THROUGHOUT the centuries, the loving invitation and practical adaptability of the parable of the householder, recorded in the twentieth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, have guided honest seekers for the truth into a wider usefulness and more abundant life.
According to the story, the householder went into the market place in the morning to engage laborers to work in his vineyard. Again, at the third hour, and at the sixth and ninth hours, he employed others. Later in the day, upon finding others idle, he asked, "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" They replied, "Because no man hath hired us." Thereupon, they too were sent into the vineyard and were promised a just recompense for their labor. Evidently, the householder entertained no doubt that the laborers could and would accept his invitation. Nor did he doubt that their several talents would be needed in the work to be performed.
Today, as when Jesus taught the facts of life in Judea, there are those who, believing that their talents are neither needed nor desired, stand idly watching the currents of life about them. Many times they may have felt welling up in thought the aspiration to achieve and express good in one of the many avenues of human endeavor. But because they have listened to evil's arguments that their ability to demonstrate good is dependent upon some circumstance over which they believe they have no control, they accept as insurmountable an apparently limiting environment. Thus the expression of their talent seems to them thwarted, and they stand idle in the market places of life, drowsily envisioning the time when a change of locality or some other circumstance will enable them to share their good with a needy world.
