Above All, Through All, In All:  A Meditation on Stewardship

“There is…one God and Creator of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”   Ephesians 4:4, 6

The impulse to stewardship and sustainability are movements of the spirit, emanating from the love resounding through each of us.  When we experience the insight – the revelation into the way things really are – we cannot help but agree with the above sentiment expressed by the first century theologian, Paul of Tarsus:  God, through the Holy Spirit, permeates everything and everyone. 

This radical relationship of love and divinity which infuses and enlivens all Creation is often glimpsed only in passing, only in a fleeting moment of a busy life.  When see the perfect yellow of a maple’s Fall leaves lit by the Sun against a sharp, blue sky.  When we exchange a knowing look with a loved one after seeing something that reminds us of an experience shared long ago.  When we experience the sweeping sense of God’s peace and protection after we partake of the Eucharist.  All these sensations, transient as they are, awaken us to the guiding principle of all created reality, which is Love.

Stripped of the rhetoric, this is the theology of stewardship.  When we spend money, we lose money.  When we spend time, we lose time.  But when we give love, love grows and grows within us, fortifying our ability to take love to new and greater and further reaches.  That love which we offer can take the forms of money or time, but it cannot be identified with those things.  Transformed by love, they become things returned to the common circulation of God’s dispensation – the shared property and heritage of the created order which, thus released, serves to strengthen and expand the dominion of the spiritual realm.  In offering back what we have been freely given for the building up this realm, we assume our God-given responsibility to be living reagents, as it were, of creation and salvation, mediated by Jesus Christ.

Love.  How can any of us experience the Word of God and the sacraments offered from God’s creation without seeing this governing idea at the core?  “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.”  “We love because God first loved us.”  “What greater love than this, that one should lay down one’s life for one’s friends?”  “Beloved, let us love one another…for God is love.”  As we see this principle at work in our lives, our relationships, and all of Creation, we should always be open to re-examining how we manifest our love.  Above all, let us at all times and in all places, give thanks for the revelation of God in all that God has created and redeemed.

- Rev’d Neil Fernyhough

For information on how you can get involved in the Stewardship of St. Hilda's By the Sea, please contact:

Anne Connor, Stewardship Committee Chair

Saint Hilda's Anglican Church
5838 Barnacle Street
Sechelt, B.C. V0N 3A0

Phone: (604) 885-5019
Fax: (604) 885-0759