by Rev. Dr. Josephat Rweyemamu
Text: Psalm 24:1. The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in
it, the world, and all who live in it.
May
I start by saying that, Jesus we all call Lord and savior, did not come to save
us as human beings just for our own sake but for the sake of the entire world
that consists both living and non-living organisms. In other words, our
salvation is not just an end in itself but as the means through which all other
creations would be served, taken care of, and be sustained. The book of John 3:
16 tells us that… God so loved the world that he gave his one
and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal
life.
Apostle
John in this clearly points out that God so loved the world (cosmos) that’s why he sent his only son Jesus Christ. My
understanding is that our salvation is a clear demonstration of his love to the
world. The world doesn’t consist only of humans but it also consists other
species that God created. The text that I have read from Psalm 24:1 reminds us
that: The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and
all who live in it.
According
to the UCCP tradition, this November is Stewardship Emphasis month. I commend
the UCCP for setting aside this month in order to emphasize on this theme. In
my church- the Evangelical Lutheran in Tanzania, we don’t have this traditions
of setting aside one the month’s in the church calendar to only focus on
Stewardship. However, stewardship teachings remain one of the core pillars of
our church. In our context, when we talk
of stewardship, we mainly focus on reminding our church members to live a responsible
life through caring all that has been entrusted to them. We remind them the
importance of giving alms and offering to the church as response to what God
has done to them, what he means to them and how they can use their gifts
including material possessions to advance God’s mission/work in the church.
But what does stewardship mean? In business and in the most
simplistic terms, a steward is a manager who administers that which belongs to
someone else. If you own a business and hire administrators to oversee the
finances of that business, you have hired managers. The money they manage is
not theirs; they cannot spend it as they please. It goes without saying that
the money they manage belongs to the company, and if they misuse it, we call
that embezzlement, something we all recognize as a criminal offense.
So
what does this mean to us as Christians? That means, we as followers of Christ
(Church), we are stewards or managers of God’s creation working together with Him.
Without him we can do nothing (Jn 15:5). That is why we have the promises of Christ to
go to the world and preach the gospel to all creatures/creations (Mk 16:15).
When Jesus sent his disciples, he promises to be with them until the end of
ages (Mt 28:19-20). We are caretakers of God’s creation working for him, with
him and by being empowered by Him. For example, when we plant a tree or flowers
and take care of them. They don’t simply grow and flourish because of what we
have done, but because of what God has done through us and with us. Life in
those plants doesn’t come from us but from God.
Our
today’s text is a reminder that everything we see and all that we don’t see, but
we are aware that they exist; they didn’t simply appear miraculously but it is God
who created them. They belong to him
just as much as we belong to Him. They don’t belong to us. Even us, we don’t
belong to our own self. We have a Maker who made us who we are. That is why we
have to accept and love ourselves and appreciate how God, through his mercy and
majesty, decided to make us the way we are. We are not a mistake. We are God’s
people created by him and for him. No one owns us but God does. We even don’t
have anything that doesn’t come from him. The knowledge that we have, the
gifts, the talents, the money and all the possessions we have belong to him. We
have them because he has made it possible for us to have them. We need to
humble ourselves before God, honor him and use all that we have for his
glory. That is stewardship in a
theological sense.
Few things to emphasize
1. We are all stewards of God’s creations. I am aware of some
theologians like my colleague and friend, Prof. Lope Robin and others who consider
the term stewardship over God’s creation to be problematic. They argue that this
term elevates human being over all other creations and constitutes some
dominion aspects. With this awareness in mind, therefore, let stewardship for
us be equated with humble altitude of love and caring of all God’s creation and
seek to live in harmony with nature. Experts tell us that we need nature more than
it needs us. When I was quarantined for 14 days at Chanon Hall, I really
experienced what it means for human being staying away from nature. I would sometimes
force to go outside very late evening and smell flowers and fresh air from
trees. That would refresh my mind and enable
me to get a nice sleep afterwards. My dear students - pastors on training, one of
the things to be remained is to always seek to teach our church members to live
in harmony with all that God created. As we love and care for each other, let
us do the same to all that which God created. We can’t claim to love God while
we are abusing what God loves and created.
Most
of you know that I can from Africa. Not just Africa but particularly in Tanzania,
in the Northwestern part of the country. Before the advent of Christianity in
that part of the world more than a century ago, my ancestors were indigenous
people who believed in God in what is today know as “African Traditional
Religion”. These believed in God the almighty that they called “Ruhanga” - the
creator of all that is seen and unseen, the one who knows and sees everything,
the one who speaks and things get into existence. My ancestors used to honor and
worship him, and even offering arms and sacrifices as way of prayers and thanksgiving
following all the blessings that they received be it from farms, lakes, or from
cattle as most of their main occupation was either faming, fisheries or
pastoralists. I belong to the third
generation of Christianity in my country. My grandfather died before he was
baptized because he had three wives. When missionaries told him to choose only
one wife whom he would be wed in a so-called Christian marriage and abandon
others, he found it difficult to make such a reputable choice for he loved them
all. He would rather go without baptism
than being forced to abandon some of his wives he loved so dearly. My
grandmother was allowed for baptism.
