To listen to the nearly 150 women testify at Dr Larry Nassar's sentencing hearing is to expose ourselves to the underbelly of human depravity.
His victims have called him a monster, have repeatedly said that they hate him, and even his protests about this testimony being emotionally damaging to him, have gone unheeded by the judge who seems to consider this public lashing a part of Nasser's well-deserved punishment.
The hope seems to be that this public airing of such deep and harmful pain and egregious harm will somehow prove cathartic to the victims and inspire others who live in the shadows of abuse to come forward.
Our prayer for these victims is just that - that they would indeed be able to put these horrid incidents behind them and that their unspeakable pain may serve to inspire others to come forward and, hence, discover healing of their own in the bright light of truth.
However we must also consider the perpetrator, is he evil?
On Sunday we will hear the story of Jesus casting a demon out of a man. What's interesting about this account, which is the very first miracle that Mark mentions in his gospel, is that Jesus does not have harsh words for the man who was possessed, rather his actions protest the demon itself, the unseen powers and principalities of the air, the forces of evil that are constantly looking to take possession not just of this anonymous man but of all human lives, giving us all the potential agency to do harm of our own.
Would that Larry Nassar were in fact the full embodiment of evil and that we were able to thus isolate evil, and then lock it up or kill it off for all eternity. The problem is that Larry Nassar will go away to prison, but the evil will remain. And our best safeguard against evil is to become a society based on things like the truth-telling we are seeing unravel in this Ingham County courtroom.
People who do such heinous things not only need to have their crimes brought into the light of day, but to face justice as society determines it. This is part of our shared and continued journey toward equality for all people, especially #metoo women, and on the love and care of children as gifts and not targets of abuse.
One of the lessons we can learn is that we do ourselves and society a great injustice when we point to scapegoats like Dr. Larry Nassar and expect that his wandering off into the bleak desert of incarceration will shoulder all of the sins of the society which has ostracized him. But the more helpful insight is for you and me to look at the way we treat those around us, everyday, every moment, especially the young and vulnerable. The scriptures are clear that we are to walk in love with all people, that we are to seek love in every word and every interaction with everyone. Let us not move forward so much by hating the darkness of evil, as by following the light of truth and encouragement that says we can do better.
