Pastoral Letter
Dear Friends,
All of us have been deeply upset by the dreadful events of the London bombings on the 7th July. I am sure that you have joined with me in remembering and praying for those who have died and have been injured, and for their families at this time. But I ask you also to spare a thought for the families of those young men who committed the outrages, and for the peaceful communities in which they have lived. I have found it so sad to read the statements issued by those families expressing their shock, perplexity and horror at what their young men have perpetrated. Just imagine the sense of guilt and responsibility that they are feeling at this time.
There has been much written about the possible reasons why such seemingly ordinary, normal and law abiding young men could be driven to perpetrate such unspeakable atrocities against their fellow human citizens. Inevitably I guess we can start to see that the difference between good and evil can often be very small, and immense evil can often spring from activities which, on the face of it, were fully intended to be for the common good. Much attention has been drawn to the fact that the majority of the young men in question were regular members of a youth facility in Leeds that was set up specifically for the good of young men in that community. So how can it be that such evil can indeed spring from something that was intended to be good?
The answer to that question surely must lie in the human nature, and its inherent weaknesses. Within each of us is a great capacity to do wonderfully good things, but also to do very bad things. One only has to look at children playing in a school playground to see the potential that is within even the young for both good and evil. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge once wrote:
"As there is much beast and some devil in man, so is there some angel and some God in him. The beast and the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed."
Jesus summed up this conundrum in the parable of the weeds. He pointed out that in every field of Wheat there lurks Darnell, which in the early stages of growth is totally indistinguishable from the Wheat. It only reveals itself when both plants have grown to maturity; but by then, when in Jesus' time there were no chemicals available to kill the weeds, it would be impossible to remove the Darnell without irrevocably damaging the Wheat. The problem is that Darnell seeds are poisonous, and need to be removed in some way before the Wheat seeds can be ground up for flour.
Jesus' point is that evil within mankind is akin to the Darnell. It exists as a matter of course, sown by the Devil, and it's very existence poisons society. Jesus then goes on to point out that there will be a day of reckoning, when the Darnell seeds are finally destroyed, and on that day each one of us will be called to account for the evil we have perpetrated. But, here we must remember that Jesus died on the cross to win a victory over evil, and we can stand tall and innocent on that day of judgement if we can claim Jesus Christ as our saviour. Remember also that Jesus was the greatest moral and ethical teacher that the world has ever seen, and by following his teaching we can avoid the cancerous effects of evil in our lives. As John Bunyan so eloquently puts it:
"God has set a Saviour against sin, a heaven against a hell, light against darkness, good against evil, and the breadth and length and depth and height of grace that is in himself for my good, against all the power and strength and subtlety of every enemy."
So what is the conclusion? Well, I think Dorothy L Sayers sums it up best of all. She makes the point that: "It would no doubt have been well if the world had altogether refrained from evil; yet, the evil having occurred, the opportunity appears to make out of that evil a still more noble good". We have seen many wonderful acts of unselfish goodness in London on 7th July 2005 in direct response to the impact of the atrocities. Therefore, our task as human beings must always be to try our very level best to follow that path of noble goodness as laid down for us by our Lord Jesus Christ; to show real love and concern for our fellow citizens and thereby to help make this world a better place.
May God bless you all,