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Sermon Index

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT

by the Reverend Phyllis L. Hubbell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 12th of March 2000

READING from

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Lenny: Tell about that place, George.

George: I just tol you, jus las night.

Lenny: Go ontell gain, George.

George: Well, its ten acres. Got a little winmill. Got a little shack on it, an a chicken run. Got a kitchen, orchard, cherries, apples, peaches, cots, nuts, got a few berries. Theys a place for alfalfa and plenty water to flood it. Theys a pig pen

Lenny: An rabbits, George.

George: No place for rabbits, now, but I could easy build a few hutches and you could feed alfalfa to the rabbits.

Lenny: Damn right, I could. You God damn right I could.

George: An we could have a few pigs. I could build a smokehouse like the one granpa had, an when we kill a pig we can smoke the bacon and the hams, and make sausage an all like that. An when the salmon run up river we could catch a hundred of em and salt em down or smoke em. . . . Maybe wed have a cow or a goat, and the cream is so God damn thick you got to cut it with a knife and take it out with a spoon?

Lenny: We could live offa the fatta the lan. . . .

George: Ever six weeks or so, them does would throw a litter so wed have plenty rabbits to eat and to sell. An wed keep a few pigeons to go flyin around the winmill like they done when I was a kid. An itd be our own. And nobody could can us. If we dont like a guy we can say, get the hell out, and by God hes got to do it. An if a fren come along, why wed have an extra bunk, and wed say, Why dont you spen the night? And by God he would. Wed have a setter dog and a couple stripe cats, but you gotta watch out them cats dont get the little rabbits.

Lenny: You jus let em try to get the rabbits. Ill break their God damn necks. Ill. . .Ill smash em with a stick.

In his book Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck tells the story of two men. Lenny is huge, sweet, but not very bright. He always gets into trouble because he doesn't realize his own strength. His buddy, George, has known Lenny all his life and has taken him under his wing. The two of them move from place to place, finding what work they can, at low wages, moving on when Lenny gets into trouble. The two dream of having a little farm all their own someday, where no one will boss them, no one will bother them, and Lenny can take care of his beloved animals.

Early in the book, George talks about how he developed protective feelings towards Lenny:

"Funny," said George, "I used to have a hell of a lot of fun with 'im. Used to play jokes on 'im 'cause he was too dumb to take care of 'imself. But he was too dumb even to know he had a joke played on him. I had fun. Made me seem God damn smart alongside of him. Why he'd do any damn thin I tol' him. If I tol' him to walk over a cliff, over he'd go Tell you what made me stop that. One day a bunch of guys was standin' around up on the Sacramento River. I was feelin' pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says, "Jump in." An' he jumps. Couldn't swim a stroke. He damn near drowned before we could get him. An' he was so damn nice to me for pullin' him out. Clean forgot I told him to jump in. Well, I ain't done nothing like that no more."

What makes a basically decent guy like George think it's fun to pick on someone whose intelligence is so borderline he doesn't know when he's being taunted? How does evil happen? We speak often of societal evils. But what makes us as individuals do things we know are wrong? Why do good people do bad things?

Many of the characters in Steinbeck's story do things that hurt others. But today I want to focus on Lenny's story because I think it is much like a lot of ours. At first, Lenny may seem different from most of us because of his low intellect and innocence. But Lenny is like most of us in that most people who know him well would say that he was a good person. A good person who did hurtful things. I want to explore the potential for evil that lurks within nice people, decent people, ordinary peopleour neighbors, our friends, ourselves.

We look so proper to the person in the pew seated next to us. But we all hold secrets. The times we have been cruel to our parents, our spouses, our children. The times we have been dishonest on our jobs, on our tax returns. The times we have broken promises, lied, stolen, cheated, committed adultery, belittled, threatened, perhaps even molested or struck someone.

