Wicked

Psalm 1

The word “wicked” features prominently in today’s Psalm: “don’t follow wicked advice”; “those who love the Lord’s instruction will succeed in whatever they do…not so for the wicked”; “the wicked have no standing in a court of God’s justice”; “the way of the wicked is destroyed.” The psalm warns us to avoid wicked advice and tells us what will happen to those who follow it; it teaches us that wickedness finds no favor with God and that God ultimately seeks to destroy the way of the wicked…but it doesn’t really ever tell us what wickedness is.

“Wickedness” is a tricky concept with an often very subjective definition—meaning that we often interpret what is wicked from our own perspective and based on our own opinions. A number of years back there was a novel, which was later turned into a hit Broadway Musical, that challenged our conventional understanding of “Wickedness.” Gregory McGuire’s Wicked tells the story of the Wizard of Oz from the perspective of its most maligned character, the “Wicked” Witch of the West. It’s a wonderfully creative and innovative novel, and it does a fascinating number on your brain as you read it as you begin to empathize with and relate to a character for whom you previously felt no other emotion but fear.

That’s the beauty of poetry and literature—and all of art, I would suggest—it gives us an opportunity to view, and interpret, and finding meaning in life from another’s perspective. I wake up every morning and see the view of the ceiling from my bed. This is true for all of us, our brains function as the author of our experiences. Our brains write the inner-dialogue that helps us interpret the motives and meanings of interactions with others. Our brains store the memories that help us make decisions or cast judgments. We write our own life story from the only perspective we know: our own. And despite our doubts and shortcomings, our flaws and failures, it’s fairly common for us to cast ourselves as the protagonist, the hero of the story, one of the good ones. We don’t like to think of ourselves as the wicked character in the story.

So, if you’re anything like me, when you read Psalm 1, you just gloss over this word. Because there’s no way that wicked could have anything to do with me. “Happy are those who...” say no more, that’s me…I’m the good guy. It took me reading this text over and over again in sermon prep for this word to pop out at me. At which point I realized how subjective the term was, and how biased my interpretation of wickedness is. I experience as wicked that which defies my beliefs, challenges my opinions, threatens my well-being. I define wickedness for the benefit of my own comfort and so that I can continue playing the role of the good-guy in the story of who I am. But what if someone else were to write my story. What if that guy I cut off in traffic three weeks ago were writing my story…would I be a good character, or a wicked one?

It’s an interesting thought experiment, though not necessarily helpful, to imagine what your story would look like if it was written by someone who doesn’t know you at all. A more helpful practice would be hearing your story through the perspective of someone who does know you: your boss, your spouse, your parent or child, your best friend, or even your nemesis. Minus the nemesis part (I hope), we practiced this at our worship in the park when I asked you to break into groups and tell the other members of the group where you see them shine. I didn’t dare have you try to unveil each other’s wickedness…no offense, but you’re not qualified. The most helpful practice for our own spiritual, emotional, and mental well-being would be the practice of trying to hear our story from the perspective of one who knows us fully, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows our thoughts from far-off, who knows what we will say before the word is even on our tongue, who can see if there is any wicked way within us and lead us, instead, on the everlasting way…

We’re not really the author of our story, just the interpreters. God is the author, and scripture and prayer are tools to help us interpret our lives, our purpose, our meaning, our value from God’s perspective. Scripture isn’t just God’s story, it’s our story, too. The word of God becomes our story when we pray that the Spirit would illumine it within us and use it to show us ourselves from God’s perspective. This is the practice of inspired-Scripture reading that the Psalmist celebrates. At its best, this is a very affirming practice, it showers us in grace, opens our hearts and minds to God’s love for us, it is as if we are trees being replanted beside a stream so that our roots would be surrounded by the source of life.

Whatever we do in our life, from this perspective, will succeed. This isn’t telling us that everything we want to do we will succeed at. This is saying that when we set out to accomplish that which God desires for our lives, we will succeed. And we set out to accomplish this by loving the Lord’s instruction and reciting it often. And here is where wickedness takes on a new definition. Earlier I spoke of my tendency to define as wicked that which threatens my happiness. But it might be more responsible to define as wicked that which threatens the happiness which God has planned for us. God condemns as wicked that which is destructive of fully human life—not just our own life, but our neighbor’s life, and the life of our enemy.

I said it might not be a very helpful thought experiment to imagine what type of character we would be if our stories were retold by someone who doesn’t really know us and whom we don’t really know. But this practice of empathy makes all the difference when we realize that every person on this planet who was, and is, and ever will be, is a part of God’s story, too. Last week, I mentioned how the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ, reminds us that he is present with the one’s we don’t know, and because of this we ought to ask: What if looked at God’s story from the perspective someone who wakes up every morning and doesn’t have a ceiling above them or a bed beneath them? Or from the perspective someone who is hungry or thirsty on the other side of the world, or written by an orphaned child in a war-torn country? What if I looked at God’s story from the perspective of someone who is sick or in prison? What kind of character would I be in those stories?

If you’re worried that the answer might be: “a wicked one”…good. “People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.” That was actually a quote from the novel I mentioned earlier, Wicked by Gregory McGuire. But here’s a familiar quote from 1 John 1:8-9, “If we claim, ‘We don’t have any sin,’ we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we’ve done wrong.” It’s good to confess that we don’t always live up to the role God has written for us. It’s even better to realize that we are forgiven for those shortcomings. But what is best, is to seek the success of striving to live the life to which God calls us. To meditate day and night on the words which reveal it to us, to pray to the Spirit who illumines it within us, to plant ourselves in the new life made possible for us in Christ. Do this, and you will be a truly happy person…and my guess is, you will make those around you truly happy, too. In the name of the Author, the Illuminator, and the Living Word. Amen.