I sometimes hear or see people described as ‘evil’. In yesterday’s Lectionary, we read in Ephesians (6:12) “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” What do I learn from this? It troubles me because of how people who speak a lot about ‘spiritual warfare’ are often ready to move to actual warfare – there can be a lot of violence in those praying voices. I’d like to mention a couple of things. One is that we should resist the temptation to associate ‘evil’ with particular people. To do that is, among other things, to ignore the ‘evil’ that is in each of us, and to ignore the God-createdness of all human beings. Another is that ‘evil’ as described in the letter is a slippery, that can’t be tied down. It sits not in people, but in culture (such as western culture), in communication, in hard-to-tie down things … and I would suggest culture and communication and all these things can be healed/overturned by the love of Christ.
“The present darkness” – where would you say that is?