1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word today comes from the Bible Lessons for today. It’s entitled, “Managing God’s Gift of the World,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Stewardship. It’s a word that brings different reactions. Maybe you hear that word and wonder, “What does it even mean?” Maybe you hear the word “stewardship” and think, “Oh no! It’s that time of year again? How far behind are we in this year’s budget? How much will we need for next year’s budget?” Or maybe you hear that word and grab your wallet to keep it safe from prying offering plates!
3. Well, here’s news for you. “Stewardship” is not all about money. Money is only part of the picture. “Stewardship” involves all of our Christian faith and life. It describes how we believe and live as God’s created, redeemed, and sanctified children in all of life. We often use the term “stewardship” to translate the Greek word oikonomia. That Greek word literally means “the management of a household or family.” The Old English word from which we get “stewardship” means the same thing. It’s what the housekeeper or the butler would do in their service to the lord of the manor. The lord of the manor owned the mansion and the whole estate. The housekeeper or the butler managed what belonged to him.
4. So it is for us Christians. Our loving triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the “lord of the manor” for the heavens and the earth and everything in them. We manage what God Himself owns. In this stewardship series we will focus not chiefly on money, but on the big picture of Managing God’s Gifts. Today, we begin with God’s gift of the world, all of His physical creation in all of its material beauty. Psalm 24 sings the glories of our heavenly King: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1).
5. In order to appreciate fully God’s gift of His world and everything in it, we need to go back to Genesis chapters 1 and 2, before the fall into sin. There we hear how God created everything—the heavens, the earth, light, dark, sea, sky, land, vegetation, fish, birds, all the animals and critters, and even us human beings—all of it, out of nothing. Only God can do that! And since He created it all, He owns it all. Then notice what our mighty, heavenly King did. He turned management of His good creation over to His human creatures. He entrusted His whole created estate to their management, or stewardship. He told Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). In Genesis 2, God explains what this means: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).
6. Subdue God’s good creation? Have dominion over heavens and earth, over land and sea, over fish, birds, and animals? Some may balk at that. Maybe you have some misgivings too. It sounds so abusive, so oppressive. It can be that, but only after Adam and Eve plunged us into sin and brought death into the world. But, in God’s good order, the words “subdue” and “have dominion over” meant nothing more than receive, guard, keep, use responsibly, manage well, take care of—that is, practice good stewardship. God wants us and all people to work and keep His world of physical, material things, both animate and inanimate. He wants us to manage it all, and manage it well.
7. It’s what we confess in the explanation of the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed, where Martin Luther instructs us: “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. . . . All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.” This is good stewardship—good management—of God’s gifts: receiving them from Him, thanking Him for them, and using them as He intends.
8. The problem is, we now live in a sinful world corrupted by death, with poor management of God’s good world. We fallen sinners routinely abuse the gift of God’s good earth. We toss our candy wrappers or our cigarette butts on the ground with an out-of-sight-out-of-mind neglect. When we repaint the living room, we may not properly dispose of the unused paint or paint thinner. We have huge companies that look for inexpensive ways to dispose of waste materials from their factories and end up polluting God’s earth with toxic sludge or smog.
9. Enter the environmental movement. They tell us we must protect the environment. We must learn to recycle. We must drive our cars less, or at least drive more fuel-efficient and cleaner cars. We must “Save the Earth!” or “Save the Whales!” or “Save the Rain Forests!” We must be more “green,” that is, aware of how our actions, our use of materials, and our disposal of materials impacts planet Earth. These can be good practices. Good management of God’s gift of the world wants to take care of the many things, creatures, and resources that God gives.
10. But, where we run into problems, is when the environmental movement turns planet Earth into a goddess to be worshiped and protected at all costs. Maybe you’ve seen the bumper sticker that says “Love your mother” right next to a picture of planet Earth—or the one that says “Walk gently on Mother Earth,” again, right next to a picture of planet Earth. The idea is that Earth—also called “Gaia”—is the goddess, and we must do homage and protect her. Good management of God’s earth, however, does not mean deifying the created order.
11. Nor does it mean exploiting the land, the sea, or their many resources, as if physical things do not matter. When we mindlessly litter, when we waste food, when we poach animals, when we flush out or bury toxic waste, we are playing God and forgetting that we are but managers of God’s good world. A manager who wastes or spurns the Master’s possessions deserves only to be fired. God’s Word gives us a completely different way of managing God’s good gift of the world and everything in it. In our Gospel, we hear how our Lord Jesus Himself respects the created order of His Father. We can even rejoice that He also uses the created order to deliver the gifts of His salvation!
12. Jesus had been teaching for 3 straight days, and the people had been gladly hearing and learning the Word of God from Him. But by that time, they were hungry. If Jesus had told them to go home to get supper, they would have fainted on the way. So, our Lord once again shows His deep compassion. He took the seven loaves and the few small fish—created things—gave thanks for them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to give to the crowd. And all 4000 people in the crowd that day ate their fill and were satisfied.
13. Our Lord Jesus Himself practices good management—of God’s material world. He uses the gifts of creation to feed and satisfy these 4000 people. “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people.” So we, God’s managers, learn to pray “that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving” (SC, explanation of the Fourth Petition). Managing God’s gift of the world means receiving His material world, in all of its many-splendored wonder, with thanksgiving and using it for our benefit and the benefit of people around us.
14. Since we don’t always do this, and since we too often neglect God’s good world, and since we may even be tempted to deify God’s good creation, we look to Jesus not only for daily bread, but also for His mercy and forgiveness—His “bread of life.” This Jesus, who fed the crowd of 4000, also came to redeem and restore us and all of God’s creation. This Jesus, “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity,” is also “true man, born of the Virgin Mary” (SC, explanation of the Second Article). This Jesus Himself had and still has “body and soul, eyes, ears, and all [His] members, [His] reason and all [His] senses” (SC, explanation of the First Article).
15. This Jesus received all these gifts of God’s created world and managed them in order to save and redeem you. His physical body was cruelly whipped. His physical head was crowned with thorns. His physical hands and feet were pierced and fixed to a cross. His voice cried out, “It is finished” (John 19:30), to proclaim you forgiven and redeemed. And, on top of all that, this Jesus rose victorious from the grave, with His physical, material body. His resurrection on the third day also becomes the first day of a new, restored creation. This Jesus even uses things of His creation to deliver His salvation directly to you: water for your Baptism, to make you His child; sound waves for you to hear His Absolution; and bread and wine in His Supper to give you forgiveness, life, and salvation.
16. Your Lord Jesus redeems you in body and soul, so that you may live once again as His faithful stewards, or managers, of His world. Let’s listen to St. Paul’s words from 1 Timothy 4:4: “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” You and I have been redeemed by Jesus Himself to care for His creation—to manage the gift of His world.
17. Instead of deifying the created order, we treat it with proper respect, because “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). Instead of wasting, we conserve. Instead of spurning physical things, we delight in all that God gives in His created order. Instead of littering or polluting, we find ways to properly and safely dispose of trash or toxic waste. Instead of abusing or poaching animals, we care for them, and, yes, even use them for food, as God has given (Genesis 9:3). We can delight in God’s good creation. By His grace, we can manage God’s gift of the whole world. Amen. The peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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