24th Sunday after Pentecost (5th Sunday after Epiphany readings)7.11.10 Good and Evil
It is a problem for many that evil seems to flourish in the world and evildoers do not drop dead in the street, or not straight away at least. Sin seems to go unpunished for long periods of time and even never to be punished in many cases.
The real life solution is not as simple as in the movies, where in a 90 minute film the bad are punished and the good rewarded. Such rewards and punishments are always put into very visible and material categories. The bad are either killed or imprisoned; the good find wealth, marriage, promotion etc.
God’s way of resolving things works on the same principle only it needs more than 90 minutes to sort everything out. There are lots of factors we don't see or can’t understand. There are things that will need more than a lifetime to sort out.
God does hear the cry of the poor. All injustices will be set right; all evil behaviour will be dealt with; nothing is left hanging in the Kingdom of God. He knows when a sparrow falls from the sky. Nothing involving any person would escape His attention.
The psalms and other wisdom literature of the Old Testament ask repeatedly: When, O Lord, will You act? How long must we put up with these injustices? Yet the same literature also expresses humility in the face of the infinite wisdom of God (cf Job); and acknowledges that He has ways of getting what He wants.
We entrust it all to Him. It may take centuries or millennia; it does take in billions of people. Only God could sort out such complexity and He is doing so.
He lets the wheat and the tares exist side by side, not immediately separating them but promising to do so at the Last Judgment.
Why would God not remove evildoers straightaway? Because He wants them to repent, and for that to happen He has to give them time. If He removed every evildoer at the first chance we would all have been wiped out by now. He has to give a certain leeway of time so that people have time to see the wrongness of their ways and come to a new heart. And this has to be repeated for each generation, which has to learn it all over again.
What does it mean for us, trying to do the right thing in a world where there are a lot of bad and dangerous people around? We have to work and pray for the conversion of evildoers. We have to desire their conversion, not their destruction. We do not wish enemies destroyed but wish them friends.
We must avoid the temptation to compromise with evil. Surrounded by it we can relax the standards. We must oppose evil just as we do now on the euthanasia issue. But without condemning others.
We must use the time that we have to make things as good as they can be.
Time is our friend insofar as we are in a time of mercy and have the chance for conversion.
However, it is good also to pray for a shortening of the time, as we do in Advent. We don't want the time for mercy to be cut short but we do want the Lord to come.
Amidst all the things we don't understand we can see some things clearly.
It is better to be good than evil.
It is good to be good, for its own sake, and not just because it brings a reward, or evil a punishment.
The more good people around the easier it is to change the bad ones.
May the Lord keep those whom He already has and gain those He still seeks.
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