Dionysus on a Bike

Romans 3:1-8 – 7/7/2026

Good things can come out of evil situations, actions, and choices. It happens all of the time. The outcomes of our choices are often unpredictable so that an apparent mistake or even a malicious choice can turn out to bring about good results. In the same way, our best choices and most virtuous actions done with good intentions can bring about unintended negative consequences. Given our limited knowledge and power, there is often a wide gap between what we choose to do and what those choices do to the world.

There is a temptation hidden in this fact that our choices often lead to incongruous results. We can attempt to predict those incongruities and turn them to the advantage of the good by doing “evil so that good may come.” Two issues arise out of this. The first is hubris regarding our knowledge of cause and effect. We think we can game the unpredictability of the flow of becoming and arrange outcomes using strategic choices, some of which are in themselves evil. Second, choosing evil so that good may result ignores the damage that evil choices have in themselves. Causing one person to suffer so that others do not turns people into means, instead of ends in themselves. Choosing evil so that good may result is to value the good of some people over others, denying those people’s value, worth, and worthiness to have a good life as well.

The problem with all of this is that it can be hard to tell in individual circumstances what the right choice and what the evil choices are. Ethics does not have a rule book, and so we are left with the commands to love, the example of the servant in Jesus, and the worth and dignity of each human being. It’s not as though figuring out what satisfies these ethical criteria is easy in a fallen world of suffering and human misery. Ethical reasoning is never going to be easy, but Paul in today’s passage of Romans teaches that we should not try to use the ethical shortcut of doing what we know to be wrong, simply to get the better outcome. A risk of faith is needed in these situations to do the good in hope that it will bring about good. From our limited perspective of knowledge and our limited capacity of power, this is the best we can do as individuals. Thankfully, how history unfolds is not up to us and does not depend on us as individuals.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 7/7/2026:
Jeremiah 28:10-17
Romans 3:1-8
Psalm 131

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis