Who Are the Bad Guys?
August 17th, 2025 “Who Are the Bad Guys?” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Summer Sermon Series: Stump the Pastor
John 11:45-53 and James 4:1-12
Friends, we continue this morning with our summer sermon series, “Stump the Pastor” where you have submitted questions and I am offering answers. Today’s question comes from one of the children in our congregation. She asks, “What makes a person bad?”
Personally, I find this to be a really hard question to answer. What does make a person bad? Are some people bad people and some people good people? Or are we all a mixture of both? When we read books and watch movies sometimes it is easy to know who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. Bad guys do bad things. They have clear motives; they are seeking their own power and wealth. Scar from the Lion King, Ursula in the Little Mermaid, Jafar in Aladdin, these are all clearly bad guys.
But more modern kids’ movies are starting to soften on the idea of clear boundaries between good and bad. Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty used to clearly be a bad guy, but then movies came out telling her story and we realized that maybe she was the good guy, and the king was the bad guy. And the bad guy in Moana, Te Fiti turns out to be the good guy in the end. It’s all very confusing.
In our Bible stories we often think of the people who kill Jesus as the bad guys. That should be an easy one, right? Jesus was the good guy and the people who killed him are the bad guys. But unfortunately, even here the line can be hard to draw.
In our reading from the gospel of John, the leader of the religion, the high priest of the temple, Caiaphas, makes a case for killing Jesus. “It is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” What does he mean by that?
Historically, the Passover in Jerusalem was a tense political time. The majority of the Jewish people are compelled by religious custom to gather in the city for the holiday. Every time the people gather in Jerusalem, they are reminded that the nation of Israel is under Roman occupation. They are not a free state or a free people. Get everyone together, celebrating their heritage and customs, and the chance for a political uprising grows. This is why the governor, Pilate, always moves from his coastal palace to Jerusalem for the Passover. The Roman army wants to make a show of force before any of the Jews that are gathered together get any ideas.
Today we would say that Jerusalem is a powder keg, and Jesus is the match. The argument that the Pharisees present to the religious council not only makes sense, but it is also good leadership. “This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” If people see miracles, they might start thinking that Jesus is the promised Messiah. And if enough people think that Jesus is the Messiah, then it would be easy to persuade them to rise up and fight the Romans. And if the people begin to fight the Romans, then the Roman army will fight back, and the city will be crushed, and many innocent people will die.
And so, Caiaphas argues that they should just nip the problem in the bud. Kill Jesus and get him out of the way. His small band of followers will disperse quietly, and the nation can celebrate the Passover in peace. One man dies so that hundreds of others don’t. So, I ask you, who is the bad guy?
I think as much as we like to blame the religious authorities, the Pharisees, and even Caiaphas for the death of Jesus, they probably aren’t the true bad guys in this story. The bad guy in the story of Jesus is not one guy at all. Instead, it is the government and military apparatus of Empire. It’s Rome. Rome is the bad guy. An all-encompassing nation state devouring the planet around it, seeking wealth and power, conquering and keeping other nations in submission. Rome is the bad guy in the Jesus story. And the hard thing is there isn’t one person we can point to. Instead it is a force, it is a collective, it is all the things we do when we get together and lead each other astray.
In our reading from James, we find that we all have the capacity for evil within our own hearts. The author of this epistle suggests that we are at war within ourselves. We want things, lots of things, and when we don’t get them then we are tempted to evil. We want to lie to get things or cheat to get things. We want to steal to get things or even kill to get things. We have such a strong craving within our own hearts for things that this is what causes us to turn away from good and turn toward evil instead.
The author of James suggests that rather than give in to these hungers that lie within our hearts, we need to draw near to God. When we notice that grasping desire within ourselves for money or power or beauty, we need to recognize it and to draw back. Are our actions derived from places of generosity and kindness? Or are we doing things to satisfy our own internal hunger? Our behaviors come from our hearts, our minds make choices, and our actions have moral consequences. The author of James reminds us that we all have the capacity to be bad guys, if we give in to these cravings and hurt other people to get what we want.
As I said when I started this sermon, this question comes from one of the children in our church. So, I asked a lot of grown ups this week, “who are the bad guys?” and they all were ready right away to give me an answer. They had names picked out, actions that were clearly bad, people that were wrong. But I don’t think life is that clear cut. Are there bad guys and good guys? Or does it really boil down to good and bad actions? I don’t normally see bad guys in my life. But I do see a lot of good people doing bad things.
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus warns us against people in power who are using their position and influence to advance their own gain. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. Thus, you shall know them by their fruits.” Is it that easy to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are? Just watch what they do and judge those actions? Maybe.
In stories of fiction, sometimes bad guys are easy to see and watch out for. In our Bible and in real life, it’s rarely that easy. We all have a capacity to do good things in our world, and we all have a capacity to do bad things. Some people do more bad things than others. They hurt other people, they lie, they steal, when they are hungry for something they take it. By their actions we can see that they are selfish and unkind. They are not safe to trust or to be around. And I guess maybe they are the bad guys. Like Jesus says, bad fruits come from bad trees.
But a lot of times it’s not that easy. Good people have the capacity to do bad things. And people that we might think of as bad people can do good things. Sometimes we try to do something good, and it leads to something bad, like Caiaphas trying to save the nation of Israel by offering Jesus to the Romans. And sometimes people do something bad and something good happens instead. Like when Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt but then he saved the nation years later during the time of famine. Life is complicated.
So, who are the bad guys? Any of us? All of us? None of us? We know we all sin and have fallen short of what God asks for us. And we know that we are all at war with ourselves to fight the urges we have to take what we want from other people. And we know that our fruits show who we are.
In life, it has been my experience that the more I work towards kindness and generosity, the easier it is. I still war within myself, wanting things I cannot have, but I usually try to counter that by noticing all the good things that I already have from God. My heart is the only heart I know, and I know it has the capacity for both good and evil.
When I am tempted to say that someone else is a “bad guy” then I often wonder about what happens in their heart. What war is raging there? What cravings for love, or attention, or safety, or security are they fighting against that lead them to make the choices that they make? And I wonder if I was in their place if I might make the same choices myself.
Good guys and bad guys, it’s not as clear as we might hope it would be. Thankfully we worship a God of love and grace, that welcomes us all home in the end and helps us to produce good fruit in the meantime. Amen.
