Staying within the agricultural experience of His audience, Jesus tackles the issue of the presence of evil persons in God’s creation with His parable of the weeds among the wheat (Matthew 13:24-43).
Children of the evil one
Earlier in the parable of the sower, Jesus describes the seed sown on the path, that is the one who hears the word of God without understanding, as being snatched away by “the evil one [who] comes and steals away what was sown in His heart” (Matthew 13:19). Now it is the program of the evil one mimicking the activity of the sower that comes under scrutiny. The Son of Man is the one who sows good seed in the world in establishing the reign of God. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. But the enemy comes under cover of darkness to sow weeds among the good seed; it is the devil at work multiplying his children of darkness. Good wheat and weeds in the same field: sinners side by side with saints, a mix of goodness and evil in the world.
Some people naively think that God as the creator of this world should have arranged things better, like having all sinners eliminated early on and so maintain an evil-less universe. Some conclude that there is really no God, or that God is not really good or all-powerful. We need to understand that because God is good and omnipotent He alone conceives of humankind in His likeness with the calling to and perfection in His divine love and with the freedom that it takes. As with His angels, so with His human beings: the fundamental freedom they have to be able to love is necessarily the freedom that can also lend itself to what is contrary and evil.
The sower’s mercy and compassion
IN the reign of God where there is always the interplay between divine initiative and human free response, the end is never in doubt. Relentlessly, the will of God will be done; the completion of the work of Jesus in the eternal reign of God will come through the power of the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile people listen to or reject God’s word as they will. We will always have scammers who gleefully watch the city burn for a song, side by side with heroes who labor assiduously for the good of the many and willingly sacrifice in defiance of evil in its various forms. Our need to separate one from the other is not always possible or easy; we go by appearances and are ourselves oft tainted. God has a distinctive take on this: uprooting the weeds should not risk taking out the good as well.
Human justice is not the last instance for the good, or against evil. We are only too familiar with the inadequacies of our justice system, where the powerful can flaunt the law and where the innocent can rot in blatant injustice. We are aware that what is said among us as legal is not always truly moral and right in accord with God’s will. It must strike us according to Jesus that God does not rush to sort out the weeds from the wheat. God is aware that we all need time for growth and conversion. There is proper time for judgment. In the light of divine mercy and compassion, and amid human faltering response to God’s initiative, life on Earth is clearly better off with a second chance available.
Alálaong bagá, God’s patience with us in this life arise from His wisdom and mercy that does not give up hope on us, even as to the very end He provides the grace that can work miracles. Waiting is not inaction or helplessness, but unyielding charity to all. When people are murderously impatient with those perceived to be evil, they are evidently too sure of themselves and of their intelligence and power to the extent that they conveniently forego of the ground rules of God-given human rights and dignity. They play impatient gods instead of being true hearers of God’s word; they usually end up devoured by the mindless tiger they choose to ride—what God does not also want to happen.
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