"My Name Is Earl"

One of today’s reading from the Lectionary for the Daily Office is taken from chapter 17 of the Book of Proverbs. Here are a few of the verses which particularly struck me this morning:

Those who mock the poor insult their Maker;

those who are glad at calamity will not go unpunished.

Evil will not depart from the house of one who returns evil for good.

I don’t know if you are in the habit of watching television. Unfortunately, I am. One of the programs that my wife and I regularly watch is “My Name Is Earl.” Earl is a ner-do-well who is in and out of prison for petty crimes. One day he wins the lottery, and decides to begin a new life where he repays all of those people whom he has hurt over the years. He has robbed people, made fun of them and done things that hindered people from becoming what they could have been.

The verses from Proverbs in the Old Testament remind me of Earl, and his quest to right the wrongs he has done to others. But Earl is trying to right the wrongs because he perceives in it a reward for himself. He calls it “karma.” (It is a concept in Hinduism which explains causality through a system where beneficial effects are derived from past beneficial actions and harmful effects from past harmful actions, creating a system of actions and reactions throughout a person's reincarnated lives.) We might know it as “what goes around, comes around.”

Christianity is different though. Ideally, Christians do good not because they seek a reward for themselves, but out of love—out of love for God and their neighbor. Christians are called to do good even to those who do evil to them.