As young children, our first experience with good and evil begins with fairy tales.

Good fights against evil and wins, as good is God-given.
Fairy tales by Tumanian, Andersen and others breed us with love, beauty, justice and compassion.

"Once upon a time, there lived a king and a queen. They were walking in the woods.Then they got lost and didn't know what to do. Then an old lady came up to them and said, "Where are you going?" "To get some bread for a party at the castle," they said. The old lady gave them some bread and showed them how to get back to the castle. Everyone went to the party and had fun." -- Lost in the Woods by Joey Taylor

We grow and our experiences mature as we read more complex books.

We learn the good does not always win; sometimes evil gets the upper hand.

"One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us; machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains--and one of them, the little servant, the sad- eyed angel. The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him. This time the [head of the camp] refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him. The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses. "Long live liberty!" cried the two adults. But the child was silent. "Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked. Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting. "Bare your heads!" yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping. "Cover your heads!" Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. but the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive...For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "Where is God now?" And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is He? Here He is--He is hanging here on this gallows." That night the soup tasted [like] corpses." -- Night by Elie Wiesel

I was thinking about these things when I read the parable of the weeds among the wheat which always screamed judgment to me. I think that's because in Jesus' explanation of the parable he says, "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." This proved to me that at the end of the days there will be judgment on those who are evil and those who are good will be saved from the fiery depths of hell.

Yet after further reading and research. I realized that this is about judgment but not ours ... God's judgment. This means it's not our job to tell people which ones they are. We are the ones being judged and no where does it say that we are to judge others. The separation of wheat and weeds is a divine task for a divine time. When the smoke finally cleared in my head I realized that this parable really tells us that God is not doing much about the weeds at this time; God is kind of resistant to make that judgment call now, he is waiting for the end of the age. But wouldn't it be great if there were only wheat left? It would almost be a utopia. But nope, Jesus tells us that the wheat and the weeds are to grow up together. When it is time to harvest God will do the work only God can do. Until then, we have to learn to live with one another. Good and evil.

I don't personally believe in evil in the world and yet when I actually open my eyes and take in the world around me I must pause and consider the possibility. Sometimes we ask, as the man asked of Elie Wiesel, "Where is God?" What does this tell us about God? Why does God let such awful things happen to innocent people? If God would stop evil when we wanted him to though, then what is stopping him from taking me out right here and right now? What stops him from passing judgment on me when I lie, when I gossip, or when I do not honor my parents? In God's eye who is the wheat and who is the weed? In the eyes of God my own sins may be the same as the people we call evil, a weed.

I guess the good news of this parable is that God knows the difference between wheat and weeds and waits until the end of days to do anything about it. God's judgment is yet to come. Thank God.