weeds and wickedness

It’s a question that’s been asked a lot in my lifetime, and is being asked publicly and frequently in these past few months: why does God permit evil men and women to do what they do? Why doesn’t he just strike them down?

It’s a question that resonates because we’re trying to make sense of some bad stuff. We’re trying to understand all the stories of predation and victimization that we read. We’re trying to grasp the reality behind the images of wounded and starving children that we see. We’re struggling with the hate we hear on the airwaves. It’s just so hard to understand why people treat other people the way they do.

Today I read several parables of Jesus, in Matthew 13, and I was struck again by this confounding truth: God’s mercy and and love for his people are the reason he tolerates evil.

There’s a story Jesus told about a farmer whose field sprouted full of weeds because an enemy came in the night and strewed bad seeds in his newly planted field. His field hands wanted to pull the weeds, but the farmer said this, in verses  29-30: “‘“No,” he answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.”’”

So here’s the truth about the serial rapists and child abusers and alt-right (or alt-left) hate-mongers and greedy hoarding profiteers: God’s anger at their evil will one day see them punished. But his love for his people will delay that day until he can get all of his own safety gathered. God won’t risk the soul of one of his chosen just to rush his judgment on the wicked.

That doesn’t mean that wickedness isn’t going to cause pain. But it’s in the pain and wrestling of this world that we work out our faith. It’s in our relationships with other people that we prove our Christlikeness, especially in the face of badness. God will walk us through it, and when the time is right evil will burn.