Bishop Barron's Sunday sermon on the parable of the wheat and the weeds
Bishop Robert Barron delivers a Sunday sermon on Matthew 13 and the theological meaning of evil, suffering, and divine providence.
Summary
Bishop Barron preaches on the parable of the wheat and the weeds from Matthew 13, arguing that it addresses one of the deepest theological questions: why does evil exist in a world created by an all-good God? He contends that the parable rules out the ancient Gnostic and Manichaean view that good and evil are co-equal forces locked in permanent conflict, and instead affirms that God remains the sovereign Lord of creation while permitting evil — through the abuse of creaturely freedom — to serve a greater good. Drawing on C.S. Lewis, Saint Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Franklin Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, and Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer, he argues that suffering and hardship, rather than being obstacles to be immediately removed, are often the very means through which God shapes human character and compassion.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds
Bishop Barron: Peace be with you. Friends, we continue this weekend the reading from the 13th chapter of Matthew's Gospel — this marvelous chapter dedicated to the parables of Jesus. We might be tempted to look at the parables and say, "Well, aren't they nice, charming stories with a little moral?" That would be very condescending toward them, because they do very serious and important work. Often the deepest theology and spirituality is being conveyed by them.
The one I want to focus on today I think is really theologically rich, and it has been thought-provoking for me for many years. This is the one traditionally called the parable of the wheat and the tares — or, as we would say, the wheat and the weeds. The story you know well. A man sows good seed in his field. But while he's asleep, an enemy sows weeds among the wheat. When the crop grows up, both appear together. The assistants say, "Look, let's go out there and pull up the weeds." And he says, "No, no. If you do that, you'll compromise the wheat. Let both of them grow, and then at the harvest we'll sort them out."
You might say, "Okay, that's an interesting little comparison — what does it mean?" It's actually getting on to something very deep.
The Origin of Evil
Who is the one who sows? That's the good God, the creator, who does nothing but good. Who is the one who sows the weeds? Jesus himself says, "That's the enemy. That's the devil." We see something of great importance here. We look out at our world — what do we see? Lots of good, of course. Whatever God made is good. The whole ensemble is very good. But if our eyes are open at all, we see along with the good lots of evil, lots of wickedness, lots of compromise, lots of disease and struggle and difficulty. We see wheat, but a lot of weeds wrapped around it.
Here's a first important theological point, and I've got C.S. Lewis in mind here. Lewis said it's a bit of a puzzle. If God made all things, if God is perfectly good and morally perfect, if God makes the world not out of need or any desire to manipulate but out of sheer generous love — if all that is true, why should there be any evil at all? The all-good God out of radical love makes the world in its entirety. Why isn't the world simply wheat? Why are there these weeds?
The answer the parable gives is a very provocative one. It's not the sower of the good seed who is responsible. There's an enemy. What does Lewis conclude from this? That old story might strike us as fantastic, mythological — the old story of the war of the angels. Are there spiritual creatures of God who are good? Yes, just as there are human beings who are good, whom we call saints. Are there also spiritual creatures of God who are wicked, who have fallen — through the same abuse of freedom by which we spiritual creatures fall? Yes, says our great tradition. The fallen angels.
Here is Lewis's insight. You can't say the wickedness in the world — disease and death itself and everything else — comes from the all-good God. You can't say that. So where does it come from? You can't say it's matter, that matter is bad. No, we don't think matter is bad. Whatever God makes is good. So where does it come from? It comes, Lewis says, from the abuse of freedom. We can see it in the case of our own freedom, which has produced mayhem in many ways. But use that as an analogy — extrapolate from that to the abuse of a spiritual freedom that has had repercussions throughout all of creation. Is some of the evil we see in the world the result of a kind of spiritual battle that we are only vaguely aware of?
God Remains Lord — Not a Star Wars Universe
What this does is enable us to see something of enormous importance: that God is the Lord of the world. The devil is a creature. Say what you want about the devil and all of his wickedness and power — the devil remains a creature, and therefore under the aegis of God. An enemy has given rise to the negativity and evil in the world, yes, but that means a spiritual creature finally under the control of God, doing things only with the permission of God.
What this holds off is a very ancient heretical view. I would associate it with ancient Zoroastrianism, with ancient Gnosticism, with the Manichaeism that once beguiled the mind of the young Saint Augustine, and with the Star Wars mentality — the idea that what you see in the world is a constant battle of co-equal powers: good and evil, light and darkness, the dark side of the Force and the light side of the Force, and that's just the way the world is. This conflict between good and evil is simply baked into reality, and we don't know who's going to carry the day.
That's not biblical. It's Zoroastrian and Gnostic and Manichaean and Star Wars, yes — but it's not the Bible. The Bible does not hold that the world is just a place of never-ending and unresolvable conflict between co-equal forces. No. God is God and remains the Lord of the universe. Whatever mayhem we see is the work ultimately of the abused freedom of certain creatures — spiritual creatures and ourselves. The good news is that this remains a divine comedy. We have a confidence in what God is about.
