# All Things Work Together for Good - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 29 Jul 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73174673/all_things_work_together_for_good_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, may continue this weekend the
[0:03] Speaker 1: reading from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. This marvelous
[0:08] Speaker 1: chapter dedicated to the parables of Jesus. And I know
[0:11] Speaker 1: we might be tempted to look at the parables and say, well,
[0:13] Speaker 1: aren't they nice, charming stories with a little moral. That's
[0:17] Speaker 1: to be very kindescending towards them, because they do very
[0:20] Speaker 1: serious and important work. These parables. Often the deepest theology
[0:25] Speaker 1: and spirituality is being conveyed by them. The one today
[0:29] Speaker 1: I want to focus on that I think is really,
[0:32] Speaker 1: really theologically rich, and it has been thought provoking for
[0:34] Speaker 1: me for many years. This one about the traditionally called
[0:38] Speaker 1: the wheat and the tears. We'd say, the wheat and
[0:41] Speaker 1: the weeds, right. The story, you know, well, a man
[0:45] Speaker 1: sows good seed in his field, but while he's asleep,
[0:49] Speaker 1: an enemy so swedes among the wheat, and so when
[0:53] Speaker 1: the crop grows up, both appear together, and the assistance
[0:57] Speaker 1: to the man say, look, look, let's go out there,
[1:00] Speaker 1: will pull up the weeds. And he goes, no, no, no,
[1:02] Speaker 1: If you do that, you'll compromise the weed. Let both
[1:05] Speaker 1: of them grow. And then at the harvest will sort
[1:09] Speaker 1: them out. He said, okay, well that's an interesting little comparison.
[1:12] Speaker 1: What does it mean. Well, it's actually getting onto something
[1:16] Speaker 1: very deep. It seems to me, who's the one who sows, Well,
[1:20] Speaker 1: that's the good God, the creator, who does nothing but good.
[1:24] Speaker 1: Who's the one that sows the weeds? Well, Jesus himself says, well,
[1:28] Speaker 1: that's the enemy, that's the devil. Now we see something
[1:32] Speaker 1: of great importance here. We look out in our world.
[1:35] Speaker 1: What do we see? Lots of good? Of course, you know,
[1:40] Speaker 1: whatever God made is good. The whole ensemble is very good.
[1:44] Speaker 1: But you know, if our eyes are open at all,
[1:46] Speaker 1: we see along with the good, lots of evil, lots
[1:50] Speaker 1: of wickedness, lots of compromise, lots of disease and struggle
[1:55] Speaker 1: and difficulty. We see wheat, but a lot of weeds
[2:00] Speaker 1: appt around them. Well, here's the first important theological point
[2:04] Speaker 1: I think, and I've got C. S. Lewis in mind. Here,
[2:08] Speaker 1: Lewis said, it is a bit of a puzzle if
[2:11] Speaker 1: you think, okay, God made all things. God is perfectly good,
[2:15] Speaker 1: God is morally perfect. God makes the world not out
[2:18] Speaker 1: of need, not out of any desire to manipulate, but
[2:21] Speaker 1: out of sheer, generous love. Okay, if that's true, why
[2:27] Speaker 1: should there be any evil at all? The all good God,
[2:30] Speaker 1: out of radical love, makes the world of his entirety.
[2:34] Speaker 1: Why isn't the world simply wheat? Why are there these weeds?
[2:38] Speaker 1: And so this answer now becomes a very provocative one.
[2:43] Speaker 1: It's not the not the sore of the of the weed.
[2:47] Speaker 1: He's not the one responsible. There's an enemy. Now what
[2:52] Speaker 1: does Lewis conclude from this? That old story? My strike
[2:56] Speaker 1: is this fantastic mythological the old story of the War
[3:02] Speaker 1: of the angels. Are there spiritual creatures of God who
[3:06] Speaker 1: are good? Yeah, just as there are human beings who
[3:09] Speaker 1: are good, we call them saints. Are there also spiritual
[3:14] Speaker 1: creatures of God who are wicked who have fallen? Listen
[3:18] Speaker 1: the same way that we spiritual creatures fall precisely through
[3:21] Speaker 1: an abuse of freedom. Yeah, says our great tradition, the
[3:25] Speaker 1: fallen angels. Here's Lewis's insight. You can't say the wickedness
[3:31] Speaker 1: in the world, disease and death itself and everything else
[3:34] Speaker 1: comes from the all good God. You can't say that.
