The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out to You, "Violence!" but You do not save? Why do You make me look at injustice? Why do You tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. ... I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what He will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. "See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright - but the righteous will live by his faith." (Habakkuk 1:1-4 & 2:1-4)

Colonel Russell Williams. I have no doubt that, having been inundated with details in the news over the last several weeks and even months, the very name causes you to cringe just a little bit. I know it causes that reaction in me. Russell Williams, of course, kidnapped, assaulted and murdered two young women and was responsible for a number of other crimes over the years which, although they weren't violent crimes, seem to establish in the mind of any reasonable person that here we are dealing with a depraved and possibly evil man. We aren't, of course, unfamiliar with such things – unfortunately. There are other names that cause us equal revulsion as we hear them. Willie Pickton, Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olson. Or, if we have any folks visiting us from south of the border who aren't up on Canadian news, we could substitute the names of Jeffrey Dahmer, David Berkowitz or John Wayne Gacy. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Somewhere in the mix we have to come to terms with the ghastly crimes committed by such as Josef Stalin or Pol Pot or Mao Tse Tung or Adolf Hitler – brutal, merciless, remorseless and apparently conscienceless mass murderers all. And here we are. Good Christians all, tucked away in the relative safety and security of a church building, and yet knowing that there is evil in the world and that there is suffering in the world, and that as Christians we are called somehow to respond to that evil and to the suffering that results from it. It isn't difficult, I suppose, to respond to suffering. We respond to those who suffer with compassion and mercy and tenderness and love - as we should, for that's how God responds to them, but the necessary flip side of the coin, so to speak, carries within itself the true ethical challenge of Christianity, because ultimately - for all our theology and doctrine (and I wouldn't deny that those things are important) - our faith comes down to how we treat one another and what we acknowledge to be our responsibility to each other – and I mean everyone, both the victims of violence and the perpetrators of violence. The question was raised in the opening chapters of the Bible - “am I my brother's keeper?” The context is a bit different, because the question is raised by a perpetrator of violence: Cain, who had just murdered his brother Abel. But while the specific context in which the question is asked is different (and even if the question itself was self-serving, for surely Cain was trying to evade his responsibilities) the very question raises an important ethical issue: what responsibilities do I have to those around me? And if I have responsibilities to those around me, then do I have those responsibilities to everyone around me? What responsibilities do I have (or what do I owe?) to the less savoury among us? How do I respond to a person such as Russell Williams? (Or Paul Bernardo? Or Clifford Olson? Or Adolf Hitler?)

The question is a valid one. It may not spring from reality, but it does spring from emotion. The prophet Habakkuk spoke of the righteous being hemmed in by the wicked (or the evil) and that's how a lot of people feel. Numerous surveys have been done that show that people for the most part aren't, in fact, in touch with reality on this issue. Surveys show that people believe crime to be on the increase; statistics show that crime is on the decrease. The point is that facts don't trump emotions. In many ways we're governed by our emotions, and our emotional revulsion when we hear of the sorts of crimes I just spoke of, and the fact that we are literally inundated in our modern world with details of the crimes shared day after day by the media feeds that feeling. And I want to suggest that there's some truth to the feeling. Evil is all around us. James speaks of “the evil that is so prevalent,” (Jms 1:21) and Peter writes that “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1Pt 5:8) James and Peter personify evil here – but whether you perceive evil as having some form of tangible spiritual reality which is opposed to God or whether you choose to define evil as simply the absence of God (and I, personally, have to choose the first option because I don't believe that it's possible for God to ever be totally absent) there's still no denying that evil exists. No wonder Habakkuk (and we) might feel hemmed in. At the same time, I think that true evil – the kind that I spoke of in opening – is a mercifully rare thing. Still, it's there, and it has to be dealt with, it has to be confronted, and it is inevitably linked together with the idea of justice, which was the motivating idea for Habakkuk. How do we seek justice when we can so easily feel hemmed in by evil?

