The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



The Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A, February 27, 2011, St. Matthew’s Church McMinnville

“Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries” (1 Cor. 4:1).

“You’ve got people”: H&R Block uses this tag line to sell its tax service, or at least it did the last time I checked. The idea behind the phrase is that by outsourcing a function (in this case tax preparation) you gain from them support staff and a level of expertise that you wouldn’t otherwise have. You get “people”, in other words, loyal servants who are going to work for you and advance your interests. I’m not just picking on Block, of course, because this sort of outsourcing has become a commonplace of our global economy, with some companies’ “people” located in Mumbai or elsewhere (as anyone knows who has called customer service recently). “You’ve got people” is the slogan, but I guess I’m skeptical. The rise of the contract worker has certainly stretched our idea of what a work-relationship is, and also our notion of what a “loyal servant” of our interests might actually look like.

The Apostle Paul is appealing to an older concept of relationship in our second reading today, when he claims that Christians are “servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries” . Here we are getting into a more intimate and more authentic idea of what “having people” might be like, because here we are considering God’s People who are called to Christ’s service. God does not outsource. To be a “servant of Christ” is to take our part in his work, which he does not by outsourcing but by incorporating: that is by incorporating us into his Body the Church. God has no contract workers, because the work is not done by contract but by covenant, where God shows himself to be trustworthy in relationship and we respond in love both to him and to the world he has made. To be a loyal servant of Christ we will need to be closely related to him, as branches to a vine, as arms and legs to a body and its head. God has a People, and we are it.

Then we come to the notion of stewardship, of being a caretaker, which Paul mentions in the next breath. I know we are used to this word in the Church in connection with our treasure, but it goes much further. A “steward” is someone who is called to care for the interests of another without taking possession of them. That last bit is crucial, since we tend to be proprietary about stuff that’s really only leant to us. But a steward has this care only for a time; he holds the interests of another in trust for the well being not of himself but of another. That’s why Paul tells the Christians in Corinth, “it is required of stewards that they should be found trustworthy” (1 Cor. 4:2). A steward truly does “take care” for another, and God’s stewards in the Church are caring for what is God’s.

Servants and stewards: these are the words that Paul uses in connection with our lives as Jesus’ disciples. What this means for St. Matthew’s Church McMinnville, and for every parish and diocese in the world is that we are called to be a part of Christ’s Body the Church and to serve the world in Jesus’ name. In other words, we have a mission and ministry that we did not make up ourselves and which goes far beyond this place and this generation. He has chosen us, we have not chosen him, and his purpose goes way beyond our own.

What this means for bishop, clergy, and congregational leadership is that we are called to be good stewards, knowing that we are here for a season but that the mission and ministry goes on beyond us. We have to be found trustworthy, having this mission and ministry as our chief care. We have to make sure that the Faith is passed on because this is what has been entrusted to us. I know that you all are taking care for this through an ongoing and intentional Formation process, involving a number of members of the church, and that’s a good thing. This work that has been entrusted to the Church cannot be outsourced to someone else, but is our own work. This work cannot be done by contract but only through intimate relationship with the One who is the Source of the Church’s life, Jesus Christ himself. We are his servants and his stewards. God has “got People”, and we are it.

- The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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