C.S. Lewis once wrote in The Abolition of Man, “For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” The temptation to comfort and idleness is present now more than ever. We have abundant resources, and in the United States at least, most everyone has far more than necessary. Indeed, this abundance has helped much in lulling us to sleep, deadening our spiritual senses and, perhaps worse, our awareness of the great desires of our heart. Engaging without discretion in our comforts serves only to draw us into a sense of meaninglessness. No wonder so many young people struggle to do just that: to live a meaningful life.
Whoever Christ is, he isn’t a man without a mission. Every moment of his life is obviously and intentionally directed toward completing his one work, the will of the Father. Such is the origin of a dynamic in the parable he tells in the Gospel today. Imagine the genuine surprise in the voice of the hardworking landowner as he approaches the idle men in the marketplace, “Why do you stand here idle all day?” Why do you waste your time? Why don’t you have work? Why are you not giving yourself to something of importance? Their reply to him is telling, “No one has hired us.” And so the good landowner does.
That’s his first gift to these men. The wage is mere justice, a requirement of the contract, even if it is the primary focus of the idle ones. The landowner understands more deeply, though, that the work itself is the real mercy and abundant blessing. Don’t miss the point here. The landowner is inviting these men to help in the landowner’s own work, something to which he has given his own life, something in which he takes great pride. Christ, too, is inviting us into his own work, and, even though our imagination is often focused on the wage—salvation, eternal life, joy—the first and foundational gift is the opportunity to share in God’s work. Could there be anything more meaningful than that?