“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

When we look at our world and the evil that seems to be constantly popping up like weeds in a garden, it can often become overwhelming. It can feel as though evil is winning and righteousness is getting choked out. So how do we respond? In Placement of the Decimal Matters – Part Two, we saw the response of the judgment, which moves the decimal to the right and inflates our response to evil.

Today, we consider a different response to evil, a response that is not inflated but rather deflated. This happens when we move the decimal to the left. Again, Jesus teaches us from the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13: “’Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then, I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’”

You can almost feel the relief as the workers hear that there’s another team coming later to take care of this problem. And yet, here comes the other erroneous placement of the decimal. The workers could be tempted to move the decimal to the left. They might respond to this instruction by saying, “Oh, great. We’ll just head inside then and wait till the harvesters show up.” And in so doing, these workers would stop caring for the field.

Sadly, we see this often as our response to evil. Moving the decimal to the left cheapens the value of active, daily, holy living and righteousness. It also threatens to stop the work of making disciples. This, sadly, can be the response by Christians when seeing the evil in the world. They just stop caring for the field. But notice that Jesus never told the servants to stop working in the field. He never instructed them to go into their houses and hide. He never asked them to try and hold their breath until Judgment Day.

Instead, he sent them into the fields. Isn’t that the temptation—play it safe inside, where things are comfortable? In one particular scene from Seinfeld, Elaine, who is non-religious, is starting to date Puddy, who is deeply religious. She asks him if her non-religiosity will be a problem for him. He answers, “Not for me. I’m not the one going to hell.”

In many ways, this placement of the decimal also cheapens the lives of those who are being choked out by the weeds of unrighteousness in our world. Yet God’s Word calls us to be active in our work of serving in the field. Consider Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

And here we are to be reminded of Jesus’s proper response to evaluating the field: “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and He sends us to continue caring for the field.

“Go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19) So take a moment and consider your response to the field of harvest. Do you have the decimal in the right place?

Prayer
Lord God, give us courage to remain active in the world, standing for truth and Your righteousness, while also sharing and serving in Your love. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.