Apart
from several researches and studies that I have made in my academic journey I
am also an eyewitness of some of the rituals that my ancestors did as a way of
honoring and worshiping God. I came to the realization that western
missionaries who introduced the gospel to Africa didn’t bring God to our
continent instead God brought them to us. These missionaries proclaimed the
name of Jesus but they used the name of God who was already known by my
ancestors – Ruhanga. Some of other ethnic groups in my country and in Africa
knew this God with various names according to their languages. These names were
not only empty names. They were names of the only one and the same God, the
creator of the universe, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Reading from stories on how my ancestors
prayed to this God, it is clear that they understood themselves as part of
nature and they are responsible not just to take care of them but also live in
harmony and to pray for them. Here I
present to you one of the prayers which was made by one man on behalf of the
household.
(My Lord Wamara (this was a major
spirit representing God through which God
could be prayed for). The greatest voice, welcome, welcome. My house poles of a thatched house. Enable me to
feast meat and grow well. Protect me from headache and spinal suffering.
Let my household remain strong as well as
my children and grand- children. Let my wife go out and come back safely.
Protect my wealth, my lizard, my rat, my snakes (my own translation) (see Mutembei Richard, Kristo us Wamara? Pp
26-27).
One might be
astonished to hear this prayer, which included not only human beings but also
many other creatures like lizards, rats and snakes! Nature plays an important
part in indigenous beliefs. Our ancestors believed that disruption of nature
and social ontological balance between the physical and metaphysical world, between
the living and the ancestors- living dead, would results into sufferings and
natural calamities. This is not different from what I learned here in the
Philippines especially when I shared a room with an indigenous chief in the Mindanao
when I was attending a two- week workshop in Midsayap, Cotabato about more than
two years ago. I learned that indigenous Filipino will never cut a tree without
seeking permission from ancestors. The living, the dead and nature are
connected - the concept of holism is very strong. Humanity is linked with land and all that are
therein. It is unfortunate that modern
life embedded in greedy, culture of consumerism and technological advancement
have tended to push us away from valuing nature and therefore sometimes we face
devastating calamities and natural disasters that include global worming and
ecological crisis because we disrupt the nature which God created. Can we draw on indigenous conceptual worldview
in enhancing our understand of stewardship of nature and creation during our
time?
Dear
students, let us teach our church members that we are not alone in this
universe. Anthropocentrism is wrong and cosmocentricism should more desirable.
Let us live as responsible beings. Caring all God’s creation. All that God
created in this universe are meant to glorify him and should be cared for and should
be used to advance the kingdom of God on earth.
2. Stewardship is about supporting
mission of the church through giving all that we have been blessed with by God. All of us have been gifted with something –
let us teach our people to give and share with what they have been blessed with
in order to advance the mission of God. No one is too poor to have nothing to
give. We can offer gifts and possessions that God has blessed us with which
don’t necessarily cost money to support the advancement of the mission of God
in the church. In Tanzania, during our stewardship teachings,
we teach our people, even children not to come to church with empty hands. They
have to bring something. After church service, all gifts that were brought to
church will be sold through auction outside the church (we normally end our church
services outside the church). Something
simple and cheap can be sold with higher price. We teach rich people to support
the church through buying with high price the simple things brought by those
who are not blessed by having money. Many people would offer in the church some
items like flowers, lemon glass, oranges, chickens and some will even offer
goats, cow etc. At the church, sometimes
one chicken might cost 3 times more of its regular value in the market. This is
how we sustain our churches in my country. Can we, even here in the Philippines,
encourage our members to give whatever they have – not necessarily money, so
that they will support the mission of God in our local churches?
3. Stewardship is about valuing life and caring each other even amidst the
pandemic.
As
we face the challenges of covid-19 pandemic, let us remember that we as church
leaders and pastors to be are called to use God given gifts to give message of
hope to people. This is time to remember, God has called us to participate in
his mission as stewards taking care of ourselves and all that He created
including the victims of economic crises resulted by covid-19 pandemic, which
due to long time lockdown, many people have lost jobs, even lives or lives of
their dependents. We are called and sent into the world to advance God’s
mission as servant of the living God. Like our Lord Jesus who clearly presented
himself to us not only as Lord and master, but also, and much more, as servant
especially when he washed legs of his disciples. So, we will be doing it right when will be
serving others as servants of all including everything that God created. Let us start where we are. Let us start with
little things. In the words of Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop
of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who said: "Do your little bit
of good where you are; it's those little bits of good
put together that overwhelm the world".
Amen.
(This sermon was delivered last November 10, 2020 during the Wednesday Chapel Service held via ZOOM for the Divinity School Koinonia.)
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