This is a part of a series of devotions based on: God Was In This Place & I , i Did Not Know - by Lawrence Kushner.
Today's devotion continues the section from yesterday. Therefore the text from yesterday is included.
"Once you acknowledge that bad things happen and that people do evil things, there are only two options," said Hanna Rachel, "Satan and God." She took a handful of pebbles and dropped them in two small piles before him. "Alternate worlds. In every way except one, these worlds of strewn pebbles are identical. In both worlds the sun shines, people make love, children play and people do astonishingly terrible things.
"In one universe, people maintain their 'selves,' their sanity, and God by giving evil its independence. Such wickedness, they reason, could not possibly have anything to do with God. There must be some other non-God power that makes it real and gives it vitality, and with whom God is in eternal conflict. In such a universe, where the source of evil is other than God, sooner or later, one way or another, you wind up with some kind of demonic force, sitra achra, Other Side, devil, or Satan.
"In the second world, God is somehow part of the evil, present even in its depths. This is the meaning of our assertion that 'God is One' (Deut.6:4). A Oneness at the core of all being in whom everything - yes, even evil- ultimately converges. The source of all reality. If God is the source of all being and human evil is real, then God therefore must be in it also. The evil does not derive its being from some extra-Divine source. This is certainly what Job learns when God speaks to him from out of the whirlwind. God does not cause, tolerate, or even forebear the evil, but God, as with everything else in creations, is in it."
Evil is. God is in all things...all things. That may not be the easiest thing to hear. And yet, I find that for some people it is an encouraging word for it is a reminder that no time...no event...no situation...no life is left alone without God standing alongside. For Christians, that is what we see in the incarnation. God is with us...from the holiest places to the those considered utterly unholy...God is with us when grace abounds and when threat abounds and attempts to claim the day. The story of the birth of the Christ child is for us a story that will bring God right into the very depths of all that is human and fallible and...evil...always, with us.
Connection: So now what do we do in the presence of one another knowing that our God is in the midst of us without exception. Maybe we will not blame others as much as we might ask, "What must we do to see God among us in what is going on around us?"
Be with us, Gracious Lord, and as you walk with us, help us to see you and to hear your promise for new life even when we find it so hard to see anything new. Amen
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