Don't Rip Up the Weeds
Following the logic of this parable further, we can see something of great importance. When the master says, "No, don't tear up the weeds, because in doing so you could tear up the wheat along with them" — to some degree, acknowledging the work of this fallen spiritual power, we can say: perhaps God, who remains the Lord of all things, is using even this dysfunction, even the weeds, in some way to cultivate the wheat. And if you tear up the weeds, the wheat will be compromised.
Can we say with Saint Paul that all things work together for the good for those who love the Lord? That even in the wickedness of the world, God is effecting his purpose?
Think of some examples. Saint Paul himself: "The Lord gave me a thorn in the flesh." We don't know what that was — he never tells us. Was it a physical suffering of some kind? Maybe. There is talk about Paul having perhaps a speech impediment, trouble with his vision, some other physical ailment. Was it a psychological ailment — anxiety, depression, some darkness in his life? We don't know. But it was bad enough for Paul to call it a thorn in the flesh. Imagine a thorn or nail going into your flesh. It was something pretty annoying, pretty obnoxious. And then he says, "Three times I begged the Lord to take it from me." Again and again and again he asked the Lord.
Everyone can name what that thorn in the flesh is in their own life. It's something — physical, spiritual, psychological — and you've begged the Lord three times to take it away. In terms of this parable, you've asked him to rip up the weeds. Just get rid of them. And the Lord of the harvest says, "No. Let the wheat and the weeds grow together." Because in God's providence, is he using even that thorn in your flesh to effect some good?
Franklin Roosevelt and the Transformation Through Suffering
I've read a lot of biographies of Franklin Roosevelt — arguably the greatest American president, or perhaps second greatest after Lincoln. Roosevelt as a young man had it all. He was good-looking, well-educated, rich, charming by all accounts. He had a magical name — his distant cousin Theodore had been a famous and popular president. So this young man embarking on a political career, with a Harvard education, good looks, money, and a magical name, had everyone saying, "This guy is going to be president. This guy has a great career ahead of him." And it looked very promising.
Then, when this young, magical person was in his late thirties, he was stricken with polio. It devastated him. He couldn't walk. He thought his career was over, his life effectively over. His mother famously said, "Retire. You're not going to be governor or president or anything. Retire and be a gentleman — collect stamps or something."
Well, FDR didn't retire. He entered back into politics. And here is what every biographer points out: that golden child, that child of promise, that magical young person, was also kind of superficial, kind of self-absorbed. He wanted to be president, but not to make anyone's life better — rather to enhance his own glory. But after the polio, he developed a very deep compassion for people who suffer. He hadn't been acquainted with the ordinary suffering people of the world — he was a high aristocrat. But after the polio, he entered deeply into the pain and suffering of ordinary people, and it made him the great statesman he became.
What if, early on, the minute he got that polio, someone had said, "Rip that out of his life. Get rid of that"? Pulling the weeds would have done great damage to what God was actually trying to accomplish.
Mother Teresa's Fifty Years of Darkness
Here is a second example. You may know these stories that emerged only in the last twenty years or so, when her diaries and letters became more available. The great Mother Teresa — the greatest saint of the 20th century, arguably, the saint of Calcutta — struggled for about fifty years with what can only be called a profound depression: darkness, a sense of the absence of God, of the meaninglessness of things. If you had told me that when I was a young man, I would never have believed it. What do you mean, Mother Teresa? She's full of the Holy Spirit. Well, she was indeed full of the Holy Spirit, but she also had this thorn in the flesh. There were weeds wrapped around the wheat.
And do you ever wonder — did her compassion, her commitment to the poor, come precisely from her own wrestling with darkness? God is the Lord of creation. We're not in a Star Wars universe. God is Lord. An enemy has done this, yes — but God, as Aquinas says, permits evil to bring about a greater good. That is the point of the parable. God permits evil to bring about a greater good. Therefore, don't automatically rip all the weeds out of your life. Watch the damage you can do.
The Full Serenity Prayer
I'll close with this. Everyone knows part of Reinhold Niebuhr's famous Serenity Prayer: "Lord, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Beautiful. Everyone knows that part.
But here is how the rest of it goes. Grant me the serenity to accept — maybe the thorn in the flesh that I cannot change. Now listen: "Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time. Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace. Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it." See — get rid of all these weeds, tear them up. No, no. "Trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will. So that I may be reasonably happy in this life."
There is such liberation in that line. Am I meant to be perfectly happy in this life? No. Reasonably happy. This life is wheat and tares, wheat and weeds. Don't think you can just rip the weeds out. This world is a mix. "And supremely happy with you forever in the next."
Yes — finish the parable. Will the time come when God in his justice and mercy will separate wheat and tares? Yes, in God's time and God's way. In the meantime, let these two grow together. You never know what the thorn in the flesh is doing for you. You never know how the weeds are perhaps benefiting the wheat.
God bless you.