The dispatches from war-torn Ukraine are devastating. Stories of children being killed and buried in mass graves and the bombing of innocent people seeking shelter in a theater reveal the presence of evil in our world. In times like these, people ask, “Where is God? Why isn’t God answering our prayers for the people of Ukraine?” Our readings this Sunday reflect similar atrocities, injustices, and oppression. They remind us, though, that God knows what we are suffering and responds. Not with a wave of a divine hand or a magic wand, but with a person. In the first reading, it is Moses. In the gospel, it is Jesus who shares a parable about a patient gardener who reveals a God always desiring to give us another chance. God is the patient gardener who seeks to cultivate the holy ground of our being so that one day in the not-too-distant future we will harvest the fruits of justice and peace.