At Work: the Steward in the Age

The rest of the previous part can easily be misunderstood. For if God gives the growth, and not I, then laziness lies in wait: let Him do it, then. But that is precisely the opposite of what the parables mean. The steward who knows that the harvest does not depend on his toil sets to work with his head held high — not anxiously, to force a result, but free and glad, because he knows for Whom he works and that no deed is lost. To leave the seed in the ground and sit down yourself is not faith; it is burying what was entrusted to you.

For he was entrusted with something. And in this part he rolls up his sleeves. The four parables that come now portray the steward at work in the long age between the two comings — and they portray four kinds of labor, each of which is laid upon every one of us. He works in the vineyard, and learns that the reward is grace and not arithmetic. He forgives his fellow servants, because he himself was released from a debt he could not have paid in 1,000 lifetimes. He distributes, brings old and new treasures out of his storeroom, and so grows from a baby who only wants to be fed into an adult who feeds others. And he trades with what was entrusted to him, puts his talents to work instead of burying them out of fear, and hears for it the word this whole book longs for: well done.

Working, forgiving, distributing, trading. It is, at bottom, one thing: to live as though it is asked of you, because it is asked of you — not to earn your salvation, which is fixed, but because the Lord returns and settles accounts, and because a joy awaits you that is too great to be lazy for. The pilgrim who lives for the city does not sit still in the inn. He is at work, with his eye on the Master who may return at any moment.

And above all this stands one warning, and it falls heaviest on the pious, comfortable believer: the sin these parables point to is almost never a coarse deed. It is a failure to act. The laborer who grumbles instead of rejoicing. The servant who does not forgive. The scribe who hoards his treasure. The servant who buries his talent. None of them did anything shameful. They left something undone. And against precisely that — against the buried gift and the unused grace — this part writes with the sharpest hand — not to beat you down, but because the Master longs to see you at work, and the "well done" is already on His lips.