Quote from Forum Archives on September 8, 2003, 12:08 pm

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

STEWARDSHIP #1/3
STEWARDSHIP OF TREASURE
September 7, 2003

Text: Ezekiel 34:25-31

Given the recent ups and downs of the stock markets, talk about deficits,
and uncertainty of worldwide economic recoveries, there’s a lot of talk
about the economy. Like a couple of fellas talking about it the other
day. "Yeah, it's making me kind of jittery,” said one. "Ya’ know, not
knowing which way it'll go and all. Does it bother you?" "Who me?”
replied his friend. “Aw, I sleep like a baby! Every two hours I wake up
and cry!"

Seems like our economies - world, national, and personal - give us plenty
to cry about. Seems like we never really get ahead. If the economy's
improving, then it's improving someplace else. Good economic news doesn't
ever seem to last long enough. It's extremely temporary. It is said that
money still talks, and I believe it: mine's always saying “good-bye.”

Whenever we talk about money and the economics of this world, we
ultimately talk about value. Do we stop to consider what makes something
valuable? Almost all the time the economy we know in this world gives
value to scarcity and benefit. Items or resources that are scarce are
given the higher value. Why is gold more valuable than granite? Because
it is a scarcer mineral and is useful in many applications. Oil prices
have go up because of greater demand and decreasing reserves. Even old
stuff we used to take for granted - butter churns and other antiques -
receive higher value because of increasing scarcity. Our world values
that which is scarce, and scarce items quickly become the treasures that
we covet, or at least desire.

When we talk about stewardship in God’s kingdom, there is another economy
to which we need to pay attention. The economy of God stands in contrast
and even contradiction to the value of scarcity. The economy of God gives
value to abundance. It is a distinction that marks one of the ways that
we are no longer conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing
of our minds. God works from abundance. God treasures abundance because
His resources cannot be exhausted. Paul was inspired to write in 1
Timothy 6:17, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be
arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to
put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our
enjoyment." The introductory chapter to storyteller Garrison Keillor’s
book, Leaving Home, reads, “Back home, our fridge was getting full in
July. We took tomatoes to church to give away, as Christ said we should
do, and arrived late and in the cloakroom we found paper sacks full of
Christian tomatoes and cucumbers. It was like heaven will be, excessive,
so much that we’ll have all we can handle, we’ll be filled. We’ll eat
creamed peas and onions, beet greens with butter, fresh carrots, and
tomatoes, and cucumbers, sliced in vinegar, and sweet corn.” (Garrison
Keillor, Leaving Home, New York: Viking, 1987, p. 16)

When we think about stewardship, we do not always keep in mind the
broader scope of stewardship. Stewardship in Christ’s Church is always
much more than money - the hard coin or pliable paper. It incorporates
our whole outlook on life. For this reason, some people with hardly any
money can be wonderful stewards. Likewise, some people with a lot of
money can be wonderful stewards. By the same token, people with a little
or a lot of money can be lousy stewards. The Greek term steward -
oikonomos - meant “an official who controls the affairs of a large
household, overseeing the service at the Master's table, directing the
household servants, and controlling the household expenses on behalf of
the master.” (Interpreter’s Dictionary, vol. 4, p. 443)

In other words, the steward is responsible for everything in the master’s
household. Finances are a part, but only a part. It's when we think only
in terms of money - of the economy of the world - that we begin to lose
vision and become myopic. We never seem to have enough and have to always
spend more on the highly valued scarce items. Like the two discussing the
stock market, we wake up every two hours and cry. So today, I want us to
reflect upon three - just three out of so many - of God's abundant
treasures: covenant, blessing, and life.

“I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild
beasts so that they may live in the desert and sleep in the forests in
safety." The people of Israel were a covenant people. The idea of
covenant was always with them. A covenant was created in the Garden, with
Noah, and during the Exodus pilgrimage. Covenant never disappeared from
the history of Israel. Covenant was always renewed whenever the nation
was exhorted to return to the worship of the living God.

Covenant is a part of who God is. God, who reveals Himself, has always
chosen to enter into relationship with His people. He walked with Adam
and Eve in the Garden; He saved Noah from the flood; He promised faithful
Abraham a nation; He released the Hebrew people from bondage. And at each
major point in Hebrew history, God made provisions through covenant.

God even bound Himself through covenant. Always, if the people returned
to God, He would not carry out His wrath. He would replace His acts of
judgment with mercy. "I will send down showers in season... I will
provide for them in a land renowned for its crops." He did this so that
His people would know Him and worship Him. "They will know that I am the
Lord… Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them... I
am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord."

