Overcoming Evil With Good - By The Rev. Canon Cameron Nations
You Don’t Need to Be A Superhero to Put Evil In Its Place
A friend texted me the other night. He was despondent, unable to sleep. From the context of his message, I could tell he had been scrolling through social media feeds on his phone and the barrage of bad news (and peoples’ reactions to it) had overwhelmed him with anxiety and worry. In his words, he was “spiraling.”
For years, data has shown us how social media (and digital news more broadly) overwhelms our brains with information in an unprecedented way— never in history have we been able to see so much so easily, and our biology can’t keep up. Atrocities happening a world away are right there on our phones. We can watch videos streamed from soldiers and civilians in war. Bombs bringing buildings to rubble. Children starving and bloodied. Floods whisking houses and cars away like nothing. And interspersed amongst all of the horror are posts about maximizing your retirement income and vignettes touting “Europe’s 10 most magical towns you’ve never heard of.” It’s enough to fry both your brain and your nerves, and you begin to wonder what part you are meant to play in the drama unfolding on the tiny screen in your hand.
How can you stop the fighting? How can you de-escalate years of simmering tensions spilling over into political violence? How can you feed the masses of starving people? How can you afford to ever see any of those quaint European villages (let alone retire)? All of it— from the heaviest to the most mundane— leaves you with the same feeling of disempowerment. Surely, you think, you can’t do anything to make the world better. So maybe you post something. You take a stand or choose a side. And then the comments start and the divisions deepen and the cycle repeats.
A spiral, indeed.
It’s easy to look at all of the brokenness in the world and wonder: Where are the real heroes when you need them? You know, the ones who have the power to vanquish evil and set the world right— where are they?
And it isn’t just the steady stream of chaos and pain that can leave us reeling and hoping for a hero, but also the fact that professed Christians seem only to add to the din and dissension. How are followers of Jesus supposed to act in times like these? Christ’s light can feel awful dim sometimes.
I have recently found myself returning to the middle chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans, especially chapter 12. This section of Romans is rich in theology and practical wisdom, as Paul offers encouragement to the fledging church and advice on what it means to live as a Christian. He speaks of the importance of humility and extols the power of love and spiritual devotion. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
He echoes the challenge of Jesus to bless those who persecute you. “Do not repay evil for evil,” he writes, “but be careful to do what is right… live at peace with everyone.” It all comes to a crescendo with this exhortation in the final verse of chapter 12: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
This conclusion to Romans 12 has the feel of something epic, something grand— and practically impossible. How do we overcome evil? Isn’t that what superheroes are for?
Though Paul’s call to overcome evil with good certainly sounds like it requires some kind of superpower, we overcome evil with good in ordinary ways all the time.
Every day presents us with boundless opportunities to fulfill Paul’s exhortation. Extending grace when someone needs it. Helping someone in need. Calling a friend or family member rather than letting yet another day pass by without a conversation. Deciding to spend time with your child instead of answering just one more email. Taking your spouse out to dinner. Putting your phone down to focus on the person in front of you rather than the cacophony on your screen. Making something beautiful. Planting something new in your garden. I could go on.
It’s in these ways and more that we speak into creation what is good, beautiful, and true— that good prevails and that evil is put back in its place, defeated another day. These may seem like small things. But we should not underestimate the power of small things, for its from small things that big things can grow. (I seem to remember a parable or two about this.) Now I’m not saying that sometimes big solutions aren’t needed for big problems or that we don’t need to sometimes turn up the volume to drown out the hate, but I do think we often discount the power present in our each and every act of love— no matter how small— to be an agent of God’s grace in the world.
Don’t feel like you have to be a superhero to overcome evil. God’s already done the hardest part himself.