IN ALL OF US, THERE IS GOOD AND EVIL

XVI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Matthew 13:24-43

It sounds so easy and simple when we classify people as good or evil. I know where I am standing: I am good, and I am able to easily recognise the evil: those who do not look like me, don’t speak as I do and do not have the same ideas. They are a threat to me, and so they are evil and are considered as enemies that I should get rid of. Then, it is not surprising that we find people who are very outspoken in speaking of freedom and rights but become oppressive of all those who do not think like them. For instance, many people who defend the gender ideology are ready to impose their ideology through all means in the name of political correctness. This is an old attitude in which everything is black or white, without a place for grey areas. However, the reality is not like that and human beings are not like that. 

Human beings cannot be divided into totally evil or perfectly good. In all of us, there is good and evil. That is why it is very difficult to judge. This Sunday’s parable is about that. The good seed and the darnel grow together and they are so intertwined that if we try to get rid of the darnel, we will pull up the wheat as well. So Jesus advises us to be patient and to wait for the harvest time - the time of judgement when God will be able to separate the two. When we make ourselves judges of the others,  considering ourselves good, while they are evil, we end up doing evil things. All totalitarians regimes come from that. For instance, the radicals of the Islamic State go to unthinkable extremes of violence perpetrated on those whom they consider unbelievers. We are ready to condemn all those who are different or think differently from us. The Gospel advises us to leave judgement and revenge to God because he alone is able to distinguish the evil from the good and he alone is able to read into our hearts and know our motivations.

The parable can be applied as well to our political or religious situation. If we consider people as evil, just because they belong to other churches, then we are the evil ones; and if we consider people as evil, just because they belong to other tribe or another political party, then we are the evil ones, and we are the ones sowing strife and conflict in the society to which we belong.

Let us have our eyes wide open so that we can recognise the grey areas and discover the good that others do. By doing that, we will give them the motivation to do even better and we will be able to walk together and work together, building a better society and a better nation.