SPEAKER_00: Have you ever looked at our world and wondered why God doesn't do something?
SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't He intervene?
SPEAKER_00: Why does He allow evil to continue?
SPEAKER_00: Turn on the news, scroll through social media, you'll see the world is troubled.
SPEAKER_00: Another war, another act of terrorism, another soldier dead, another family torn apart, another child caught in violence, another scandal here and there.
SPEAKER_00: And sooner or later every believer asks the same question.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, why don't you stop it?
SPEAKER_00: Well that's exactly the question Jesus answers in today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: A farmer plants good seed.
SPEAKER_00: But during the night, while everyone is asleep, an enemy slips into the field and sows weeds among the wheat.
SPEAKER_00: When the servants discover what has happened, they are bewithered.
SPEAKER_00: Master, didn't you sow good seed?
SPEAKER_00: Where did all these weeds come from?
SPEAKER_00: The master answers with five words that explain the entire Christian understanding of evil.
SPEAKER_00: An enemy has done this.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Jesus does not say.
SPEAKER_00: He does not say God planted the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: He does not say evil comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say good and evil are equal powers fighting one another.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: God created everything good.
SPEAKER_00: It is the corruption of what God made good.
SPEAKER_00: It is the work of an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus even names the weed.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word for weed is zizania, almost certainly referring to a weed that was called Darnell.
SPEAKER_00: Every farmer in the ancient world feared it.
SPEAKER_00: At first it looked almost identical to wheat.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't tell the difference.
SPEAKER_00: Even worse, its roots wrapped around them, around the wheat.
SPEAKER_00: You pull it up too early, and you could destroy the crop you were trying to save.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, sowing Darnell into someone else's field was such a common act of revenge that Roman law actually had to prohibit it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' listeners immediately understood what Jesus was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: But then comes the question that every one of us has asked.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want us to pull them up?
SPEAKER_00: Do you want us to pull up the weeds?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Lord, why don't you act now?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you remove evil?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you stop the violence?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you judge the wicked?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you waiting to pull up the weeds?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' answer surprises us.
SPEAKER_00: He says, No.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he lacks power, but because his wisdom is greater than ours.
SPEAKER_00: Then he gives the reason.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.
SPEAKER_00: For years, many people have misunderstood this parable.
SPEAKER_00: They think that Jesus is talking about weeds inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: He's not.
SPEAKER_00: Because later in the same chapter, Jesus explains the parable himself.
SPEAKER_00: The wheat are the children of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The weeds are the children of the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: The question is not why God allows sin to remain in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to uproot those sins immediately.
SPEAKER_00: The real question is this Why does God allow sinners to remain in a world instead of judging them immediately and taking care of the evil?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is astonishing.
SPEAKER_00: Because God gives up never gives up the possibility of conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Think about Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Before Damascus, he was hunting and persecuting Christians.
SPEAKER_00: If God had judged him too early, if he had eradicated that weed too early, there would have never been an apostle to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: Think about Saint Augustine, brilliant, restless, far from God.
SPEAKER_00: If God had judged him too early, he would have never had his great conversion.
SPEAKER_00: There would have never been a Saint Augustine.
SPEAKER_00: Think about Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Three times he denied knowing Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If Good Friday had been his final day, we would have never had the first Pope of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Every saint in heaven has this in common.
SPEAKER_00: There was a moment when God could have judged them, been hard on them, but instead he was patient.
SPEAKER_00: That's why today's reading says something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Your mastery over all things makes you lenient.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: God is patient because he is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: You see, weak people panic.
SPEAKER_00: Weak people strike back immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Weak people rush to judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Only someone completely confident of the final victory can afford to wait.
SPEAKER_00: God's patience is not weakness, it is mercy.
SPEAKER_00: But we never we must never confuse mercy with indifference.
SPEAKER_00: God's patience is not permission, it is an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: An opportunity to repent, an opportunity to forgive, an opportunity to come home.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Peter would later write, The Lord is not slow about his promise.
SPEAKER_00: He's patient with you, not wishing that any one should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what Jesus is teaching us today.
SPEAKER_00: The delay is not because God has forgotten justice, the delay is because God desires salvation for all.
SPEAKER_00: Now the gospel turns the mirror towards us.
SPEAKER_00: It is easy to look out in the world, look out into someone else's field and point out all the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: It's much harder to ask, where is God still calling me to conversion?
SPEAKER_00: Where are my weeds?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's resentment you've carried for years, a relationship that needs healing, a habit or a sin that you keep justifying, a prayer life you've been neglecting.
SPEAKER_00: The same patience God extends to the world, he extends to you.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he approves of our sins and our laziness and our habits, but because he loves us too much to give up on us.
SPEAKER_00: One day the harvest will come.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is very clear about that.
SPEAKER_00: Justice will come, judgment will come, but today, today we still have an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Today is a day of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Today heaven is still searching for prodigal sons.
SPEAKER_00: Today's grace is still changing lives.
SPEAKER_00: Today's saints are still in the process, still being made.
SPEAKER_00: In a few moments we will come to this altar, not because we've already become saints, but because we're practicing Catholics, saints in the making.
SPEAKER_00: Here Christ feeds us with his own body and blood.
SPEAKER_00: Here the divine farmer continues his work.
SPEAKER_00: Here grace does what human efforts never can.
SPEAKER_00: So never mistake God's patience for God's absence.
SPEAKER_00: He is working, even when you cannot see it.
SPEAKER_00: He continues to call even when people resist him.
SPEAKER_00: He's cultivating a harvest far greater than we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: The only question is whether we will allow his grace to transform us.
SPEAKER_00: And if we do, then one day those words of Jesus will no longer be a promise.
SPEAKER_00: They will be our reality.
SPEAKER_00: This beautiful reality where Jesus says, Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
SPEAKER_00: Be a good seed, trust in the Lord, and all will come to fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.