Volume 8, Issue 3, page 9

16

BY ARTHUR J. BURKS

Part 6. CHAPTER IV-MEASURE FOR MEASURE

A M - "The laborer" it
fia~hePdRTCIySoEuLyas you took your 'place
that morning, "is worthy of his hire."
Jesus must have said that long ago.
It sounded like Him. And it would be
just like Him at this juncture to
remind you of the words. They also
meant, you felt, that the laborer
should earn his hire. Many working
'people these days were not concerned
about earning their salaries, or wages ;
they were concerned only with making sure
they received them, with as little as
possible deducted anywhere for anything .
Many working people took the stand, quite
often openly, that they had certain rights
which none but themselves might abridge

Shortsighted ones would ruin the employe; to protect the rights.
They would kill the golden goose. Many held their jobs ,
doing little for them, because their employers dared not fire
them. They had "influence" of one kind or another, thru which,
if their "rights" were in any way abridged, they could close down
the employer 's business. That thi s I e f t
them , the workers, without employment and without income, seemed
not to occur to the workers.

Few workers in these days of conflict took joy in their work for
the sake of the work itself.

"I was a carpenter," Jesus might have said, "and I was a pretty
good one for my time. I had to be. My father Joseph was a
good carpenter and required painstaking care of me in my work as
his helper. I paid more attention to the work, some of
which endured for centuries after I departed the earth, than I
gave thought to what would be paid for it. That I did well
remains with me still, a matter of personal pride. Is it wrong
that the Son of Man should know human pride? He was human,
so he knew pride. and recalls it with ... pride 1 11
You realized that there had always been time of a morning to
spare a few moments to talk with fellow employes. Perhaps
you used ten minutes of your employei's time, doing nothing for
the employer. You caused six other employes. on the
average, to lose a like ten minutes. Therefore, you had taken an
hour of the employer's time, for which he had paid you your
usual salary. You hadn't earned that money, tho it belonged to
you by"right" because you had "spent that time" on the
premises of your employer. If you had taken the same amount of
money from your employer's pocketbook, he would have
been justified in prosecuting you, in at least firing you, for
petty theft. you'd taken the money"legally", so it wasn't theft.
Or was it? You thought back to all the time you had not earned
money, yet had been Paid money, and you felt a qualm of
conscience.

Mel

WA t h

stis

"Too late now to do anything about it," Jesus might have said,
"but you can make it up. Nothing paid to you as earnings
belongs to you unless you earn it. And if you do more work , more
diligently, than you're paid for, you are casting your
bread upon the waters, and you remember what I said about that?
It shall be returned to you not sevenfold, but seven and
seventyfold. "

But, you started thinking at Jesus, I 'm capable of better
things. I can accomplish more in some other line. I know this
job forward and backward. Doing it has become a bore. I can do it
with my eyes shut and my mind on something different.
Besides, what's spiritual about working on this job, for no
better reason than to keep my debts paid, my family housed and
fed and surrounded with normal modern comforts?

"What better reason is there? Did I not also say to render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's?"

He had indeed, and you stifled a chuckle as you thought of your
employer as "Caesar". There had been times, now that
you looked back , when your employer had thought of himse If as
Caesar.

"Caesar is anybody," went on the Associate, "to whom anything
earthly is rendered. And make no mistake about it;
you're here to -render. Your earthly work is just as important to
your immortal soul as your immortal soul is. As a matter of
simple fact, the manner of your 'rendering' has much to do with
your immortality! You can't lie down on physical jobs and
expect to be a success with spiritual ones. You can't be
dishonest with Caesar and honest with God at one and the same
time."

Did He mean, you asked, that Caesar and God were One! He meant
exactly that, you felt. Caesar was man. and master of
men. Man was a segment of the Father, by whom he received
"breath". Caesar was also a segment of the Father. Therefore,
Caesar and God, in the usual meaning of the terms, and as related
to earthly and spiritual tasks, were One and the same.

"If it were not so. would I have been a carpenter ? "

Then. you thought, nothing was earthly unless everything was.
Everything was, therefore everything was of the Father,
also. It literally "shed new light" on your earthly tasks. It
made them glow with a radiance unsuspected hitherto. Had the
Glow of Jesus hung over His carpenter work? It undoubtedly had.
That glow persisted until now, and you were aware of it as
you had never hitherto been. It had always been part of the work;
the part you had, from lack of knowing, missed.

"I was a fisherman, too, remember? And I never fished for so much
as an instant that I didn't wholly enjoy my tasks. I
was as happy in this labor as when, later, I became leader of the
fishers of men. "

Jesus had chosen His disciples. You remembered this asyour hands
did your work and most of your mind was on it. in
such concentration that you didn't even hear people speak your
name and say hello, didn't even hear your em

JUNE, 1961 The qBERREE

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