Gospel Commentary: The Harvestmaster Is Busy

By Fr. John J. Riley
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"How could a good God allow such evil to exist in the world?" Most of us have heard, and many of us have asked this question at one time or another in our lives. Wouldn’t it be better if God played a "more direct" role, or even actively intervened at times when things got bad enough?

Imagine the scene of the crime … a mugger is assaulting an old lady and pulling at her purse … when the earth suddenly opens up and swallows him into the fiery furnace, before closing back over him, leaving the relieved matron safe and secure with her purse. An army of aggressors intent on the destruction of a defenseless civilian populace on some forsaken corner of the planet, suddenly encounters 12 legions of angels that obliterate them. Little Johnny, after sticking his tongue out at the neighbor, kicking the family cat, and pulling his sister’s pig-tail, shakes his fist at his protesting mother and dries "No!" just as a bolt of lightning streaks out of a clear summer sky and reduces him to a pile of ashes.

What kind of a life would it be if we lived in the shadow of immediate and direct Divine Retribution every time we strayed from the straight and narrow? Would we be truly free, or a race of haggard slaves anxious to appease an angry God of Wrath? Could we really "love" such a Deity, or would we merely cower and scrape before His fiery Omnipotence?

God made the world good. In His Own image and likeness He formed Man, with the ability to choose good or evil. The first man and woman freely chose to know and love Evil rather than God and the world has suffered from their rebellion ever since. In Original Sin we are conceived, and the sons of daughters of Adam seek the good, but are strongly inclined towards evil. Although we would like to see evil banished from the human condition, at least the possibility of choosing evil must be open to man, or he cannot be truly free. Unfortunately, all too many choose to serve darkness rather than the Light.

In this week’s Gospel, Jesus addresses the old question of God’s apparent tolerance of evil. The Son of God comes to reap His harvest, and makes it clear that the Father is well aware of the "weeds in the wheat." But our lives are so interwoven with those about us that the "weeds" cannot be casually or even justly plucked by the Owner of the field. They must be permitted to grow as long as God allows — that they might choose to return to Him, or, to freely and finally reject His grace and mercy before embracing their eternal destiny apart from Him.

Who among us have not behaved like "weeds" at one point or another in our lives? What if "weeds" like the prostitute Magdalene, Saul the zealot, Augustine the unchaste, the prodigal Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, and the Good Thief — along with countless others — had been "plucked" before their respective conversions? The chance to repent has proven to be their salvation [and hopefully ours as well]. This is one reason that God seems to wait instead of moving more swiftly and dramatically against sinners.

And certainly God does not sit passively while evil prevails. He is Pure Actuality, sustaining the universe and all its parts and persons in existence with His Love. He is constantly perfecting His creation by grace, and has actively and definitively intervened in the world by becoming man in Jesus Christ, and by teaching, dying and rising from the dead. His Spirit-guided Church, the light to the nations, constantly brings us Truth, light and life in the sacraments.

The Harvestmaster is busy indeed. In the meantime, what can we the wheat do? We may expect to suffer at the hand of the "weeds," but we can also win them back by our prayers and sacrifices. As we grow together, as a part of God’s permissive providence, we should pray for the strength to be occasions of grace to bring about the conversion and transformation of the weeds among the wheat. Amen.

Fr. Riley is parochial vicar of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Warrenton and professor of Sacred Scripture at Christendom College Front Royal.

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