Overcoming

Overcoming--November 28, 2018

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." [Romans 12:21]

You cannot dig your way out of a hole by going down deeper.

You cannot spend your way out of debt.

You cannot smash pottery shards back together to repair the broken vase.

And you cannot overcome evil by playing at its own game.

Or, as the good Dr. King famously put it, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."  

So when we followers of Jesus refuse to sell out or do rotten things as a means to a noble end, it is not because we are cowards afraid of danger or  fools naïve to the reality of evil in the world.  It is simply that we have learned, following Paul here in Romans, that you cannot overcome evil with evil.  You can only be truly victorious--with Jesus' kind of victory--through goodness.

That's important to say out loud, even if it seems obvious, because the temptations to sell out always sound like they are reasonable.  

"We have to be in a position of power if we want to get to make good policies... so we have do to anything necessary to get to power."  That has a certain appeal to it, doesn't it?  

"We want to be able to do noble things with our fortune in the future, so in the mean time, we don't ask questions about where our investments come from or whether the business we do is good for people now in the mean time."  That sounds like a fair deal, right?

"We are afraid of a future in which we aren't as important or powerful or great as we once were, and so we will give our support to any voice that promises us (whether they can deliver on such a promise or not) a way to keep things the way we imagine they once were, regardless of what it costs other people."  That can sound awfully alluring if we are honest.

"We are so concerned that someone else might do something bad to us that we decide to preemptively do something bad to them in advance to thwart them." That just sounds like basic, old-fashioned conventional wisdom to our ears.

But if we are going to be truthful with ourselves, those are all ways of lying to ourselves and trying to justify rottenness if we think it will lead to something good for ourselves in the future.  And that just isn't how Jesus wins the victory.  Whether it's the temptation to torture bad guys in the name of protecting innocents. or selling out your convictions to get more votes--or maybe closer to home, doing something unethical at work because your boss tells you to, even if it will hurt other people, none of those are Jesus' way of winning God's victory. 

Today, Jesus dares us to respond to the darkness of the world, not with more darkness, but with God's own light.  It turns out that's really the only way you can.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to be like you in the world.