Imagine this: It’s Christmas morning and you look under the tree to find a large trunk or chest which is filled with packages. It’s yours. You have received the whole trunk full of packages this Christmas morning but it will take hours or days or even a life time to open all of the packages.

Receiving the gift of God’s salvation through Jesus Christ is like receiving a trunk full of packages. Though God gives it as a single gift, it will take a life time and more to open all of the packages.

As you know, gifts that are free are never completely free. Junior and his bride get married and his parents give him a down payment on a house as a wedding present. Wow! What a gift! The house is his to live in and enjoy. But it is also his to pay the mortgage, to pay the taxes and to maintain and clean and to do all of the things that are necessary to take care of the house. To enjoy the gift, Junior and his bride must take care of the house. If care is not given, the house will soon fall into a state of disrepair and the joy will soon be drained from the experience.

All gifts require some kind of care. Taking care of the gift is what Christians call stewardship. Stewardship is the process of taking care of the gifts that God gives to us. To say it another way, stewardship is taking care of the blessings that God bestows upon us.

Last week, we opened a package that we called “Cosmic Companionship.” Those who receive God’s gift of salvation receive the gift of God’s companionship. We learn that Jesus spoke the truth when he said at the end of Matthew, “I am with you always.” So God is with us always. It is a gift.

Today, we are opening a package that has lots of packages within it. It is packages within packages, all of them gifts from God. It is the gift of Creation or a new vision of creation.

Salvation begins with the awareness that God loves me and that God wants me to love God back. In the bond of that love, a new spiritual wholeness, a new spiritual vitality begins to grow and that wholeness and vitality are what we call salvation.

CREATION

In that bond of love, we discover that the creation itself is a gift from the Creator. Like a painting or a novel or a symphony from an artistic master, we see the creation as a masterpiece of God’s creativity – a masterpiece that has been given to us for our full enjoyment. This masterpiece of creation is the source of our life and joy and it bears the signature of God.

NATURAL WORLD

As we open this package, we will find another package that we could call the natural world. This is the good earth that provides the necessities of life. This is the mountains and seas that stir us to wonder and awe. This is the beauty of sunrises and the mysteries of cloud formations that stir the imagination to consider the mysteries of God.  This is the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and the animals of the forest and farm that stir us to stand in reverence of all of life.

The first two chapters of Genesis make it clear that the natural world has been given to us for the sustaining and enjoyment of life itself. It is for our use but never for our abuse or misuse. In this world, driven by technological capacities never before imagined, we are required in ways, never before imagined, to take care of the natural world. We have learned that the air, the soil, the water, indeed all of nature is fragile in ways that our forbearers never had to consider.

This natural world within which we live is a gift from God that requires our care. Both as individuals and as a society, we have a responsibility to one another, to our children, and to God, to take care of this remarkable gift. It is a part of our stewardship.

SELF

As we consider the gift of God’s creation, we will soon be aware of the intensely personal nature of this mysterious gift.  Let’s put this in personal terms. I did not choose to be born. Life was given to me as a pure gift in every way independent of anything that I could have ever done. The incredibly complicated body and the even greater complexities of the mind, all have been given to me as a gift. This body and mind work together to create a distinct mix of natural talents and abilities – not a single one of which originated with me.  As I grow, I discover that whatever personality I develop is grounded in physical, psychological, familial, social and cultural realities that I neither created nor chose.  The freedom that I have to make choices and the capacity that I have to love and to be loved, all come to me as gifts through the creation of God.  It is clear and almost to marveous to behold, the simple reality of my life as a distinctive human being created in God’s own image is a gift from God; a pure gift.

There is truth in the old cliché that my life is a gift from God to me. What I do with my life is my gift to God.

So, how shall we take care of this gift of life, this gift of “myself”?  We know the needs of the physical body; proper diet, exercise, rest. The needs of the mind are no less important – engaging work to do, engagement with the best thoughts of humanity,  and problems to solve. Our emotional lives require wholesome relationships in which we give and receive love with other persons and in which we experience mutual respect and esteem.

This creation called “Self” requires our stewardship as a part of our response to God.

FAMILY

As we see our lives as gifts from God, our attention will inevitably turn to our families. If life is a gift from God, then it is a gift delivered through our parents and before them our grandparents. It is a life given, not only to each of us but given in the same way to sisters and brothers, each of whom is a gift of the creative God. And there comes a time as the cycle of life continues, when most of us become parents, or we become the adult aunts and uncles who help to nurture the next generation.

The intention of God is clear. The family has been created by God as the primary place within which we personally grow and then grow our children to maturity. Emerging from the womb as helpless and totally dependent creatures, God created the family to be the primary network of relationships within which children become “The Image of God” human beings that God intends in creation.  Knowing that God has called some to live as single persons, it is fair to say that, for most, the husband-wife relationship becomes the primary relationship for intimacy and companionship in the journey of life. When families fulfill their God-intended purposes, the family remains the network of close personal relationships that nurture us throughout the course of our lives.

If the family is a gift from God, essential first to our survival and then to our continuing maturation, the stewardship question is, how shall we take care of our families? For those who marry, how shall the marital relationship be nurtured so that intimacy, mutual respect and affection, and the enduring companionship will be enriched through the journey of life?  How shall parents attend to one another so that together they may attend to the needs of their children?  How are children called to attend to their parents with honor and respect for all the days of their lives? 

For the single person, the family network remains a critical gift from God to us. The network of parents and grandparents, siblings, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces – it is a gift from God that requires our never-ending care.

The family in all of its dimensions is a gift from God the creator and careful loving stewardship of those relationships is the only faithful response available to us.

COMMUNITY

As we look about, we see the community within which we live and realize that we were created by God to live within the human community. We look about and see that the quality of our humanity is dependent upon the effectiveness of our governments and the protections they offer. Without the means for quality education, our children will be deeply disadvantaged in their journey to become the adults that God intends. Without appropriate commerce and the ability to distribute the necessities of life, life indeed will be deprived and possibly depraved. Without appropriate police protection, we will be at the mercy of thieves and thugs and bullies of the cruelest kind. Simply put, outside the relationships of an effective and orderly community, our ability to live as “Image of God” human beings is seriously curtailed. The community within which we live is nothing other than a gift from God, created for the well being of all of God’s people. 

So what is our stewardship response to the gift of community?  Effective community never happens apart from the active participation of the citizens. Clearly, as good stewards of the gifts that God gives, the community requires the active and affirming participation of those among us who see it as an instrument of God, given for the well being of all of God’s people.  Given our different talents and abilities, we will engage our community in many different ways, but engage it we must. It is a gift of God, requiring our loving and attentive care.

GLOBAL COMMUNITY

As we look at our immediate community, our eyes cannot help but see that we are living in a global community. Our lives are clearly integrated with lives of those who live in China and India and Africa and Nicaragua, with all the peoples of this world. We read our clothing labels or the manufacturing labels on our machines or we simply watch television and realize that no part of this world is completely isolated from all the rest.

Our awareness of the intense interconnectedness is new enough that we often see it as threat rather than gift. Yet it is the way that God created this world and as we see it and participate in it, we shall learn that the diversity of this world is a gift from God for the sake of our broadened and deepened humanity. It is a way to see the creativity and wonder of God in richer and more powerful ways.

If this is so, what is our stewardship response?  John 3:17 says “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (NRSV)  We are to see this world in all of its grand diversity as a gift from God and beloved by God. It is given to each of us so that in our relationship with God, we may become the fully mature human beings that God intends.

At the very least, our stewardship will include prayers in a quest that all the world will know the justice and peace that God desires, indeed that all of the world will be saved.