Servants of Creation – Tom Martin reflects on the call to servant care for creation.
Care for Creation Commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary
Readings for September 18-24 Year B (2024)
Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 54
James 3:13-4:2, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
This Sunday is the 4th Sunday of the newly minted Season of Creation. All pastors should make pulpit time to educate congregations about the meaning of and the potential for this new liturgical season. It is a gift to have a dedicated spiritual time to explore ministry to, and the wonders of, forests, oceans, grasslands, mountains, glaciers, creeks and streams, and all plants and animals; both endangered and prospering. The Gospel text from Mark 9 provides a beautiful opportunity to explore a basic theological foundation to our care for and love of the natural order. We know that words matter. So, what word should we use to express our ministry to creation? Stewardship or Servanthood? Mark tells us that following Jesus is a call to imitate his servant ministry. At an historical critical level Mark’s concern is our inter-human relationships, but this text can be shaped into a Season of Creation sermon by extending that servanthood to our interconnectedness with all of God’s creation. The core concept for our care for creation should be modeled on Jesus’ servanthood not the Church’s traditional concept of stewardship.
Humans have imagined life as hierarchical as far back as we have recordkeeping. Cave paintings can be interpreted as conveying a hierarchy with the hunters exercising a positionality above the hunted. Hierarchy, at least since the origins of the city state, has infected our understanding of gender relations, the place of children, the politics of “haves and have-nots,” leadership, theological conceptions of God, and our right to rule over plants and animals. Into this ingrained way of thinking and construing reality, here comes Jesus calling us to servanthood.
Our congregations have become comfortable with hearing about servant leadership in the context of human relationships, so the gospel text’s affirmation that the greatest is the servant of all will come as no surprise. This is how we should relate to one another – but fleshing it out is another thing altogether! Extending the concept of servanthood to whole ecosystems is the next chapter of salvation’s story and will likely prove as difficult to achieve as our servanthood to one another.
Aldo Leopold begins his famous promotion of the Land Ethic (Part IV of A Sand County Almanac, 1949.) with a discussion of how the circle of ethical consideration has expanded over time. Human ethical consideration has expanded from only males of one’s own group and class (infamously the total extent of Aristotle’s moral universe!) to include foreigners, women, children, slaves, the poor. Today one would normally expect an ethical argument to include all human beings as having moral value. This is why it is so disturbing to many of us to hear a political candidate refer to immigrants as animals. We need to remember that ethical concern for aliens has not always been obvious and be vigilant about protecting this expansion of ethical concern. Leopold then argues the time has come to expand ethical consideration beyond the human species to include all life and ecosystems, an idea that, unfortunately, is still often resisted.
It seems clear to me that the Church’s notion of servanthood needs a similar expansiveness in its definition. Jesus’ vision for us to be servants is not only in relationship to other people, but also in relationship to the whole of creation. This viewpoint has rarely been acknowledged in the history of the Church. St. Francis of Assisi clearly saw such expansiveness of servanthood. The Franciscan tradition has championed it, a tradition that makes us thankful for Pope Francis’ emphasis on environmental care. But advocates from Christian theological traditions are few-and-far between.
In part this has been because stewardship has been the model the church has broadly adopted for our spiritual relationship with the natural order, and stewardship language remains predominant. Many of those in the Church who care about the environment do not see a problem with using the word “stewards” when speaking of our relationship with creation. The “servants” or “stewards” debate is alive and well. The sermon for this Sunday is an opportunity to exhort your congregation to abandon stewardship as the conceptual anchor for caring for the environment and adopt the call to servanthood. (See Robin Attfield, Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 94-100. And Norman Wirzba, The Paradise of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 128-145.)
Language matters. The words we choose carry implications for attitudes and feelings that go well beyond conscious intentions. Church people intend talk of stewardship to be a positive and productive means of addressing our care for creation. But the word is freighted with a long and ancient history of managerialism. It all too easily allows us to think we are caring for God’s creation when in fact we largely focus on the efficiency and productivity of the earth – of which we are the primary beneficiaries. In practice, stewardship allows lip service to the idea of God’s ownership of creation while, since we control the rubber-hits-the-road stewardship functions, it leads to the exploitation of creation for human benefit. I find the model of stewards to be inherently hierarchical. It imagines God at the pinnacle and removed from creation while we ‘stewards’ remain above creation in an intermediary role bridging the gap between God and the created order. Notice two necessary points. One, the steward model imagines a remote God. This is exactly how Jesus relates the model to a corresponding image of God in the famous Parable of the Dishonest Steward (Luke 16:1-13). The “landlord,” or God, is somewhere else than on the land itself, or even in relationship with the tenants. Two, stewardship imagines humans in the unique role of hierarchically superior mediators. Three, we are so immersed in business models oriented to profit that without serious self-reflection we, while intending the best for creation, exploit creation for human lifestyles.
