Deliver Us From Evil

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning. Please pray with me briefly. Dear God, let us see beyond the written words. Give us wisdom to recognize your voice inside us and guide our hearts to the truth and love. Amen. We are reading Psalm 3. O Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying to me, there is no help for you in God, but you, O Lord, are his shield around me, my glory and the one who lifts up my head. I cry aloud to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy heel. I lie down and sleep. I wake again, for the Lord Satan sustains me. I'm not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Rise up, O Lord. Deliver me, O my God, for you strike all my enemies on the cheek. You break the teeth of the wicked. Deliverance belongs to the Lord. May your blessing be on your people. This is the word of the Lord. [00:01:30] Speaker B: There's something about a great villain. Something about a great villain audience, actors, actresses, directors alike are all drawn to them in the comic book world. Think of the Joker. Not only has this figure, this villain, been a feature of a number of Batman films, but there's also been many movies made just about this character, including the one starring Joaquin Phoenix that won him an Oscar for best actor. And if you've seen any of the promotion for the new Avengers movie, and if you haven't, I don't know how you avoided it. But if you have seen it, you know that the main focus of all the trailers and publicity is the villain, Dr. Doom. Sony has made a whole series of films based on the villains, not the heroes. The villains from the Spider man comics like Venom, Morbius and Madame Web. But our fascination with villains is not limited to the world of superheroes. Think of Shakespeare's Richard iii. Jill and I got to see the production of Richard III at nearby a noise within theater in Pasadena. And the main character was actually played, ordinarily played by a man. In this production it was played by a woman, Anne Noble. She depicted Richard of Gloucester as a kind of arrogant, rebellious punk. And she was mesmerizing. You couldn't take your eyes off of her. Richard III has been called Shakespeare's greatest anti hero as he's the most ruthless, malevolent, bloody minded of creatures. He's described in the play by another character as an abortive rooting hog, a foul devil and a lump of foul deformity. Now, historians have challenged Shakespeare's depiction of the 15th century Duke of Gloucester. They've noted that we don't have evidence that Richard III did all these horrible things that Shakespeare ascribes to him. And they also note that based on skeletal remains of Richard of Gloucester, he might have had some scoliosis, but not the kind of hunchback that Shakespeare portrayed him as having. But Shakespeare is interested in far more than just history. And with that hunchback, I think he wants to show there's a kind of deformity of the soul that has outward expression in this physical form of a hunchback. And he wants to portray a villain and say, look at all this evil. Aren't you drawn to it? With Richard iii, Shakespeare sets out to prove how fascinating wickedness can be. And we watch this villain, in his lust for power, do terrible things. He kills children. He seduces a grieving widow and then discards her. He wages war. And yet he will often tell the audience what he's going to do and sort of say, isn't it exciting? Aren't you fascinated? And the answer we say as the audience, yes. That's why I'm here, to watch the show or think of another villain, the character of Kathy Ames. In the novel east of Eden by John Steinbeck, one of my favorite novels all time, the author introduces Kathy with language that seems to me reminiscent of Shakespeare's depiction of Richard iii. Steinbeck's writes this of I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. If a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul? One of Kathy's many villainous acts when she is younger is not only does she steal the money and goods from the family safe, but after doing so, she burns down the house with her parents locked inside. She abandons her husband Adam immediately after, very soon after giving birth to two boys. And when he tries to prevent her from leaving, she shoots him the shoulder. She then heads off and first joins a house of prostitution. Then she eventually kills the one who runs this house so she can run it herself. But this villain continues to fascinate. Zoe Kazan is the writer and creator of the recent Netflix mini series that's based on east of Eden. And I haven't seen it yet. If you have, tell me whether you like it or not. I'm a little nervous to watch it because I like the book so much. You know, the risk that can then involve. But Kazan grew up hearing the story of east of Eden read again and again. Her grandfather actually directed a movie version of east of eden back in 1955, and the reason she produced this new series Miniseries on East of Eden is because of the character of Kathy. She said in an interview. Kathy was unlike anybody I've ever read before. There's a real clarity to the quality of her selfishness, which I found fascinating. Her agency was so strong, and she kind of took over the book. So Kazan made a miniseries to explore that character. Why are villains so intriguing to me and to you? Well, maybe it's because villains reveal to us a great truth of human life as we know it. Evil is real. Wickedness has power. It can kill, and it often does. Villainy rises to power, and it has genuine sway over the world. And so stories that depict evil as not only real, but part and parcel of the human drama, they draw us in. Why? Because we hear in them a true story. You know, there's nothing that throws you out of a narrative, whether it's film, book, stage, you name it, as saying, oh, I don't believe this. I don't believe the emotions. I don't believe the dialogue. I don't believe the setting. Something like that throws us out of the story. And if you don't have a villain, you can't necessarily believe in the reality of evil as you and I know it. A great, great villain. They can pull us in, for they speak to us of the real, the true, the actual drama of human life and history. No enemies, no evil. How can the story then ring