[3:36] Speaker 1: So where's it come from? Well, you can't just say
[3:38] Speaker 1: it's well it's matter. Matter is bad. No, we don't
[3:40] Speaker 1: think matter is bad. Whatever God makes is good. So
[3:45] Speaker 1: where does it come from? It comes, Lewis says, from
[3:49] Speaker 1: the abuse of freedom. Yeah, we can see it in
[3:52] Speaker 1: the case the abuse of our own freedom has produced
[3:55] Speaker 1: mayhem in many ways. Sure, but use that now as
[3:59] Speaker 1: a analogy. Used that extrapolate from that to the abuse
[4:06] Speaker 1: of a spiritual freedom that's had repercussions throughout all of creation.
[4:14] Speaker 1: Is some of the evil that we see in the world,
[4:16] Speaker 1: the result indeed of a kind of spiritual battle that
[4:21] Speaker 1: we're only vaguely aware of. A see wizzards due it
[4:26] Speaker 1: enables us to see something of enormous importance, that God
[4:31] Speaker 1: is the lord of the world. The devil is a creature.
[4:36] Speaker 1: Say what you want about the devil, in all of
[4:38] Speaker 1: his wickedness and power, the devil remains a creature. Therefore,
[4:42] Speaker 1: under the aegis of God, an enemy has given rise
[4:47] Speaker 1: to the negativity and evil in the world. Yeah, but
[4:51] Speaker 1: that means a spiritual creature, finally under the control of God,
[4:57] Speaker 1: doing things only with the permission of God. Now what
[5:02] Speaker 1: this holds off everybody is this very ancient heretical view.
[5:07] Speaker 1: I would associate it with ancient Zoroastrianism. I'd associate it
[5:12] Speaker 1: with ancient Gnosticism. I'd associate it with the Manicheism that
[5:16] Speaker 1: once beguiled the mind of the young Saint Augustine. I
[5:19] Speaker 1: would associate it with the Star Wars mentality that what
[5:23] Speaker 1: you see in the world is this constant battle of
[5:27] Speaker 1: coequal powers, good and evil, light and darkness, dark side
[5:33] Speaker 1: of the forest, light side of the force. And that's
[5:36] Speaker 1: just the way the world is. This conflict between good
[5:39] Speaker 1: and evil is just baked into reality, and we don't
[5:43] Speaker 1: know who's going to carry the day. That's not Biblical.
[5:48] Speaker 1: Everybody that's Zoroastrian and Gnostic and Manichean and star Wars. Yeah,
[5:54] Speaker 1: but it's not the Bible. The Bible does not hold.
[5:58] Speaker 1: The world is just this place of never ending, an
[6:02] Speaker 1: unresolvable conflict between coequal forces. No, no, no, God is. God
[6:08] Speaker 1: remains the Lord of the universe, and whatever mayhem we
[6:12] Speaker 1: see is the work ultimately of the abused freedom of
[6:17] Speaker 1: certain creatures, spiritual creatures and ourselves. You know. The good
[6:24] Speaker 1: news is this remains a divine comedy. That we have
[6:30] Speaker 1: a confidence in what God is about see and therefore
[6:35] Speaker 1: let's keep following the logic of this parable, we can
[6:37] Speaker 1: see something of great importance when the Master says, no, no,
[6:40] Speaker 1: don't tear up the weeds, because in doing so, you
[6:43] Speaker 1: could tear up the weed along with them to some degree.
[6:48] Speaker 1: Acknowledging the work of this fallen spiritual power. We can say,
[6:54] Speaker 1: perhaps God, who remains the Lord of all things, is
[6:59] Speaker 1: using even this dysfunction, even the weeds, in some way
[7:06] Speaker 1: to cultivate the wheat. And if you tear up the weeds,
[7:12] Speaker 1: the wheat will be compromised in some way. Can we
[7:15] Speaker 1: say with Saint Paul that all things work together for
[7:18] Speaker 1: the good for those who love the Lord. That we
[7:21] Speaker 1: can see that even in the wickedness of the world,
[7:24] Speaker 1: God is affecting his purpose. Now, let's think of some examples. Sir,
[7:33] Speaker 1: Saint Paul himself, the Lord gave me a thorn in
[7:38] Speaker 1: the flesh, and we don't know what that was. He
[7:41] Speaker 1: never tells us. Was it a physical suffering of some kind?
