Scriptural bases: Genesis 2:15-17 & Matthew 25:14-30
I detect muttering and murmuring in the congregation. Most of it
seems to be coming from the area in the back of the sanctuary near the
public address system booth where I usually sit and is usually the source of
muttering and murmuring here. What I hear is something like, "Listen
reverend, or doctor, or professor, or whatever - you have so many titles
that you could go by - you can't preach on stewardship this morning. It's
out of season. You're at least three months premature. Why Dean Rennell
isn't anywhere near getting his stewardship campaign in gear, and Ray
Bladine doesn't have his 'STEWART SHIFF' costume out of mothballs
from last year. He's not even here today. You can't preach on stewardship
this Sunday. We're not ready for it.
So runs the usual understanding of stewardship. It is used almost
exclusively inside of churches, and it is used almost just as exclusively in
connection with annual autumns fundraising campaigns to meet the budget
for the coming year. So we have the story of two men stranded on the
proverbial desert island. One is scurrying about while the other is stretched
out, relaxed under a palm tree. The scurrier comes up to the relaxed man
and desperately shouts, "Get up and help me. We have to find food, fresh
water and firewood, and I'm having no luck at all." The relaxed man says,
"You just relax. It's stewardship season, and I'm absolutely certain that the
elders of my church will find me and bring a pledge card with them."
Just as significantly, the idea of stewardship is almost totally alien in
almost any culture in the world today, including our own. A steward was in
ancient times and into the middle ages a person who took care of the
extensive real property and other possessions of a very rich landowner.
That
was the case in our New Testament lesson, even though the word "steward"
itself is not used there.
It is rare, almost to the point of non-existence, for anyone in our, or
any other, cultures to have that much real property and other possessions.
Most of us consider ourselves blessed if we can just utilize Lou Jacobo or
Bob Daudet to do our taxes for us.
Nevertheless, stewardship, the work of a steward, in fact extends far
beyond the church and is part of our human responsibility for the world.
Indeed, while the idea of having a steward is alien to us, the obligation of
responsible stewardship of God's world must absolutely not be alien to us
humans.
Now there is an utterly mistaken notion that started to develop near
the birth of the modem ara, around 1500 A.D. that we human beings are the
absolute rulers of the earth, that the earth is ours, that God gave the earth to
us, and therefore, because it belongs to us, we can mess it up, use it up,
cripple it, destroy it, and do anything we please to it and with it.
WRONG! UTTERLY WRONG! God did not give the earth to us
humans. The point of our Old Testament lesson is that God gave us to the
earth, not the earth to us, us to the earth to "till it and keep it."
God made us
humans to be God's stewards, or to use more familiar contemporary terms,
trustees or property managers to act on behalf of God's best interest for
God's real property and other infinitely extensive other possessions, God
has appointed us humans to be God's responsible, stewards, property
managers, trustees of the earth.
How badly has the human race botched the job of being the
stewards/trustees of God's property? So badly in fact that by now we are
worse than the useless servant in our New Testament lesson who simply
buried and kept what had been entrusted to him.Part of that botching of the job is related to our attitude and
vocabulary that the earth, God's property, is our resource for us to use and
use up. Invariably when people speak of "natural resources," they/we speak
of them as things to EXPLOIT! As an eminent physicist many years ago
put it, "We must simply stop talking about and dealing in natural resources.
We must begin regarding the materials of the earth as CAPITAL ASSETS,
and anyone in business knows that you are supposed to deal with capital
assets by at least maintaining them and preferably enhancing them."
The hymn that we sang just before the sermon started is a paraphrase
of Psalm 24. We all rightly know and get our kids to memorize Psalm 23,
but we and our kids ought to know and memorize Psalm 24 as well.
"The
earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell in
it."
The earth is not ours, not a collection of natural resources, not for us to
exploit for our own selfish purposes.
In addition to the idea that we as stewards/trustees of the earth are to
attend to it and keep it up on behalf of God, its owner, an absolutely crucial
part of responsible stewardship is to enhance the owner's property and
possessions. We have not even come close to fulfilling that trusteeship
responsibility. We are deep into negative numbers on that one!
I am a collector and rememberer, not only of bad jokes, but also of
good cartoons. One of several among my favorites, though not because it is
hilariously funny, but because it is so telling, is the standard Michaelangelo
stereotyped image of God as an old man with long gray hair and beard
pointing his finger across the heavens to the globe-shaped earth. The
caption reads, "Earthlings, this is God. You have two weeks to pack up
and leave. I have a buyer for the property."
If the worthless servant of our New Testament lesson was going to be
cast into outer darkness for his failure to enhance the property of the owner,
where does that leave us who are not even maintaining it? We simply must
learn and relearn the basic concept of stewardship as the vital responsibility
of us humans to tend and keep AND ENHANCE God's property.
Stewardship is not just fundraising for our churches' budgets. It is barely
that at all. Stewardship/trusteeship is and must become for all humans with
Christians, who presumably know what God expects, taking the lead,
become our purpose and our duty in our time on earth, lest God find a buyer
for the property, lest we find ourselves with that worthless servant in the
outer darkness weeping and gnashing our teeth.