true to hearts and minds? Well, we've been looking at as a church these past months on the book of Psalms, and we've often noted how the Psalms portray the whole gamut of human emotion and experience. We hear in the Psalms 8, anger and even lust for revenge. And we hear compassion and forgiveness, too. We read of sadness and grief, and we read of celebration and delight. We see humans yearning for God. And sometimes we read of the psalmist sensing God's presence. Other times, the psalmist sense an absence that speaks of loneliness and a yearning not yet met. And I believe one of the reasons the Psalms continue to be the prayer book and songbook of God's people is they tell us a true story, not a false one. It's a story with love and hope and heroism, and it's a study of villainy and evil for friends and foes, loneliness and community, a sense of God's distance and of God's presence. All that is part and parcel of human life. And the Psalms present the whole of that life as it's portrayed and presented before God in song and in prayer. Well, from the very start of Today's Psalm, Psalm 3. We are hurled into a world of enemies, opponents and evil. And I believe it. I believe it, O Lord, how many are my foes? The psalmist begins. Many are rising against me. Many are saying to me, there is no help for you in In God opposition. It's prominent in Psalm 3 from verse 1 on. And it rings true. For who here hasn't felt beset by forces that seem to threaten not just the world, but you and those you love? We've all here lived through September 11, a global pandemic, raging wildfires. Who here can say they've not feared for real threats? Not theoretical threats, but real ones, errors, mistakes one person can make. We've driven to church today, and we know from history, even from those whose lives we might have mourned, how one false move by somebody on the road can end the life of another. I first learned that hard lesson back when a young woman I dated in high school was driving on a street, Via de la Vallee in San Diego her senior year of high school, and a truck going the opposite direction swerved into her lane. We know there are very real threats out there. As some of you know, my brother was the very first doctor after the Columbine High School shootings who was on the scene. And I remember him talking to me after he had been on that scene and inspected all those who'd been ben shot to see who could be hospitalized, cared for and who couldn't. And he said, matt, it was just like our high school. It looked just like our high school when you walked into that library until you looked down. We know there are real threats to life and limb. And more than that, who hasn't looked at the news or opened a history book and seen some tyrant rise, like the ancient Pharaoh of Egyp or Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, or a Slobodan Milosevic of the former federal public of Yugoslavia, or a Joseph Stalin of the former USSR or some contemporary figure and not concluded, yes, there are real threats to life and limb from people in positions of authority today. And with threats of nuclear war, some new pandemic breaking out that isn't addressed appropriately, some breakaway AI system that's not addressed sufficiently, some new edict offered. And suddenly we are praying, lord, how many are my foes? How many are the threats to me and to the world that I know? Enemies, real threats, even villainy. They are real, and we read about them in Psalm 3, starting at verse 1. In fact, we even have a villain named before verse 1. You might notice in the superscript to Psalm 3 we read this, a psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom. Now, in the second book of Samuel, the story is told of how David's son Absalom, in his lust for power, sought to seize the throne from his father. He even marshaled an army to attack his dad. David fled. And some who read Psalm 3 have imagined this might well be David praying these O Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying to me, there is no help for you in God. There is no escape. But scholars tell us this reference to David and to Absalom was written years after the original psalm was written. And this psalm might not have been written by David. It might have been, we don't know. But because the psalm describes enemies and foes in such urgent and threatening language, I can see why people would put names and faces on these foes. Years later, I can see why a scribe might imagine Absalom, that great enemy and son of David, being precisely the villain who threatened David's life, and that this would be David's prayer. Evil, villains, threats are real, then and now. And Scripture is unrelenting in offering this hard truth as well. Dear friends, the evil is not just out there, it's in here too. Right? We read psalms like number three, about David fleeing from Absalom, fleeing from an enemy and threat. But you'll note we also read psalms of confession, psalms even, that are ascribed to perhaps David's very sin, his villainy with Bathsheba, Uriah, the Hittite. If we're honest. If we're honest, we would say evil is not only real out there in other people, it's in us too. We know it. You might say it's part of our human condition that we Christians call sin. The human condition. It's this perplexing and often conflict, founding mix of good and evil, heroism and villainy. Both are there, out there, both are in here. Evil's real. Psalm 3 proclaims it from verse 1. But here is the good news of Psalm 3 and it's proclaimed loudly and clearly. Evil may be real, but so is God. Evil is real and so is God. And God, we read, is at work to bring good things. God redeems. God does not always act as quickly as we would wish. The justice we crave, the deliverance we seek, it might not come in our time frame, but come it does. Things may happen that break our hearts loss, we may know in a day deep way, but God is real and it worked for good. Psalm 3 and the whole of Scripture testify to this. God does deliver. After that opening scene in Psalm 3, where arrows are flying and foes are rising, we read this. