The "gorilla" in our midst: what is the nature of evil?

You may remember an interesting research study that was done about 25 years ago.  As this video explains, volunteers were asked to watch a one-minute recording of two small teams of basketball players, one wearing black tee-shirts and one team wearing white. Six players in total weave amongst each other on a small stage, each team passing a basketball amongst itself. The job of the volunteer observers was to count the number of passes made by the players wearing white, while ignoring the passes between the team wearing black.

The correct answer was 15, but that’s not what the study was measuring. What the researchers really wanted to know was how many of these attentive observers would entirely miss the fact that a person in a large gorilla suit had wandered onto stage, joined the basketball players, and beat his chest at the audience before wandering off again, stage left. It turned out half the study volunteers failed to see the gorilla, despite it being in plain sight.

In meditating upon today’s gospel reading, in which we hear of Jesus being tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, I wondered if the gorilla experiment might be compared with how we in the contemporary Anglican church have tended to treat the Devil. Although one of the questions in our service of baptism is "Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?" we do not, after that, talk much about Satan or the Devil in our daily life or worship.

Over the past century, we have increasingly directed people’s gaze to the team in white - to Jesus,  to God, to the power of Love, to the holy work of the Spirit - while minimizing our references to dark topics such as Satan, demons, or evil forces. I think there were, and are, good reasons for that. But I also wonder if in doing so, we miss seeing the gorilla on stage - the Devil that is in plain sight throughout our scriptures. What do we risk by not fully grappling with the concept of dark forces in the world?

I will tell you right off the bat that I don’t know the answer to that. My own scant background in these matters consists of a a Ouija board Mom gave me for my 11th or 12th birthday - and then promptly took away again about a week later. I was left a little confused in the wake. I don’t know why she gave it to me in the first place, and I don’t know why she took it away, but she had somehow decided or discerned that trying to connect with spirits in the beyond, even in jest, was tempting trouble.

From a few scattered comments I heard from her over the years, I think Mom believed in Evil, with a capital E. It was a word she never said lightly, and perhaps as a result nor do I. But I don’t recall us ever having a discussion about whether or not the Devil exists as an entity, or if dark forces external to humans can hold sway over our conduct. Again, there are good, solid reasons for such reticence, on her part and on the church’s. As we have at times witnessed, the power of the human imagination is such that talk of the devil can quickly take us in dangerous directions, both personally and collectively. Even in choosing to focus on this character in our gospel story today, I recognize that people each have their own experience of darkness in their lives, and I am concerned that for some it may be treading on sensitive ground. But I also believe that we can approach such conversations from a foundation of firm faith in a loving God who never leaves our side or our souls.

A friend said to me this week: "I just squeeze my eyes tight against the dark forces. Because I don’t want to believe they are real." I think many of us feel that way. But it seems lately that nearly every new movie or TV series features supernatural battles between the forces of good and evil. This speaks, I think, to a human need to reckon with the darkness and give it a name, whether that name is Satan, the Devil, or, in Harry Potter terms, Voldemort.

Back in the mid-1900s, Christian writer C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters, an entertaining and thought-provoking book of letters written by a senior devil to his nephew, Wormwood.  In it, Uncle Screwtape instructs Wormwood on the various ways of tempting their quarry, an average British fellow going about his business, to leave aside thoughts of God. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend the audio version narrated by British comedian John Cleese. In the introduction, Lewis writes:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which [the human] race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. [The devils] themselves are equally pleased by both errors…

And you may have heard quoted another expression: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist." 

What we don’t look for, we don’t see.

There are dozens of references to demonic forces throughout scripture. Fast forward to modern times and we understand much better the role of mental unwellness and complex human psychology that may have accounted for some of the behaviours described in biblical stories. But this more recent understanding does not extend to answering definitive questions about the nature of evil. Does evil spring from within us, are some people hard-wired for it, is it a nature/nurture combination or is there something else, something external to us, at play? We don’t know.

In today’s gospel, the Devil tempts Jesus three times. In the second instance, the Devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and then says "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Author John Dominic Crossan points out that, interestingly, Jesus does not refute the Devil’s authority or his capacity to do this; Jesus does not respond by insisting that all authority belongs only to God.

Crossan notes, however, that the Devil promises only the "kingdoms of the world;" he makes no reference to the Creation, or the world itself, or the earth, which were created by God. Jesus, knowing the violent world of civilization is indeed often laced with evil, simply responds by quoting back the scriptural command to love God and serve God only, and he reaffirms his commitment to the non-violent kingdom of God.

So, why I have opened up this Pandora’s box this morning? Why have I pointed out the elephant in the room, or the gorilla on the stage, when I have no ready answers to offer about whether the devil exists or what other dark forces may be at work in the world?

I think it stems from watching a video on social media a couple of weeks back, a subtitled recording of a man speaking an eastern European language. I was struck by his observation that the people voting for right-wing regimes in certain places in the world were doing so because they had no idea of what it was really like to live under authoritarian rule. They have no experience or memory of what is unleashed when you hand over the reigns to leaders who have risen to power by sowing seeds of discontent and dividing society against itself. In a nutshell, these voters don’t understand that the strong man they think is coming to fix everything bad may instead break everything that’s good.

So as much as we as a church will always put our best energy and enthusiasm to worshipping and sharing news about our loving, inclusive God, perhaps we should not lose our cultural memory of a time when we paid more heed to the devil that may seek to pull us astray. Perhaps we ignore the face of evil at our peril.

This Lent, you may wish to spend some time in the desert with Jesus, asking yourself what is tempting you. And who is tempting you. And where you may need to strengthen your guard against falling into behaviours, or patterns, or thoughts, that are more at home in an earthly kingdom than in God’s kingdom. Where are we complicit in the sins of the world?

As Helen said in her sermon on Ash Wednesday, evil is never part of God’s plan. But the scriptures show us that evil is on God’s radar, so it needs to be on ours.

The alarming part, of course, is that people or groups who say they are determined to "root out evil" too often use this rallying cry as an excuse to forward their own self-seeking agendas. How do each of us guard against that, to avoid becoming the monster we are trying to fight? It can, after all, be a hard thing to keep one’s heart tender during times of anxiety or darkness.

Let’s turn to our first two readings. The first is from the Book of Deuteronomy, in which Moses encapsulates all the history and laws of Israel in one long address before the Israelites enter what they saw as the Promised Land.

In this passage, Moses says that once they are settled there, they must give the first fruits of the ground to God in a mighty procession of worship and gratitude. After they have offered their baskets of food at the altar, he instructs: "Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house." Note the sharing of resources with those who have less, and with any foreigners living amongst them.

Similarly, in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he goes straight from explaining a doctrine of salvation to immediately emphasizing that it is open to all, insisting there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. These passages remind us that central to our faith is our common humanity, our common belovedness in God. I pray that God will deepen in each of us this knowledge, so we may be guarded against repaying evil with evil.

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and in his traditional prayer song we find all the tools we need to battle that which is not right in the world. Let us, like Patrick, bind to ourselves the power of the Trinity. When we go forth into our day, let us do so with Christ with us, before us, behind us, and in us. And may the light of God shine through us, wherever this world needs it most. Amen.