Every year, our colleagues in the ministry tell us some new story. All of us know men and women who make vicious personal attacks on others in the church. Almost all of us have a story of a parishioner, or for that matter a minister, who forced himself on women in the church, or worse

yet, on children. Less frequently, there are stories of parishioners, or ministers, running off with

church funds, but that too happens. These examples do not begin to acknowledge what goes on

inside our homes, on our jobs.

We all have the potential for choosing to do good. But we all fall short of the values we hold for ourselves. All of us sometime or other in our lives do or fail to do something that leaves permanent scars. Ironically, those same actions often harm ourselves as well. I sometimes think people divorce as much because they no longer like themselves for how they are behaving as out of anger at their partners. We don't like ourselves when we don't live up to our own standards. We know that we should be kind to one another. We know that we should be honest. Generous. When we fail to be what we want to be we are ashamed, defensive. We don't want anyone to know. We try to justify ourselves. Or we try to forget what we have done. But the memory burns inside us. We cannot hide from ourselves.

George knew that what he was doing was wrong. One day he went too far. He is ashamed. He never does it again. But why did George tease Lenny in the first place? Because "it made me look ... smart alongside of him."

Why don't we do the things we want to do? hy do we do the things we would not do? Perhaps things we have promised ourselves we would not do again? We go home and swear that this time we will not lose our temper, will not shout, will not strike out. We promise ourselves that we will never again drink, use drugs. We vow that we will end our relationship with a married man. We plan to repay money we have taken that has not yet been discovered. Yet something stops us. As Flip Wilson used to say, "The Devil makes us do it."

Poor innocent Lenny. Not a mean bone in him. Yet he kills mice because he wants to pet them. They are too puny to withstand his caress. He kills a puppy he loves when he plays with him too roughly. A lonely woman discovers him in the barn with the dogs and starts a conversation. George has told Lenny to stay away from her. She's trouble. But George is lonely too. He tells her yearningly of how he likes to pet soft thingspet mice, rabbits, velvet. She tells him that she

can understand that. She sometimes just sits and strokes her own hair because it's so soft. She

offers to let him feel it. But when he starts to muss it up she tells him to stop. He only holds on

tighter. She pulls away and starts screaming. Lenny panics. George will find out. "Please don't

do that," he says. George' gonna say I done a bad thing. He ain't gonna let me tend no rabbits."

They struggle and Lenny shakes her. He means to stop her, but he doesn't mean to hurt her. But

he is too frightened and too strong. He breaks her neck and she dies.

George believed that Lenny did not have a mean bone in his body. But still Lenny killed. Lenny didn't intend to kill the woman. But he did intend to force her to stop screaming. He did intend to avoid getting caught. He did exactly those things that had gotten him in trouble before. Things he had promised George and himself he would not do.

Why do we do the very things we vow we will not do? We've been studying Buddhism in our comparative religion class. The Buddha explains it this way: Life consists of suffering. We become attached to people, to objects, to status. Lenny wanted to tend rabbits. George wanted to feel more intelligent than someone else. We want success, sex, love, a corner office, a two-car garage, respect. We are attracted to someone. We cannot eat or drink without thinking of them. How can we stop trying to see them? We have a nice home, a new car, vacations every year. But our child gets sick and the insurance won't cover the bills. What would people think if we went bankrupt? What would people think if we sold the house, sold the car, stayed home? How can we not do whatever it takes to maintain life just the way it is? Our husband is weak. He has lost his job and seems unable to look for work. Our friends think we are a fool for staying with him. How can we prevent ourselves from berating him, belittling him? I don't think that Buddhism suggests we should stay with someone who is abusing usjust that if we are not attached, we can not let our inner self be destroyed in the process.

Sometimes our wants become so great that obsession takes over and instinct rules. It is too painful to let go of our desire. It, whatever it is, clutches at our hearts. We are unwilling to suffer, unwilling to let go, unwilling to get caught. Carl Jung says that "[n]eurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering." We try to avoid pain. Sometimes we go too far. We delude ourselves into thinking that we do not have to suffer. But our very attachments cause suffering, both for others and for ourselves. The obsession with holding on, leads us to what in religious language is called sin. Evil. Our suffering increases.