An argument can be made that the Hebrew bible carries stewardship as the scriptural model for creation care. But then we run into Jesus using not stewards as the model for loving the other, but servants. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35b NRSV)
The lectionary division of verses, linking together a passion prediction with the question of greatness, seems to want us to take Jesus’ prediction of his death as an example of servanthood. Perhaps that is a decent connection, but there are no verbal or editorial signs to let us think Mark intended the prediction to enlighten the following discussion of greatness. Certainly, Jesus death by crucifixion is not “lordly” and a sermon can build from death by crucifixion to servanthood. But I would start with the disciples’ argument about greatness.
Historically the question is prompted by their cultural setting. It is a cultural setting in which one’s place in a rigid hierarchical structure was a major focus of life. Rich, poor, middling; Roman, Greek, Jew — one spent life negotiating how to respect and honor those ranked as greater and above you in the social scale. The disciples, after all this time with Jesus, imagine his kingdom to be “politics as normal.” Some will be up in the line, some down. Which one of us gets first place! Anyone in the first century hearing this discussion would have operated with the assumption that all life, any social order, is governed by rank. God’s order cannot be different, can it?
Until Jesus says it is different! Status is not divvied out by rank, but by service. Borrowing words from Mark 10:45 at this point seems reasonable. Jesus did not come to be waited on, but to be the waiter! And it adds that the giving of his life is the final servant action of Jesus’ life. Using this verse strengthens the connection of the “who is greatest” debate to the passion prediction in Mark 9:30-32.
To make this a “creation care sermon” is to extend this servant model to our relationship with animals, plants, and ecosystems. I have always found the best means of doing this to use the concept of ‘neighbor’ from the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). In parallel with Leopold’s argument about extending ethical care beyond humans to all creation the Church has often restricted who can count as a neighbor. Many of us have heard Christians arguing that only Americans are our neighbors. Immigrants are outside Jesus’ command to love. Abhorrent! But part of our human struggle in following Jesus is that at this tension point we all need to be pushed. ALL persons are my neighbors. It is then but a short leap to affirming that all animals are neighbors, all plants are neighbors, all bacteria, and all fungi. (I think I’ve got all the “kingdoms of life” covered!)
Stewards are not necessarily connected to what they steward. Steward connotes a more transactional relationship. The servant model, by leading us down the levels of rank so as to stand equal with others, can work toward a sense of interconnectedness. Perhaps that needs to be more strongly worded. Servanthood does not produce equality with the rest of creation. It puts us below. We serve our betters. This is what “tilling and keeping” God’s garden means (Genesis 2:15). Like ancient Israelite kings our job is to nurture and cause to flourish those “below” us. This notion of servant kings I find in the story of Naboth in 1 Kings 21. King Ahab’s failure is that he failed to protect and defend a mere commoner. Ahab failed in his servant-king office. Paraphrasing C. S. Lewis from his children’s book, The Horse and His Boy, “the job of a king is to be first in attack, last in retreat, first to go hungry, first to be without shelter, first to go be cold, or suffer heat” so that those below the king are cared for, nourished and able to flourish. Our job as creation care servants is to sacrifice and suffer when needed so the creation we care for can do well. “Live simply so others can simply live” (Gandhi). Simplicity is a Christian virtue we need to reintroduce. Dusting off Richard J. Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity (New York: Harper-Collins, 1981) would do us, and all creation, a great deal of good. Stewards will tend to maximize the productivity of what is being stewarded. Servant Creation Care seeks to enhance the life of creation, even those parts that are not profitable or even useful to our species. This is an essential point made in Leopold’s Land Ethic. We must learn to assign non-monetary value to ecosystems. Even that which is noncontributory for human ecology must be given value. By us. This is what it is to “servant” rather than “steward.”
The other readings do not obviously contribute to this emphasis from the Gospel text. James 3 could tie in via verse 17. Wisdom is “peaceable.” Peace in the Hebrew sense of shalom is not the absence of violence and negativity, but the presence of the good needed to live a full and meaningful life. As servants we are to bring this peace to all living things. I would abandon the Proverbs reading for multiple reasons. The sexism inherent in its definition of a good wife is only the most obvious. The reduction of economy to an efficient, profitable household is another. Given the principles of Ecological Hermeneutics, I would judge it to be irredeemable for environmental preaching. Psalm 54, similarly, has little to contribute.
Ignoring the other texts shouldn’t harm sermon development. There is more than enough to chew on in wrapping our heads around a call to be servants to all creation.
