People are different. Some organize their spaces so that everything stays in its place. Others are more disorganized. Or perhaps I should say differently organized? It’s not a complete lack of order, just order of a different magnitude, in which “I know it’s somewhere on the desk” is plenty good enough.

I confess that I’m more in that latter, more chaotic category. For example, I don’t just read a book and then put it away. I start reading a book, get distracted by another book that the author references, and start reading that one before I’ve finished the first. The process can repeat until I have a pile of books and notes stacking up on the desk or next to my chair. Every so often, I’ll plow through the mess and tidy things up a bit, but then the cycle of clutter starts again.

And don’t even look in our garage.

My wife isn’t like me; she likes things to be neater, tidier. We’ve been married now for well over 40 years, so we’ve moved toward each other on the order-disorder spectrum. I value neatness more than I used to, and she’s learned to tolerate my mess.

But something else has also changed in my attitude.

Every so often, each of us travels without the other. For me, it’s typically because of speaking engagements; for her, it’s visiting relatives. Whenever she’s gone and I’m on my own, the level of disorder creeps upward. Of course, I’ve always tidied up before she got home: dishes, laundry, vacuuming, whatever. I’m no dummy.

What’s changed, however, is my motivation. Earlier in our marriage, I would clean up so she wouldn’t be upset at the mess when she walked in the door. But now, I clean up because I want her to be glad she’s home; it pleases me to do what pleases her.

And that’s the spirit in which I tidy up and await her return.

When Jesus tells his disciples that destruction, war, and persecution are coming, they’re understandably anxious. They ask questions about the details, needing a bit more predictability and certainty. But Jesus’ answer to their questions, known as the Olivet Discourse (delivered on the Mount of Olives), must have been frustratingly unsatisfying. What he taught them, through a series of parables, was to faithfully do the work they’ve been given and keep watch for his return.

As suggested in the previous post, however, the quality of their watchfulness seems to matter. What separates the faithful servant from the unfaithful is not merely a matter of behavior, but of attitude. In both the Parable of the Faithful Servant (Matt 24:45-51) and the Parable of the Talents (Matt 25:14-30), for example, we see the same reward for faithfulness and the same punishment for wickedness. The servants who have faithfully seen to their responsibilities are give more responsibility, while the wicked servants are cast out into a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Pause that. The reward for work done well is more work? How is that a reward?

The Parable of the Talents, I think, gives us the clue: when each faithful servant is rewarded with more responsibility, he is invited to enter into the master’s happiness (Matt 25:21, 23). These servants, in other words, wanted what the master wanted; it pleased them to please him.

There are different ways, then, to watch for the master’s return. One is to fear the master’s return, the other is to anticipate it with joy. One is to be on the lookout because you know you’re going to get in trouble if you don’t clean up your mess. But the other is to look forward to the master’s return, to the delight in the master’s eyes when he sees what you’ve done. We can watch with wariness, or we can watch like people planning a surprise party for someone we love.

Think about the things we do — or think we’re doing! — for Jesus. Think about what we learn from these parables, from the Discourse: the reward for faithful work is more responsibility. I submit that if that sounds off to us, if what we want as a reward for our work is vacation, then our work has become untethered from our vocation. We need to recover that sense of doing what pleases the master, in a way that pleases us to do it.