If I were to ask people whether they deliberately commit acts of evil or deliberately pursue evil ways, I’m sure that hardly anyone, if anyone at all, would say ‘Yes’ and admit or even accept that they do. And I’m sure of that because I’m also sure that most people truly believe that they don’t do evil things. They might accept that, at times, they do things they shouldn’t do but they don’t believe that’s the same thing as doing or being evil. So the vast majority of people, I think, genuinely believe that they don’t have what the Book of Proverbs calls ‘feet that run to evil’. But are people, are we, right in believing that?
First of all, let’s think about what evil actually is. Put very simply, evil is the opposite of good and perhaps most importantly when we consider what the Scriptures mean by evil, it’s the opposite of righteous, the opposite of doing and being what God wills us to do and be. In both the Old and New Testaments, evil can be a quality, something bad in itself such as illness or trouble and misfortune of some kind. But evil can also have a personal, moral dimension and when the Scriptures speak about evil in this sense what they’re speaking about is unfaithfulness. In the Old Testament that’s disobedience to God and the covenant and in the New Testament it’s disobedience to God, to the teaching of Jesus and, by extension, disobedience to the Gospel as proclaimed by the Apostles.
When we think of evil in these terms, as evil as the opposite of good and righteous, it’s not too hard to see that running to evil is the same as running away from good and from righteousness. It’s not hard to see that those feet that run to evil are the same feet that run away from God and from Jesus. And when we think of evil in this way can we really be so sure that our feet don’t run to evil?
Perhaps we could think about it in more practical terms too. During our school days, how many of us here ever heard someone say, “There’s going to be a fight after school!”? And when the school day finished, how many of us went, or perhaps even ran, to watch the fight? But did any of us ever go to where this fight was going to take place with the intention of stopping, or at least trying to stop the fight? Or did we go just to see two people beat the living daylights out each other? Wasn’t it always the latter? And so what were we doing then except, quite literally perhaps, running to evil?
We could excuse ourselves in cases like that because, after all, we were young and we didn’t know any better (though I think we almost certainly did, even then), and we wouldn’t do anything like that now.
Well, we might not run to watch two people having a punch-up now, we might even try and stop them from fighting now, but does that mean we don’t still run after evil, even though we are older and at least think we’re wiser?
In my sermons over the Sundays of Lent this year, as I’ve preached about the things that Proverbs tells us are hateful to God, haughty eyes, lying tongues, hands that shed innocent blood and hearts that devise wicked plans, I’ve noticed quite a few people, in both congregations, nodding in agreement when I’ve spoken about the ways in which we all show that have these things and do these things that are hateful to God. We know we shouldn’t do them because we know they’re not what God wants us to do. We know we shouldn’t do them because Jesus told us we shouldn’t do them. But we do them anyway, and we do them quite deliberately at times. And when we do these things, we’re being deliberately disobedient to God and to Jesus and we’re being unfaithful to the covenant we have with God that was sealed in Jesus’ blood. So when we do these things we are doing and being evil.
When it comes to feet that run to evil though, I think for the vast majority of people, it’s less a case of deliberately pursing ways that we know are evil and more a problem of running away from what’s good and righteous. I’m sure that very few people, and none of us I hope, would see something that we know is evil, that we know is wrong and shows unfaithfulness and disobedience to God and Jesus, and think or say, ‘Let’s go and do that’ anyway. I think what’s much more of a problem for us is seeing something that we know is good, but deciding not to do it. But why do we do that, why do we run away from what’s good and righteous, even though we know these are the things that God wants us to do, and Jesus told us to do?
I think the main reason we do this, is because we tend to do what’s easiest for us and what’s most expedient for us. Going back to the case of the after-school fight, for example, even if we had gone with the intention of stopping the fight, once we got to where it was taking place and saw the crowds all baying for blood, it would have been a very brave thing to do to try and stop the fight. We might have been beaten up ourselves, either by the people who were fighting, because it was nothing to do with us, or by members of the crowd who wanted to see a fight happen, for spoiling their fun. So the most expedient thing was to do nothing, even though that was running away from the right thing to do and the good and righteous thing to do.
But we can do this in so many ways. We see something we know needs to be stopped, because it’s wrong, but we do nothing because we know that doing something might expose us to some hardship, or even danger. How often, for example, have we heard or seen people in church acting or speaking in an un-Christian way but done or said nothing because we don’t want to upset the person, or people, concerned and don’t want to risk falling out with them? We see something that we know needs to be done but we know that doing it would be hard for us, so we do nothing. One way that Christians do this time and time again, is when they’re asked to do something in church, or for the Church. From time to time I, like all clergy, have to ask people if they’d think about serving on the PCC, or acting as a Parish Officer, to ask if they’d mind reading lessons or leading the intercessions on Sunday morning, or perhaps if they’d mind helping out with Sunday School. The list could go on and on but, on the whole, the answers are the same; I don’t have time; I’ve never done that before; I’m not very good at that; I don’t really like doing things like that. But can’t we always find time to do something if we really want to can’t we? We’ve never done anything before the first time we did it. Did that stop us learning to swim, to ride a bike, drive a car? None of us would ever have been good at anything unless we’d actually done it, so how did we become good at anything at all unless we did it. And as far as not liking things, do any of us really for one moment think that Jesus enjoyed being nailed to a Cross for us? But he did it because it was the good and righteous thing to do. Can’t we step just slightly out of our comfort zone for him?
