We all try to be nice people. But what if being nice to everyone isn’t enough. What if more than niceness is needed in our world? What if you should be scary too?
One of the early stories of Jesus in the gospel (according to Mark), Jesus goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath to teach. This is a normal thing that rabbi’s do on the day of rest. It’s always a nice event for the community. But in this story Jesus isn’t just a nice rabbi, he is scary.
Jesus is teaching about the kingdom of God, exegeting the Law, Psalms and Prophets, opening up the minds of the people there that they might repent of their sins and return to the Lord their true king. And this teaching scares the devil out of one of the men. “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – THE HOLY ONE OF GOD!!!!!!”
We always imagine Jesus as nice, maybe a polite introvert, calmly instructing people on how to be nice. But I’ll bet Jesus was deeply moved by the plight and oppression of his people, his heart was broken by the sins that wrecked minds and broke souls.
From this anger, this powerful love, this desire for their healing, he taught. And it stirred up fear in the impure spirits, they got scared. And Jesus didn’t let up on them: “Be quiet” said Jesus sternly. “COME OUT OF HIM!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.”
What’s the darkness that you hate? What’s the sins in our community that anger you? What’s wrong with our world that you want deeply to fix? Jesus is against it even more than we are. In fact, you could say that he’s the one who ignites our desire for justice and mercy.
So with the evil in the world that we are called to resist, will we scare those spirits of torment, will they shriek at our presence, or will we just keep on being nice?
Jesus was teaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, calling his people to repent and believe the good news of God’s impending arrival as their king. Jesus was compelling his people to straighten up, get right with God and each other, clean up their act and their community. Jesus knew that how a community treats the least of these reveals the condition of their soul.
When you overlook the widows and orphans, when the poverty of the majority is ignored by the powerful minority, that community is sick and under judgment. Jesus came to drive out the spirits that drive us to madness – and that comes from deep love and hope, not from being nice.
We’re nice as a way to be polite, and nice is good when we’re with strangers and we want to extend social graces and foster good will. But nice is the wrong thing to do when you’re called to love someone, when you’re called to sacrifice, when you’re called to look darkness in the face and stare it down.
Be more than nice to those enslaved by sin, and be like Jesus when it comes to confronting the powers of evil.
Does being nice scare evil? Does Jesus? Maybe we should quit trying to be nice as a way to avoid the pain of others. Instead, join a community that works to embody the gospel of Jesus, his hope, his works of healing, his confrontation of darkness with the light of truth.
