. Terry Pratchett commented in his book “Small Gods” how the torturers in the Omnian citadel drank their tea from mugs labelled with such gift card comments as “World’s Best Dad” and went home to their families after work each day. It is painfully, brutally, recognisable. Intelligence and morality are two independent variables. So are survival and conscience. It’s easier to keep your head down. Somebody else will say something…

And that’s before the whole mess of how the best of intentions can deliver the worst of all outcomes…

So today, it comes back to me. What I am going to do? Do I respond to that shared joke in the pub or at work, that online image shared by a friend of colleague, an incidence which is unfunny and deeply demeaning to others. Do I speak and risk damaging a relationship? Do I tut quietly to myself and make no comment? I know what I should do, even if the intent of the one who shares it isn’t directly to cause harm.

It’s one thing to say the words in liturgy, in church, or in the safety and quietness of home and heart. It’s another to see it in the day-to-day. To resist evil starts with me. Not just Sunday. Not just Lent. Every day… and how often do I fail? That’s one reason why I need Lent, strength, Jesus.