[7:45] Speaker 1: Maybe he's talking about Paul, you know, maybe a speech impediment,
[7:49] Speaker 1: maybe trouble with his vision, some other physical ailment. We
[7:54] Speaker 1: don't know. Was it a a psychological ailment? Was it,
[7:59] Speaker 1: you know, anxiety? He was a depression. Was it some
[8:01] Speaker 1: darkness in his life? We don't know, but it was
[8:05] Speaker 1: bad enough for Paul to call it a thorn in
[8:08] Speaker 1: the flesh. Imagine a thorn or nail going into your flesh.
[8:11] Speaker 1: It was something pretty annoying, pretty obnoxious. And then he says,
[8:17] Speaker 1: three times I begged the Lord to take it from me.
[8:21] Speaker 1: That means again and again and again I asked the Lord.
[8:27] Speaker 1: Mind you, everybody listen to me. Everybody can name what
[8:31] Speaker 1: that thorn in the flesh is in your life? Right,
[8:34] Speaker 1: there's something, and it's physical, it's spiritual, it's psychological. I
[8:38] Speaker 1: don't know what it is, but you begged the Lord
[8:41] Speaker 1: three times take that away from me. In terms of
[8:44] Speaker 1: this parable rip up the weeds, just get rid of them. No, no, no, no,
[8:51] Speaker 1: says the Lord of the harvest. Let the wheat and
[8:54] Speaker 1: the weeds grow together. Because in God's providence, is he
[9:00] Speaker 1: using even that thorn in your flesh to affect some good?
[9:07] Speaker 1: You know, maybe I've told this story before in this context,
[9:10] Speaker 1: but it always strikes me. I've read a lot of
[9:12] Speaker 1: biographies of Franklin Roosevelt, you know, arguably the greatest American president,
[9:17] Speaker 1: maybe second greatest after Lincoln Roosevelt as a young man.
[9:22] Speaker 1: I mean, the guy, he's had it all. He was
[9:24] Speaker 1: good looking, he was well educated, he was rich, he
[9:27] Speaker 1: was charming by all accounts. He had a magical name too.
[9:32] Speaker 1: By the way, so his distant cousin, Theodore had been
[9:35] Speaker 1: the president, famous popular president. So this young guy embarking
[9:39] Speaker 1: on a political career Harvard education, good looks, money, and
[9:43] Speaker 1: a magical name. Everyone looking at him said, this guy
[9:48] Speaker 1: is he's going to be president. This guy has got
[9:50] Speaker 1: a great career, and you know, that looked very promising.
[9:54] Speaker 1: And then when this young, you know, magical person is
[10:01] Speaker 1: in his high thirties, he's stricken with polio and it
[10:05] Speaker 1: devastated him. You know, he couldn't walk, and he thought,
[10:10] Speaker 1: my career's over, my life's over. Effectively, his mother famously said, oh, no,
[10:16] Speaker 1: retire from forget about. You're not going to be you know,
[10:19] Speaker 1: governor or president or anything. Retire and be a you know,
[10:23] Speaker 1: a gentleman collecting stamps or something. Well, Fdr didn't retire,
[10:29] Speaker 1: but rather he enters back into politics. And here's not
[10:32] Speaker 1: what every biographer points out. That golden child, that that child,
[10:38] Speaker 1: the promise, you know, that magical young person also was
[10:43] Speaker 1: kind of superficial, kind of self absorbed. Yeah, he wanted
[10:48] Speaker 1: to be president, but not to make anyone's life better,
[10:51] Speaker 1: but kind of to enhance his own glory. But after
[10:55] Speaker 1: the polio, he developed this very deep compassion for people
[11:01] Speaker 1: who suffer. I mean, he wasn't that acquainted with the
[11:03] Speaker 1: ordinary suffering people of the world. He was a high
[11:06] Speaker 1: you know, aristocrat. But after the polio, he entered deeply
[11:11] Speaker 1: into the pain and suffering of ordinary people, and it
[11:15] Speaker 1: made him the great statesman. He became. What if Now
[11:19] Speaker 1: here's the point, what if early on the minute he