Even when His people failed Him and turned from Him, God continued to
seek to save them. It was not without strife and trouble, but He always
returned with an even more encompassing covenant. God never ran out of
covenants. He never ran out of His desire to establish a saving
relationship between Himself and His creation.

We are still a covenant people. We are a people living under the eternal
covenant of Jesus Christ. As those entrusted with keeping God's covenant
failed, He chose to create the everlasting covenant through which we are
saved and given relationship with God. The magnificent beauty of God's
act is that His covenant of love did not dry up; His resources did not
wither and blow away. God’s overflowing treasure of covenant continues to
give us everlasting life. "I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

"I will bless them and the places surrounding the hill. I will send down
showers in season; I will send them showers of blessings." Along with
abundant covenant is God's abundant treasure of blessing. Like covenant,
blessings were vital in the life of the Hebrew people. It was their form
of the written will - the passing down of family possessions and
responsibilities from generation to generation. The patriarch of the
family would bless the son - usually the oldest - with the birthright,
thus signifying that he was to now take his father's place.

Everyone of us wants a blessing or to be blessed. We want our parents to
bless us when we choose our vocation or profession. We want respected
teachers and leaders to recognize us and bless our talents and abilities.
We want our employers to notice us and bless us with a raise! Anyone who
has not been blessed by another at some time has missed one of life's
most precious experiences. How much more precious whenever we are able to
receive into our soul the strength of the blessings of God!

How precious, too, are God’s blessings when we recognize that their value
is not determined by scarcity but by abundance! There are countless
pictures painted by Scripture of the overflowing cup provided by God. The
23rd Psalm: "...my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the
Lord forever." In Malachi 3:10: “‘Bring the whole tithe into the
storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,' says
the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of
heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room for
it!’” Amazing, isn’t it?

As with covenant, God’s blessings have been poured upon His people
through His triumphant victory in Jesus Christ. Who can ever possibly use
up this blessing given by Christ from the cross: "Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do!" Nothing that I can think of can possibly
have any greater value than this.

God goes on to declare His greatest treasure. “You are my sheep, the
sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the
Sovereign Lord.” The greatest of all of God's treasures is life. If it
were not so, God would have had no need to offer His covenant. It would
not have been necessary to "send down showers of blessing." "The people
will be secure... They will no longer be plundered by the nations... They
will live in safety... the sheep of my pasture, are people."

Personalize what God told His people in Israel; He wants to be our God.
God places the greatest value on the life of His people. Here the economy
of the world often places the least value. In economic circles, what is
more abundant than people? So, when we are not careful, we are treated -
and we treat others - like things. Objects to be used for another's gain.
Whenever God’s just ways are ignored, people are treated with contempt.
Those with power and prestige can easily mistreat those working for them.
If a revolution takes place where those with power are displaced, then
they are often tortured and executed. Tyrants use their own people as
only pawns to gain and maintain their power. Human history is full of
tragic examples of how cruel we can be to one another.

Contrast humanity’s attitude toward life with that of the Lord our God
who created man. He prepared a place for His creation. He "...planted a
garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom he had formed"
(Gen. 2:8). The Lord our God who made His people the recipient of His
abundant covenants and blessings came to live among this same people and
declared "...I am come that they might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly!" (John 10:10)

There is a story of a third century deacon in the church at Rome named
Lawrence. He was so effective that the congregation grew swiftly. Pagan
officials grew alarmed. They seized him to prevent further growth. They
also hoped to confiscate the huge treasures the church had reportedly
accumulated. Even though they searched diligently, the persecutors could
find no treasure. So they subjected Lawrence to torture until he revealed
where the treasure was hidden. He led his persecutors to the church the
next day, threw open the doors, pointed to the large gathering of the
poor and downtrodden members of the congregation and declared, "These are
the treasures of the church!" Filled with rage, the pagans executed
Lawrence on the spot.

Unlike the world, we are told to invest in that which is eternal: "Lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but I say lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves do not break through and steal: for where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also.“ (Matthew 6:19-21)

Understood from the framework of the economy of God, stewardship places
value on abundance. We receive God's mercy, love, and strength from His
abundant storehouse in order to minister to God’s greatest treasure -
people. When stewardship is experienced this way, we claim both the joy
and the promises expressed by Henry van Dyke as he penned this verse to
"Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee:”

Thou art giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Well-spring of the joy of living,
Ocean-depth of happy rest!
God, Creator, Christ, Redeemer
All who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the Joy Divine.

Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN

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