October 2, 2011
(Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost;
Proper 22A)
(From The Lectionary Page)
Stewards of Love
Cultural images are powerful things. They tell stories – stories that ever so subtly, apply meaning of some kind, to the world that created them. One of the most powerful such images in the early medieval world, was that of Fortune’s wheel.[1] In the early Middle Ages, Boethius described the seeming randomness of life’s calamities, as a wheel that continues to turn. Whether fortune has dealt a person well or not, just wait…the wheel will continue to turn. This image had such power, that virtually all surviving documents in the following five centuries either state directly or imply its value to the writer.
Sometimes it happens that two or more such cultural images contradict each other. Such opposing images contend with each other, becoming combatants for the culture’s conflicting value systems. One such image war in our time rages between images of the earth. The victor of this war will decide much about the use of technology, and about the future of human relationship with our planet.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the technology battle was fought largely on the mining front. Those opposing the growing mining industry, called upon a powerful image from antiquity, of the earth as a living being, Mother Nature. To these opponents of the mining industry and its methods, digging into the earth for metals, was like digging into your mother’s flesh, in order to obtain what she would not otherwise give you.
While mining industry didn’t exactly disappear, in the face of this image, neither did it flourish unchecked. The image had such power behind it, and it carried such moral overtone, that serious challenges to its “rightness,” remained in check for the time being.
But in 1624, Francis Bacon’s “New Atlantis” presented an image of the earth, that finally began to over-power that of the benevolent mother. The earth was now a machine. Like other machines, it serves the needs of humanity.[2] It must be adjusted and controlled, so that maximum human benefit can be achieved from it. But, to which humans’ benefit? And, what are, the needs of humanity? Who is to decide? A reminder that this image is still alive and well, can be seen in the most recent advertising campaign from IBM: “We can build a smarter planet.” Here, if the earth is a machine that God built, we can do it better. In all the places it doesn’t serve our perceived needs, it simply requires further adjusting.
This might be a good point at which to pause, and lay to rest the fear that I am going to suggest we all become Luddites for Jesus. Modern day Luddites often simply long for some idealized past, one that really never existed. The historical Luddites were actually an early 19th century group of textile workers, that were gradually losing their jobs to the sewing machine. In a very real sense, behind their rejection of industrialization, was their own interest.
This same image war continues today. Ultimately, the question that this image war presents us with is this: What is the relationship between people, and the earth on which we live? Is the earth a living being with which we interact? Is it a machine we adjust, or perhaps raw material to be spent? Well, what if, rather than choosing from the images that are handed to us, we were to ask whether any of these, properly answers the question. What other images might represent this relationship in a more useful way?
Jesus’ parable from today’s gospel has multiple layers of meaning that can be assigned to it. Following Isaiah’s use of it, the vineyard comes to represent Israel, those called into relationship with God. The wicked tenants then become the religious leaders, manipulating this relationship to serve their own purposes. But as with all good images, the application isn’t closed down by the writer. The vineyard image also recalls the garden in Eden. It becomes a picture of creation as God intended.
This parable also carries a potent image of human relationship with God’s creation. Here, the earth is neither mother nor machine. It is simply God’s gift - Not a gift to be owned, but to be cared for as God cares for it. But the relationship between tenant and vineyard, between us and creation, is described as that of steward.[3] Of course, the parable gives a negative instance of the tenants’ stewardship. But this is so, precisely because they reject the steward image! With the master’s vineyard serving only their own interest, a rather ridiculous pattern of logic is spawned. The tenants begin to act in ways that can only end up badly. The garden becomes twisted with torture and murder.
But the created mode of operation for the vineyard was that of mutuality.[4] When mutuality turns into self-seeking, the whole system fails. The vineyard and everyone in it pays the price for this failure.
To be perfectly honest, though, I struggle with the picture that Matthew paints, of God coming simply to punish the bad stewards. What if, God’s renewed presence isn’t so much about punishing, as about restoring. God’s presence renews the mutuality in the garden. What Jesus seems to ask of us, in all of this, is: Will we be part of that renewal? Our relationship with God, with God’s creation, and with each other, are inseparable. Not many Sundays ago, we heard Paul affirm this image of our relationship to each other and to our world. “The whole creation,” he wrote, “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” God’s renewal happens with us, not in spite of us. It restores to his creation, the mutual love and regard that God intended from the beginning.
When we talk about our stewardship of this community, the most basic reference is to the love, that makes the mission of Jesus on earth, visible in this place. How effectively this community makes visible the ministry of Jesus, is directly related to the care that we put into it. While today’s parable offers a negative example of this stewardship, Jesus himself, offers the positive example. Jesus’ ministry tells us that the way of mutual love within God’s creation, is worth dying for. It is his stewardship, that we participate in, that renews God’s creation.
Love is not optional in God’s economy. It is everything. St Paul confirmed this as well. “If you have all things, but have not love, you have nothing.” The secret, of our ministry as stewards of God’s love, is that this love, is highly contagious. The smallest bits of it, thrown into the world like scattered seed, like a whispered prayer or a silent tear, is a powerful thing in God’s economy.
This image of all of us as stewards of Jesus’ ministry is one of great power. And this power is not of our making. It is the transforming power of God’s love. To be created to share in, and to be stewards of this love, that is a high calling indeed. And it’s a powerful image. The world needs this image. May we all respond in love, proclaiming it, as we embody it.
Amen.
[1] See Clifford R. Backman’s The Worlds
of Medieval Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 96
[2] For more on the history of this image war,
see Carolyn Merchant’s The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the
Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers,
1980, 1989).
[3] See Douglas John Hall’s remarkable classic,
The Steward (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1990)
[4] See “Matthew 21: 33 – 45: A Pastoral
Perspective,” by Richard E. Spalding. Feasting On the Word
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) p. 144