Originally written by Tom Martin in 2024
martintw@susqu.edu
Sunday September 18-24 in Year B (Martin24)
Servants of Creation – Tom Martin reflects on the call to servant care for creation.
Care for Creation Commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary
Readings for September 18-24 Year B (2024)
Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 54
James 3:13-4:2, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
This Sunday is the 4th Sunday of the newly minted Season of Creation. All pastors should make pulpit time to educate congregations about the meaning of and the potential for this new liturgical season. It is a gift to have a dedicated spiritual time to explore ministry to, and the wonders of, forests, oceans, grasslands, mountains, glaciers, creeks and streams, and all plants and animals; both endangered and prospering. The Gospel text from Mark 9 provides a beautiful opportunity to explore a basic theological foundation to our care for and love of the natural order. We know that words matter. So, what word should we use to express our ministry to creation? Stewardship or Servanthood? Mark tells us that following Jesus is a call to imitate his servant ministry. At an historical critical level Mark’s concern is our inter-human relationships, but this text can be shaped into a Season of Creation sermon by extending that servanthood to our interconnectedness with all of God’s creation. The core concept for our care for creation should be modeled on Jesus’ servanthood not the Church’s traditional concept of stewardship.
Humans have imagined life as hierarchical as far back as we have recordkeeping. Cave paintings can be interpreted as conveying a hierarchy with the hunters exercising a positionality above the hunted. Hierarchy, at least since the origins of the city state, has infected our understanding of gender relations, the place of children, the politics of “haves and have-nots,” leadership, theological conceptions of God, and our right to rule over plants and animals. Into this ingrained way of thinking and construing reality, here comes Jesus calling us to servanthood.
Our congregations have become comfortable with hearing about servant leadership in the context of human relationships, so the gospel text’s affirmation that the greatest is the servant of all will come as no surprise. This is how we should relate to one another – but fleshing it out is another thing altogether! Extending the concept of servanthood to whole ecosystems is the next chapter of salvation’s story and will likely prove as difficult to achieve as our servanthood to one another.
Aldo Leopold begins his famous promotion of the Land Ethic (Part IV of A Sand County Almanac, 1949.) with a discussion of how the circle of ethical consideration has expanded over time. Human ethical consideration has expanded from only males of one’s own group and class (infamously the total extent of Aristotle’s moral universe!) to include foreigners, women, children, slaves, the poor. Today one would normally expect an ethical argument to include all human beings as having moral value. This is why it is so disturbing to many of us to hear a political candidate refer to immigrants as animals. We need to remember that ethical concern for aliens has not always been obvious and be vigilant about protecting this expansion of ethical concern. Leopold then argues the time has come to expand ethical consideration beyond the human species to include all life and ecosystems, an idea that, unfortunately, is still often resisted.
It seems clear to me that the Church’s notion of servanthood needs a similar expansiveness in its definition. Jesus’ vision for us to be servants is not only in relationship to other people, but also in relationship to the whole of creation. This viewpoint has rarely been acknowledged in the history of the Church. St. Francis of Assisi clearly saw such expansiveness of servanthood. The Franciscan tradition has championed it, a tradition that makes us thankful for Pope Francis’ emphasis on environmental care. But advocates from Christian theological traditions are few-and-far between.
In part this has been because stewardship has been the model the church has broadly adopted for our spiritual relationship with the natural order, and stewardship language remains predominant. Many of those in the Church who care about the environment do not see a problem with using the word “stewards” when speaking of our relationship with creation. The “servants” or “stewards” debate is alive and well. The sermon for this Sunday is an opportunity to exhort your congregation to abandon stewardship as the conceptual anchor for caring for the environment and adopt the call to servanthood. (See Robin Attfield, Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 94-100. And Norman Wirzba, The Paradise of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 128-145.)
Language matters. The words we choose carry implications for attitudes and feelings that go well beyond conscious intentions. Church people intend talk of stewardship to be a positive and productive means of addressing our care for creation. But the word is freighted with a long and ancient history of managerialism. It all too easily allows us to think we are caring for God’s creation when in fact we largely focus on the efficiency and productivity of the earth – of which we are the primary beneficiaries. In practice, stewardship allows lip service to the idea of God’s ownership of creation while, since we control the rubber-hits-the-road stewardship functions, it leads to the exploitation of creation for human benefit. I find the model of stewards to be inherently hierarchical. It imagines God at the pinnacle and removed from creation while we ‘stewards’ remain above creation in an intermediary role bridging the gap between God and the created order. Notice two necessary points. One, the steward model imagines a remote God. This is exactly how Jesus relates the model to a corresponding image of God in the famous Parable of the Dishonest Steward (Luke 16:1-13). The “landlord,” or God, is somewhere else than on the land itself, or even in relationship with the tenants. Two, stewardship imagines humans in the unique role of hierarchically superior mediators. Three, we are so immersed in business models oriented to profit that without serious self-reflection we, while intending the best for creation, exploit creation for human lifestyles.