The great task of religion is letting go. There is a story I've always had trouble with. It is about a young girl in a village who got pregnant. Not wishing to shame the real father, she claimed that a monk was the child's father. Angry villagers took the child to the monastery. When the monk heard the story, he opened his arms to the child without a word and took him to raise. Some years later, the natural father confessed. The villagers again came and demanded the child back. Without a word, the monk returned the child.

Jesus told his followers that they must hate their mother and father for his sake. These are difficult lessons. I do not think that Buddha and Jesus are declaring that we should not love individuals. But that we should not become obsessed by them. That we should not place them higher than God. Than honesty and integrity. What I draw from this doctrine of nonattachment is that our life task is to learn to accept suffering, to understand that we cannot, should not, have everything we want, when we want it. Suffering is a part of life. It is painful to look incompetent. It is painful to be alone. It is painful to lower our standard of living. It is painful to be insulted. But if we accept that we are going to suffer, we can get on with what is important in our lives. If we accept that there is something more important than our little suffering, if we embrace something that transcends ourselves, Buddha would say we no longer suffer. I think I would say we no longer fear suffering. It no longer matters.

Our former sexton, Tony Young, suffers from neuropathy. He is in pain every day of his life. Yet he has chosen not to take morphine most days. He has learned to live with the pain, accept it, often, if I understand him right, not even notice it. That, I think is what the Buddha is saying. For most of us, it is a lesson that we have to learn again and again.

Lenny runs away and the ranchers roar off in pursuit. George finds Lenny in their hideout. Lenny doesn't have many choices. The woman's husband wants to kill Lenny. Even if the others stop him, Lenny faces life locked up in a prison or asylum.

When Lenny sees George, he asks him if he's mad at him. When George reassures him that he's not, Lenny asks George to talk about their farm again. George tells him to look across the river and he'll tell it so vividly that Lenny will almost be able to see it.

"We gonna get a little place," . . .He reached in his side pocket and brought out [a] gun.

"Go on," said Lennie.

George raised the gun and his hand shook, and he dropped his hand to the ground again.

"Go on," said Lennie. "How's it gonna be. We gonna get a little place."

"We'll have a cow," said George. "An we'll have maybe a pig and chickens an' down

the flat we'll have a ... little piece alfalfa "

"For the rabbits," Lennie shouted.

"For the rabbits," George repeated.

"And I get to tend the rabbits."

"An' you get to tend the rabbits."

Lennie giggled with happiness. "An' live on the fatta the lan'."

George hears the crashing of footsteps and looks down at the gun again.

"Go on, George. When we gonna do it?"

"Gonna do it soon."

"Me an' you."

″You ... an' me. Ever'body gonna be nice to you. Ain't gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from 'em."

″Lennie said, "I thought you was mad at me, George."

"No," said George. "No, Lennie. I ain't mad. I never been mad, an' I ain't now. That's a thing I want ya to know "

George shoots Lennie. Kills him to escape the fate that awaits him. Maybe Lennie finally finds that farm he and George have talked about so long.

But it is the promise of our faith that something more exists. Not a distant land where nobody ever lies or steals and rabbits rub against our ankles, but a heaven right here in the midst of our messy lives. It is a promise that all the transitory things that absorb our daily lives are illusory. They are temptations that draw us away from the truth, screens that artfully hide the divine from our eyes. We need not grasp at life. All that we could ever need or desire lies waiting for us. Not the transitory things that we think we want. But the permanent, the enduring. What is waiting for us is oneness with creation itself, all of itbirth, death, love, loss, success, failure, childhood, aging.

But it is not easy. The pull of the immediate is strong.

May we seek the permanent. And may we find it.

May it be so.