In the United Church we hold these things together; we perceive them to be undeniably linked, and so, in “A New Creed” we are told in the same breath to “seek justice and resist evil.” After Peter speaks of “the devil” in his letter he immediately tells us to 'resist him, standing firm in the faith.” James acknowledged that evil was “prevalent” but he told us to “get rid of” it. It all sounds so clear-cut, but then we remember the words of Jesus, don't we. In the Sermon on the Mount (which are some of the most beloved of Jesus' teachings) we find ourselves being told “do not resist an evil person.” Once again, Jesus turns things upside down. So I must “resist evil” but I must “not resist an evil person.” How do I hold those two statements in tension? Is evil to be understood as a spiritual force that can be fought against, while those who do the evil are understood as poor unfortunates in the possession of - well - something evil? Were the authors of the New Testament (and other ancients) actually on to something when they perceived a connection between at least some forms of extreme mental illness and demon possession? I'm not necessarily thinking literally about demons with that (at least not the kind of demons that might immediately spring to mind on Halloween Day) but I do wonder what the authors of the New Testament were getting at with the concept. They certainly didn't understand modern psychology and all its theories, but many (probably most) modern psychologists and psychiatrists probably don't understand a great deal about theology and spirituality either. The tension between resisting evil and not resisting an evil person brings me back to the somewhat simplistic notion (but perhaps there's a lot to it in the light of this reflection) of “love the sinner but hate the sin.” That's a dangerous notion in some ways, because all too often we use it as an excuse to target people for hatred rather than as an encouragement to offer people God's love, but it does remind us that the evil any person commits isn't the last word about them. All people are created in the image of God. An old gospel hymn says “the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.” Before condemning someone for their evil acts let's remember the teaching of Augustine: “Evil is like a parasite-- it can only exist where there is something good for it to feed on.” So no evil person is without some good. And let's also acknowledge before becoming too judgmental about the evildoers who sometimes seem to hem us in that we all have the capacity for evil. We all have the ability to discern right from wrong, and sometimes we all choose the wrong. I've never murdered anyone (and don't believe that I ever would) but I sometimes find myself 20 kilometres an hour over the speed limit. My conscience (which I argue is at least part of the image of God within all of us) manages to draw a line between what is and isn't acceptable – which isn't to say that it's all right to speed, but it is to say that most of us understand that there are lines that can't be crossed.

But for some that line seems not to be there. For some conscience seems absent and while there may be an understanding of right from wrong, there's little obvious remorse for choosing one over the other., which brings us back to the names I mentioned off the top. What do I do with Russell Williams and those like him? If I am my brother's keeper (and I believe that the point of the Genesis passage where that questions is raised is to remind us that we are each other's keepers; that we do have responsibilities to each other – and even to the most repulsive among us) then what are my responsibilities to Russell Williams? I believe I have a responsibility to make an honest attempt to understand what drove him to his crimes. I believe I have a responsibility to keep an open mind to the possibility that he truly was not “in control” when he acted. I believe I have a responsibility to him to make the honest (and admittedly somewhat uncomfortable) acknowledgment that for all his crimes, the God I have come to believe loves me still loves him as well. I believe I also have a responsibility to acknowledge the possibility of transformation, redemption and – yes – even salvation for him, because surely God can do those things which seem impossible. But I also believe he needs to be held accountable for what he did and punished for it. None of my thoughts about Russell Williams detract from my revulsion at what he did, from my knee jerk reaction of wanting him to be punished for what he did, for my admittedly far greater sympathy and compassion for his victims and their families than for him. But those feelings are easy and natural. One thing I've learned over the years is that Jesus doesn't ask us to take the easy way. We may choose it, but Jesus doesn't lead us to it. It's the hard things that are difficult.

Perhaps the ultimate lesson is that the justice that Habakkuk was seeking and the justice that “A New Creed” tells us to seek is only found when we're finally able to perfect the art of mercy and compassion for all. Society understandably tends to lash out at evil-doers. We seek vengeance and punishment and call the pursuit of those things “justice” but perhaps it's mercy that really goes hand in hand with justice. Consequences there must be, but compassion must also be present. Perhaps we need to escape the belief that evil is all around us and remind ourselves that God is always with us. Perhaps we need to be less concerned with whether Russell Williams or those like him “got what they deserved” and instead humble ourselves and acknowledge that we don't get what we deserve either. That's called the grace of God - and it's there for Russell Williams as much as for me or for any of us. Sometimes, it's true, our world seems to be so full of evil and injustice that it causes us to question even God, just as the prophet did. But perhaps that's because right now the justice that's operative in the world is our justice and not God's justice. The good news is that there will come a time when real justice - the justice of a just God - will prevail.