Stewards of God's Mysteries

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.” Wendell Berry

In Paul's 1st letter to the people of Corinth, (who are squabbling over church leadership loyalties, legal disputes, social snobbery, and personal behavior) Paul says we are "servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries...it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy." The passage above from Wendell Berry explains just perfectly what being a good steward of God's mysteries (including Creation) looks like!

As Berry says, God loves the world, created it and us as objects of God's affection, and we must be trusted to love it and all its mysteries. The Hebrew word that is used for servant here translates as "under - rowers" as in those on the bottom deck. We who aspire to be good stewards are low on the totem pole and need not try to rise any higher, because it is there where the ballast is stored for stability, we will find that great Love ultimately brings about reconciliation and atonement with God. One might say, it is on the bottom deck where we will see and know the mysteries and how to protect them, and we will be redeemed by that Love of which we are good stewards.

And so perhaps we might go out into the world today, rejoicing in the power of God and God's mysteries and the indwelling of God's divine Love in the world...and as servants, viewing those mysteries from the bottom deck and seeing the inner and underground workings of Creation in a new and different way.

Grotto on the Amalfi coast