“Please take a moment to tell us how we are doing by completing the attached survey.”

We often receive such emails and text messages after visiting a doctor’s office, taking our car for service, having work done in our home, spending time on the phone with tech support, dealing with an insurance agent, or doing business with any firm that serves the public.

 

Such professionals and businesses want to know how we would evaluate their quality of service or their product. They are concerned about how many stars we would award them on Google, Yelp, or other rating services.

 

Imagine for a moment if we received a survey request that began in the usual way, “Please take a moment to tell us how we are doing by completing the attached survey.” However, imagine if the request came not from any business, but from Almighty God himself.

 

After getting over our astonishment, our immediate reaction would be to give God FIVE STARS.

 

After all, among his many acts, God created us, gave us life, blessed us with the gift of faith, revealed himself as loving Father, sent his Son to free us from the power of sin and death, gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us to live the Gospel, and made us part of the Church where we encounter him in Word and Sacrament. FIVE STARS—no question!

 

However, not everyone would agree to such a rating. We have a world where millions of people die in endless wars motivated by greed, hate, and a desire for power; where people starve and others take pills to overcome obesity; where moral codes have been replaced by personal preferences; where there is increasing polarization and suspicion; and where money, pleasure, success, and fame are seen as the path to happiness and fulfillment. In many ways, it seems the world is going in the wrong direction. Some people might conclude that God is doing a ONE STAR job in caring for this world.

 

In this Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 13:24-43), Jesus tells a parable that may give us another perspective. Jesus speaks of a man who sowed good seed in his field. At night, an enemy came and scattered weeds throughout the field. When the weeds started sprouting among the growing wheat, the man’s workers asked the owner of the field if they should pull out the weeds. The master decided to let the weeds remain, lest in pulling them out the wheat might be uprooted. At harvest time, the wheat would be saved and stored in a barn, while weeds would be collected and burned.

 

Like the owner of the field, God allows evil to sprout in our world. He permits the people he created to use their free will, even if to make bad choices that harm the beauty of the world and allow evil to grow in the human heart.

 

God waits until the harvest, the “end of the age,” to separate the bad from the good. In the meantime, we might say God puts up with a ONE STAR rating from those people not aware of his final plan.

 

© 2026 Rev. Thomas Iwanowski