[11:23] Speaker 1: got that polio, some of that rip that out of
[11:25] Speaker 1: his life, get rid of that. No, the weeds he
[11:30] Speaker 1: would have come up with, the weeds. Pulling the weeds
[11:34] Speaker 1: would have done great damage to what God was actually
[11:38] Speaker 1: trying to accomplish. Here's the second one. You know, you know,
[11:40] Speaker 1: these stories that emerged only in the last maybe twenty years,
[11:43] Speaker 1: when her diaries and letters became more available that the
[11:47] Speaker 1: great Mother's rees of the greatest saint of the twentieth century,
[11:50] Speaker 1: arguably you know, the Saint of Calcutta, but struggled for
[11:55] Speaker 1: about fifty years with what can only be called the
[12:00] Speaker 1: found depression, darkness, a sense of the absence of God,
[12:04] Speaker 1: of the meaninglessness of things. Mother Teresa, if you had
[12:07] Speaker 1: told me that when I was a young man, I
[12:08] Speaker 1: never believed it. What do you mean, Mother Teresa, she's
[12:11] Speaker 1: full of the Holy Spirit. Well, she was indeed full
[12:14] Speaker 1: of the Holy Spirit. But she also had this storm
[12:17] Speaker 1: in the flesh. There was also weeds wrapped around the weed.
[12:23] Speaker 1: And do you ever wonder did her compassion too, Did
[12:26] Speaker 1: her commitment to the poor come precisely from her own
[12:30] Speaker 1: wrestling with darkness? See God is the lord of creation.
[12:37] Speaker 1: We're not in a star Wars universe. God's the Lord.
[12:40] Speaker 1: An enemy has done this, yes, but see God as
[12:43] Speaker 1: a kindness says, permits evil to bring about a greater good.
[12:46] Speaker 1: That's the point of the parable. God permits evil to
[12:50] Speaker 1: bring about a greater good. Therefore, don't automatically rip all
[12:55] Speaker 1: the weeds out of your life. Watch the damage you
[12:58] Speaker 1: can do. I'll close with this. Everybody knows part of
[13:01] Speaker 1: Reinhold Neiber's famous serenity prayer. Right, Lord, grant me the
[13:06] Speaker 1: serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to
[13:10] Speaker 1: change the things I can, and the wisdom to know
[13:13] Speaker 1: the difference. Beautiful. Everyone knows that part. But you know,
[13:15] Speaker 1: here's how the rest of it goes. See, you know,
[13:19] Speaker 1: grant me the serenity to accept maybe the thorn in
[13:21] Speaker 1: the flesh that I can't change. Now listen, living one
[13:25] Speaker 1: day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time. Listen,
[13:31] Speaker 1: accepting hardship as a pathway to peace. Taking as Jesus did,
[13:38] Speaker 1: this sinful world as it is, not as I would
[13:42] Speaker 1: have it. See, take rid of get rid of all
[13:45] Speaker 1: these weeds, get rid of them, tear them up. No, no,
[13:48] Speaker 1: trusting that you will make all things right if I
[13:53] Speaker 1: surrender to your will so that I may be reasonably
[13:57] Speaker 1: happy in this life. There's such liberation, I think in
[14:01] Speaker 1: that line, everybody, am I meant to be perfectly happy
[14:04] Speaker 1: in this life? No, No, reasonably happy this life wheat
[14:11] Speaker 1: and tears. It's wheat and weeds that don't just think
[14:15] Speaker 1: you rip the weeds out. No, No, this world is
[14:17] Speaker 1: kind of a mix and supremely happy with you forever
[14:22] Speaker 1: in the next. Yes, finished this parable. Will the time
[14:26] Speaker 1: come when God, in his justice and mercy will separate
[14:31] Speaker 1: wheat and tears? Yes, Yes, in God's time, in God's way,
[14:38] Speaker 1: in the meantime, let these two grow together. You never
[14:42] Speaker 1: know what the thorn in the flesh is doing for you.
[14:47] Speaker 1: You never know how the weeds are perhaps benefiting the wheat.
[14:52] Speaker 1: And God bless you.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.