Advent III – Faithful stewards of the mysteries of God

1 Corinthians 4:1-5       St Matthew 11:2-10

This is how one should regard us,
as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

We speak of this season of Advent being one full of expectation and hope.  We look with renewed attention to the coming of God into this world as an infant in a manger, we look with renewed attention at God’s coming at the end of time and final judgement, and we look with renewed attention to his coming now to us by His Word (Bible and Sacraments) and by His Spirit.

In all of these comings into the world, there is judgement.

The judgement involves the judging of our loves, as we reflected on two Sundays ago.  And last Sunday we reflected on how His coming involves the judging of our hopes (leading us to exchange our natural hopes which fade in time, for supernatural hopes which grow and are eternal).  This morning we are reminded Christ’s coming involves the judging of our faithfulness (St Paul says, it is required of stewards [of the mysteries of God] that they be found faithful).

First, a little about faith, then about faithfulness, and concluding with our hope that we will be found faithful.

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About faith:  Thomas Aquinas says that faith is this peculiar mix of knowing and unknowing – it contains “an element of perfection and an element of imperfection.  The perfection [is there] in the firmness of assent, the imperfection [is there] in the fact that no vision operates – with the result that the believer is troubled by a lingering “mental unrest”.” [Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love, p. 50]

What are these mysteries of God that we are to be faithful with?

Our faith teaches us that our souls and bodies are created in God’s image; about our fall from paradise and desire for redemption; about the birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and the promised coming again of Jesus Christ; about the forgiveness and freedom from guilt and shame that Jesus offers us; about the pouring out of His Holy Spirit, His love; and about the building up of His Church on earth and the promises of glory.  These are elements of our faith that we profess in the Creeds.  But by knowing something about them, we don’t by any means exhaust their meaning.  These things are mysteries of God – something is known, something is unknown.

This description of faith is like marriage – you make a firm assent to be with one person for life – and yet there is an element of unknowing of what will come about.  We are told beautiful things, and we see examples around us of beautiful marriages.  So you make the firm promise.  And yet there is some mental unrest in that.  And that very unrest makes one diligent to seek to make the marriage good – reading about it, speaking with each other, and with others who have more experience in marriage.

The life of faith is like this – the mental unrest between the certainty and uncertainty keeps us diligent in the path to make sure we are going in the right direction.  We keep our eyes open, ready to be challenged, reading Scripture, seeking always the advice of others, and holding fast to what we know to be true.

In the same way that we can’t know the life of marriage before being married – we can’t know the life of faith without choosing it, and then we see what happens.  It is proper that certainty and uncertainty remains.

Last week we looked at the gift of the Bible to encourage us with hope in these uncertainties.  But the Bible is not an easy book.  It speaks of a life that we do not yet know, has poetry alluding to higher things and parables that hint and work in our minds, they speak about that other kingdom, the allusive kingdom of heaven coming on earth.  Because of the hiddenness of the text and our own spiritual immaturity, the Bible on its own is insufficient.

This is why we also need human guides in our walk of faith in Jesus Christ.  We need ministers in the Church, we need one another in the Church, and the world needs the Church to witness to it, to share the mysteries of God, to the extent we do know them.

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In today’s Epistle, Paul says that he is a servant or minister of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God.  Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

What is it for us to be faithful stewards of the mysteries of God?

In the Gospel Jesus points to a foremost example for us of a faithful steward, John the Baptist.  Jesus describes something of his character.  He asks the people what motivated them to seek out John the Baptist.  Jesus is saying that they and we already know in our hearts what is a faithful steward:

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see?  A reed shaken by the wind? 

• A faithful steward will not get easily blown this way and that by the times we are living in – people are not looking for a reed but for a rock, someone steadfast – because the times are always changing but God is unchanging.

What then did you go out to see?  A man dressed in soft clothing?  Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.

• A faithful steward is not interested in worldly success or in a soft and comfortable life. A faithful steward recognizes that the kingdom of heaven comes with struggle and a certain asceticism as he or she turns away from the world’s glory to seek eternal things.

What then did you go out to see?  A prophet?  Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’

• John’s message was a call to repentance and holiness of life as a preparation for the Kingdom of heaven, as all the prophets say – there is no shortcut.
  But the :more than a prophet" aspect of his ministry included actually pointing to the only One who can lead us into true repentance and holiness of life – Jesus Christ.

We learn that John was in prison because of his call to Herod to repent for living with his brother’s wife.  We learn that if we are faithful stewards we will not always be received gratefully – John was beheaded by Herod.  We hold before our minds that Jesus Himself was crucified, and He told us we would be too, if we would follow Him faithfully.  We should be experiencing in our lives some push-back, if we are being faithful.  Are you experiencing this?

There is one other test in today’s Gospel to know if a minister is being faithful, it is in the example of the ministry of Jesus himself:

Jesus says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

The ultimate test to see if we are being faithful stewards of God’s mysteries is this: are people being liberated by our life witness and our words?  We don’t all have the spiritual gift to bring physical healing, but Jesus’ healing gifts were a pointer to His broader mission – to open all minds that are darkened to the light of truth, to enable through His Word the healing of those with crippled wills to be freed to actively love, to encourage those at the point of despair to choose life, and to share a message of hope to a world that is lost and cynical.

Are people in our midst experiencing greater flourishing because of our presence?  These are the signs of the Kingdom of God breaking into our midst.  These are signs we should be seeing here at Church of the Ascension in Hilversum and in our individual lives, in our encounters with family, friends, and strangers: our lives being noticed, our words being heard, experiencing push-back, making a difference.

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In the Epistle reading, St Paul is describing how we are not such good judges of the faithfulness of others (he was being misjudged by many in the Corinthian church) or even of ourselves – we have to live with a certain ambiguity about how faithful we are being.  But we are to know that there is a judge whose judgement is perfect, who sees hidden things and will bring them to light at the end of time.

The Prophet Daniel, in his life on earth, heard from the archangel Gabriel, the judgement of heaven of him.  Don’t we long to hear words like these:

“O Daniel, man greatly loved, …Fear not, … for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.” [Daniel 10:11-12]

Or the words Jesus uses in a parable of our final judgement – don’t we long to hear this:

‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ [St Matthew 25:23]

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We all long to be faithful stewards of the mysteries of God.

In the Liturgy we will now have the Sacrament of Christ’s death presented before us.  We have opportunity to bring before God the unfaithfulness we see in ourselves and ask for forgiveness and mercy, and we are to be reassured of this as we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We will receive His risen life.

Let us pray today that the Lord will make us more faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, and that He will send on our path, throughout our lives on earth, faithful stewards, to help guide us into His kingdom.

Amen +