Today is the Fifth Sunday of Lent but, because of the date, we’re keeping today as the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, our celebration of the Archangel Gabriel’s visiting Mary to announce that God had chosen her to be the mother of his Son. And, as we think about what Mary was called to do, and the way she responded, she can not only be an example to us of someone who did what was good and righteous, in spite of the difficulties and dangers that involved, but she can be an inspiration to us as we think about just how difficult and dangerous a thing God had asked her to do, and that she did respond in the way she did.
God’s call to Mary was to co-operate in the greatest ever good, the sending to earth of his Son to save us from our sins and to raise us to eternal life. But there’s no doubt whatsoever that the easiest thing for Mary to have done, the most expedient thing for her to have done, was to have run away from this good. The thought of doing what God was asking of her scared her to death, and it’s not surprising that it did. Just think about what doing that good and righteous thing meant for Mary.
As a young, unmarried woman, it would have been bad enough to become pregnant but as a betrothed woman, expecting a child that wasn’t her intended husband’s would have marked her out as an adulteress, for which she could have been stoned to death. And we know that Mary was seen as an adulteress and that it was a stigma that almost certainly stayed with her. Over 30 years later, during a dispute with the religious authorities, Jesus spoke of God as his Father, while accusing them of being children of the devil, because they wouldn’t believe in the one whom God had sent. And in this dispute about fathers, they replied to Jesus,
“We were not born of fornication…”
Some early non-Scriptural writings tell us that the legitimacy of Jesus’ birth was questioned by the Jewish authorities so the implication here may well be, ‘We were not born of fornication, but you were’. So Mary’s reputation was probably tarnished for life because she did the good and righteous thing that God asked of her. And this leads us to a possible answer to another question that’s sometimes asked about Mary.
We never hear of Joseph after the story of Jesus being found in the temple when he was 12 years old, and the Church’s tradition is that he died before Jesus’ ministry began. But we don’t hear about another husband either, so why didn’t Mary remarry, as she would have been expected to after the death of her first husband? Could the answer be because no one would have her because of her reputation as a ‘fallen woman’ shall we say?
There’s no doubt that Mary endured a lot of evil for her willingness to do the good and righteous thing. No doubt the easiest and most expedient thing for her to have done would have been to put some distance between herself and her son. To stay at home when Jesus set off to begin his ministry and to try and just get on with her life in the best way she could. But that would have been running away from good, so she followed Jesus, identifying with him even though that must have been a constant reminder to the gossips and back-biters that he was her son, and her husband wasn’t his real father. No doubt she had to put up with dirty looks, finger pointing and whispers that passed around about her. And I’m sure that, when Jesus was crucified, there would have been no shortage of those saying something like,
‘Well, I’m not surprised it came to this, he came from a bad family you know. She was expecting before she was married, while she was betrothed, and the husband wasn’t the father.’
I’m sure that Mary would have endured all these things, and perhaps more besides as a result of deciding to do the good and righteous thing that God had asked of her. But she chose to do it anyway, and what’s more, she chose to carry on doing the good and righteous thing as the years went by when perhaps she could have stepped away and had an easier time and an easier life. And that’s why Mary is not only an example to us, but an inspiration to us.
She’s an example to us because she did what God asked of her, regardless of the difficulties and potential dangers involved. She’s an inspiration to us because doing what God asked of her was so very difficult and dangerous but nevertheless, she not only agreed to do it, but she stuck at it and saw it through to the very end. Mary made the time to do the good and righteous thing; she did the good and righteous thing even though she’d never done it before, no one had so had no one to turn to for help and advice, she had to get it right because she was the only one who’d ever been asked to do this thing. It took her completely out of her comfort zone and the happy, quiet married life she was no doubt expecting to live with Joseph in Nazareth. But she didn’t make excuses or try to run away, she just got on with it because it was the good and righteous thing that God asked her to do.
It’s very often the case with us that, unlike Mary, we prefer to take the easy way out. We don’t do the good we know we should do if we know, or perhaps even if we think, it’ll involve us in some hardship or other. We run away from what’s good and righteous because that’s the easiest and most expedient thing for us to do. But when we do that we’re turning away from obedience to God and Jesus and away from faithfulness to the covenant we have with them and so we are, inevitably, running to evil. So the next time we’re faced with a decision about what to do, about whether to do what we know we should do as Christians or to do what’s easiest and most expedient for us, even if that means disregarding the teaching and example of Jesus, before we decide, let’s just take a few moments to think about the choice Mary had to make, what she endured for the sake of doing the right thing in God’s eyes, and try to make what we decide and do, at least a little more like what she chose to do and did.
Amen.
The Propers for The Annunciation of the Lord (Lent 5) 26th March 2023
Entrance Antiphon
As Christ came into the world, he said:
Behold! I have come to do your will, O God.
The Collect
WE beseech you, O Lord, pour you grace into our hearts;
that, as we have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel,
so by his cross and passion we may be brought to the glory of his resurrection;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Isaiah 7:10-14, 8:10
Psalm 40:7-11
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Isaiah 7:10-14
Psalm 40:5-11
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 