In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the hardest questions Christians ask is, "Why does God allow evil to continue?" If Christ has conquered sin and death, why does the world still seem so full of suffering, injustice, and sorrow? Why do good and evil seem to grow together, sometimes even within the Church itself?

In today's Gospel, our Lord addresses precisely that question.

Jesus tells of a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone slept, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. When the crop began to grow, the servants were distressed. "Master," they asked, "did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?"

It is the question we still ask today.

Why illness? Why war? Why broken families? Why division even among Christians? Why do those who seek to follow Christ still struggle with temptation and sin?

Jesus' answer is simple: "An enemy has done this."

Our Lord reminds us that evil was never part of God's good creation. It is the work of the evil one, who seeks always to spoil what God has made. Yet what surprises us is not Christ's explanation, but His response.

The servants are eager to act. "Then do you want us to go and gather them?"

But the master replies, "No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest."

We want quick solutions. We long for God to remove everything that is wrong immediately. Yet His patience is greater than ours. He sees what we cannot. He knows that premature judgement may damage the very lives He longs to save.

This does not mean that God is indifferent to evil. Far from it. Jesus makes clear that there will indeed be a harvest. There will come a day when every wrong will be set right, every injustice answered, every hidden thing revealed. God's justice is certain, even if His timing is different from ours.

Until then, we live in the tension of waiting.

St Paul speaks of that waiting in today's Epistle. "The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now."

The world groans under the weight of sin. We groan as we struggle with weakness, disappointment, sickness, and grief. Even those who have received the Holy Spirit are not exempt.

But Christian groaning is not despair. Paul says we "wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

Notice that our hope is not simply that our souls will escape this world. God's promise is far greater. He intends to redeem the whole of His creation. Just as Christ was raised bodily from the dead, so too creation itself will one day share in that glorious freedom.

That hope changes how we live now. Paul begins this passage with these words: "We are debtors, not to the flesh." In other words, we are no longer bound to live according to the old way of sin and selfishness. The Spirit has made us children of God. Every day we are called to choose the life of the Spirit over the desires of the flesh. And that brings us back to the parable.

It is easy to identify the weeds out there—in society, in politics, or in those with whom we disagree.

It is much harder to acknowledge that, until God completes His work in us, wheat and weeds seem to grow side by side even within our own hearts.

We discover both generosity and selfishness.

Faith and doubt.

Patience and irritation.

Love and pride.

The Christian life is not pretending that these struggles do not exist. It is allowing the Holy Spirit, day by day, to cultivate the wheat while putting to death the weeds.

The good news is that Christ is infinitely more committed to our holiness than we are ourselves. The same Lord who patiently bears with this broken world is patiently at work within us.

His patience should never make us complacent.

Rather, it should lead us to repentance, gratitude, and renewed trust.

Every season of waiting is another opportunity for grace.

Every day is another invitation to become more like Christ.

One day the harvest will come. The struggle with sin will cease. Creation itself will be renewed. The righteous, Jesus says, "will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

Until that day, we continue to sow faithfully, to pray earnestly, to repent sincerely, and above all to hope steadfastly.

For our hope rests not in ourselves but in the One who planted the good seed, who died to redeem His field, and who will one day gather His harvest safely into His eternal kingdom.

And therefore, with St Paul, we can wait—not with fear, but with confidence—for "in this hope we were saved."

Amen.