An argument can be made that the Hebrew bible carries stewardship as the scriptural model for creation care. But then we run into Jesus using not stewards as the model for loving the other, but servants. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35b NRSV)
The lectionary division of verses, linking together a passion prediction with the question of greatness, seems to want us to take Jesus’ prediction of his death as an example of servanthood. Perhaps that is a decent connection, but there are no verbal or editorial signs to let us think Mark intended the prediction to enlighten the following discussion of greatness. Certainly, Jesus death by crucifixion is not “lordly” and a sermon can build from death by crucifixion to servanthood. But I would start with the disciples’ argument about greatness.
Historically the question is prompted by their cultural setting. It is a cultural setting in which one’s place in a rigid hierarchical structure was a major focus of life. Rich, poor, middling; Roman, Greek, Jew — one spent life negotiating how to respect and honor those ranked as greater and above you in the social scale. The disciples, after all this time with Jesus, imagine his kingdom to be “politics as normal.” Some will be up in the line, some down. Which one of us gets first place! Anyone in the first century hearing this discussion would have operated with the assumption that all life, any social order, is governed by rank. God’s order cannot be different, can it?
Until Jesus says it is different! Status is not divvied out by rank, but by service. Borrowing words from Mark 10:45 at this point seems reasonable. Jesus did not come to be waited on, but to be the waiter! And it adds that the giving of his life is the final servant action of Jesus’ life. Using this verse strengthens the connection of the “who is greatest” debate to the passion prediction in Mark 9:30-32.
To make this a “creation care sermon” is to extend this servant model to our relationship with animals, plants, and ecosystems. I have always found the best means of doing this to use the concept of ‘neighbor’ from the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). In parallel with Leopold’s argument about extending ethical care beyond humans to all creation the Church has often restricted who can count as a neighbor. Many of us have heard Christians arguing that only Americans are our neighbors. Immigrants are outside Jesus’ command to love. Abhorrent! But part of our human struggle in following Jesus is that at this tension point we all need to be pushed. ALL persons are my neighbors. It is then but a short leap to affirming that all animals are neighbors, all plants are neighbors, all bacteria, and all fungi. (I think I’ve got all the “kingdoms of life” covered!)
Stewards are not necessarily connected to what they steward. Steward connotes a more transactional relationship. The servant model, by leading us down the levels of rank so as to stand equal with others, can work toward a sense of interconnectedness. Perhaps that needs to be more strongly worded. Servanthood does not produce equality with the rest of creation. It puts us below. We serve our betters. This is what “tilling and keeping” God’s garden means (Genesis 2:15). Like ancient Israelite kings our job is to nurture and cause to flourish those “below” us. This notion of servant kings I find in the story of Naboth in 1 Kings 21. King Ahab’s failure is that he failed to protect and defend a mere commoner. Ahab failed in his servant-king office. Paraphrasing C. S. Lewis from his children’s book, The Horse and His Boy, “the job of a king is to be first in attack, last in retreat, first to go hungry, first to be without shelter, first to go be cold, or suffer heat” so that those below the king are cared for, nourished and able to flourish. Our job as creation care servants is to sacrifice and suffer when needed so the creation we care for can do well. “Live simply so others can simply live” (Gandhi). Simplicity is a Christian virtue we need to reintroduce. Dusting off Richard J. Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity (New York: Harper-Collins, 1981) would do us, and all creation, a great deal of good. Stewards will tend to maximize the productivity of what is being stewarded. Servant Creation Care seeks to enhance the life of creation, even those parts that are not profitable or even useful to our species. This is an essential point made in Leopold’s Land Ethic. We must learn to assign non-monetary value to ecosystems. Even that which is noncontributory for human ecology must be given value. By us. This is what it is to “servant” rather than “steward.”
The other readings do not obviously contribute to this emphasis from the Gospel text. James 3 could tie in via verse 17. Wisdom is “peaceable.” Peace in the Hebrew sense of shalom is not the absence of violence and negativity, but the presence of the good needed to live a full and meaningful life. As servants we are to bring this peace to all living things. I would abandon the Proverbs reading for multiple reasons. The sexism inherent in its definition of a good wife is only the most obvious. The reduction of economy to an efficient, profitable household is another. Given the principles of Ecological Hermeneutics, I would judge it to be irredeemable for environmental preaching. Psalm 54, similarly, has little to contribute.
Ignoring the other texts shouldn’t harm sermon development. There is more than enough to chew on in wrapping our heads around a call to be servants to all creation.
Originally written by Tom Martin in 2024
martintw@susqu.edu
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