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me. You're my glory. You're the one who lifts up my head. I cry aloud to the Lord and he answers me from his holy hill. I lie down to sleep. I wake again. How do I rise? How am I able to rise? It's because God sustains me. God gives me breath in my lungs. God gives me the new day. I have that as a gift, a precious gift from God. And so I know not only is evil at work in the world and enemies, but God is at work. And I sense that presence. The psalmist proclaims, the Lord is my shield. Now, when he writes this, the psalmist perhaps is recalling how God freed a people from bondage and enslavement in Egypt. Or maybe the psalmist is recalling and savoring how God, when this people faced a new threat in the wilderness of thirst and hunger, how God met them in that place of need, led them through the wilderness. Or maybe. Maybe the psalmist is recalling that time when David was threatened by Saul, his life was threatened and God delivered David. Or maybe it's precisely this moment where the psalmist is feeling, sensing God's protection from Absalom, David's only son, own son, as that son was attacking him. Or maybe something else is opening the psalmist's eyes to the reality. Protection, presence, love of God in whatever deep challenges, whatever enemies, whatever forces of evil. The psalmist knew at that moment, but the psalmist sees it, God is at work for good. We might be fascinated by the anti hero that is Shakespeare's Richard iii, but still, if you've seen the play, you know how it ends, right? We might be fascinated with his villainy, but all the relief and hope that comes at the end, when the tyrant falls, it's as if to say, tyranny will fall. Evil will not win the day. It might have a day, but it doesn't overcome in the end. In the book east of Eden, there's a powerful revelation that's offered to the villain Kathy later in the novel. A kind of invitation for her to witness, if she dares, something real and good that she has not yet recognized is at work in the world. Adam, the man she had abandoned and shot in the shoulder as she departed, comes to her. He's come to pass on money left by his brother Charles. Kathy is suspicious and assumes malicious intent on his part. And he says, you don't believe people could have goodness or beauty in them. You see only one side, and you think more than that. You're sure that's all there is. No, Steinbeck seems to be saying, in east of Eden there is goodness too. There are acts of beauty and kindness and love. Well, the verse that ends Psalm 3 is a plea that the deliverance the psalmist has known in part might be known in a new way, a fuller way, a deeper way. Rise up, O Lord, the psalmist pleads. Deliver me, O my God, for deliverance belongs to the Lord. May your blessing be on your people. That final prayer of the psalm, it calls to mind the great promise of the Hebrew scriptures, doesn't it? It reminds us of that promise God made to Abram and Sarah. A promise that God would bless them and their descendants, bless a people, and through them God would be at work to bless all peoples and nations of the world. That's this promise I hear in the Scripture that the psalmist hopes looks to God to one day bring to full fruition. And as Christians, we believe such a blessing did come to God's people in due time. The closing prayer of Psalm 3 was answered. We profess the God who's described in Psalm 3 as one who lifts up the head of those brought low, as one who delivers a people from evil that God came to us in Jesus, the Christ, that promised Son of David, we proclaim, brought God's very kingdom of healing, mercy, forgiveness, and welcome near to us in our Savior's words and his deeds. Not only were the sick healed and the sinner forgiven, but God's love, as Christ proclaim it, extended even to one's enemies, to those who threaten. And in Christ we have one who the psalmist describes as one who accompanies him, who supports him, who's there like a shield in Christ, we have that guiding us on the ways of peace. And even as this life draws to an end, as it will in Christ, we're promised life, eternal life, life with God, a kind of final deliverance from eternal life, even the ravages of death. In Christ, we're made here and now, vessels of mercy, justice, compassion. And we can share with others this good news. Yes, evil is in the world. We don't deny that. We just believe God is at work also. And God is at work for good. And in Christ we're even given the hope that one day all things will be restored. We will all be delivered from evil. That's the prayer that we offer, as Jesus taught us, when we say our Father, who art in heaven, deliver us from evil. And so we look to that time. Evil will be finally overcome with good, thanks be to God. Evil is real, and so is God. And sometimes, sometimes we see something so faithful, so beautiful, so caring, so good that we believe it. And it can shine especially brightly when it emerges in a place of such villainy, like a candle that's lit in a dark night, where, because of the darkness, we see it all the more clearly. After the Allies had liberated Ravensbruck, a Nazi death camp, in 1945, a prayer was found written on a piece of wrapping paper. And the prayer recalled for me at least, the kind of prayer that Jesus offered on the cross when he said of his enemies, of those doing him harmless. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. At that concentration camp, roughly 132,000 women had been imprisoned and tens of thousands died from starvation, illness and violence. It was, for me, the very picture of unspeakable evil. The guards of that camp were later tried and convicted of war crimes. But when the Allies arrived at Ravensbrook, they found this prayer written next to a deceased body. O Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill, but remember also those of ill will. Remember, in other words, the wicked. Remember our enemies, but do not only remember the suffering they have inflicted on us, remember the fruits that we bought thanks to this suffering. Our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which have grown out of all this. And when they come to judgment, let the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness. Evil is real, and thank Heaven, so is God. And thanks to God, we can hope that even our enemies can be touched by the grace and love of God as we know it in Christ. May God truly deliver us all from evil. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.