THE MANIFESTATION OF GOOD AND EVIL

WEDNESDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gen 21:5,8-20; Ps 34:7-8,10-13; Mt 8:28-34

Our Actions and the Consequences

By our choices, we invite heaven to live within each of us and among us, and also by our choices, we bring hell within us and among us. The freedom of our will, which is a unique gift we have received from God, brings us into communion with heaven or hell. The daily choices each of us makes contribute to our personal and communal well-being or disaster. It all depends on the resultant effect of good actions against evil actions. As we read yesterday from the Genesis passage, Lot and his family narrowly escaped the destructive effects of the evil lifestyle of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The advancement in science has shown that every movement of the wind, even the single flap of a butterfly’s wings, contributes to the occurrences of windstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes in some part of the Earth. Thus, we understand how intricately connected things and events are in the universe. It is the same in the moral and spiritual orders. Every good act of our wills contributes to our individual and communal well-being, for they all coalesce together to bring about the real presence of God and good drives or motivations in the world. Similarly, every evil thought, expressed in an evil act, increases the presence of evil and darkness in the world, for they all coalesce together to form a drive of evil and dark forces. Each time we choose to act in obedience or disobedience to the word of God, we are choosing to bring water (goodness) or fire (disaster) to ourselves and humanity at large. The truth of these statements is in today’s passages.

Sarah was in the habit of thinking differently from God's plan for Abraham and his family. Her thoughts and decisions did not change the major contents of God's promise to Abraham. Nevertheless, they increased the disorder in the plan for people and nations. The sending away of Hagar and her baby is one of the ill-conceived thoughts and decisions she foisted on Abraham. “Now Sarah watched the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. ‘Drive away that slave-girl and her son,’ she said to Abraham; ‘this slave-girl and her son is not to share the inheritance with my son Isaac.’” Abraham was not happy with the request, for it did not augur with his faith in God. But God came to his help, to spare him the disturbance Sarah would give him if he should fail to do her bidding. “Do not distress yourself on account of the boy and your slave-girl. Grant Sarah all she asks of you, for it is through Isaac that your name will be carried on.” Their presence in the household of Abraham would have constituted no hindrance to the fulfilment of God’s promise. God permitted Sarah’s injustice to Hagar and her son, but remedied it by making Ishmael share in the greatness meant for Isaac. “But the slave-girl’s son I will also make into a nation, for he is your child too.” God permits injustice in keeping with the free will he gave to us, but his justice will see to it that we pay every ounce we owe by deviating from his will. The growth of evil into a formidable darkness and presence is by this principle.

We see such a diabolical presence in the Gospel. Our Lord’s treatment of the evil presence is not similar to the way he handled the natural forces of wind and storms that disturbed the apostles on the sea. “When Jesus reached the country of the Gadarenes on the other side of the lake, two demoniacs came towards him out of the tombs—creatures so fierce that no one could pass that way.” Here, our Lord encounters spiritual forces that arose from the moral disorder of men. The Son of Man, because he is the Temple of God, a full realisation of God’s will, has the power to control these preternatural spirits. But the injustice which brought them among men must be addressed to an extent. Based on this demand of justice, they made their request for the herd of pigs, understanding very well that the Son of Man will never yield a soul to them. “‘If you cast us out, send us into the herd of pigs.’ And he said to them, ‘God then’, and they came out and made for the pigs; and at that the whole herd charged down the cliff into the lake and perished in the water.” The reaction of the people of Gadarene to the event shows the justice of God in permitting the destruction of the pigs. They had more interest in the herd of pigs because of the economic value than in the well-being of the man delivered. Counting their losses, they implored Jesus to leave the neighbourhood. Their unjust mindset explains why those demons were among them. The demons stand on the justice of God to get permission to torment us, but the faithful implore based on divine mercy and the loving sacrifice of the Son to the Father. “This poor man called; the Lord heard him.”

Let us pray: O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error and overwhelmed by powers of darkness but always be seen to stand in the bright light and safety of truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.