Maintenance or Mystery?

September 5: Friday of Week 22 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Psalm 37:3-4, 5-6, 27-28, 39-40; Luke 5:33-39

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship? (To support Reaching Jesus... Step Five).

Maintenance or Mystery?

“It is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy” (1 Corinthians 4:2).

Paul says we should see ourselves “as stewards of the mysteries of God.” Were you taught that? Is that the awareness you wake up with every morning? What does it mean?

“Stewards” manage what is entrusted to them. We have been entrusted with “the mysteries of God.” To manage them—to understand Christianity ourselves and share it with others—we have to “put out into deep water.” Christianity is about plunging into mystery, not puttering around with maintenance.

Jesus came to give “new wine.” His teaching is news: the Good News of call and empowerment to live on the level of God. By Baptism we are “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have to be, if we are to act divinely. This means that we—and all human culture and society—have to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). “New wine must be poured into fresh wine skins.” We are stewards of the one who said, ““See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Our task is to transform the attitudes, values and priorities of our culture, beginning with ourselves.

When we shoulder this responsibility, we become “faithful stewards of the mysteries of God.”

PRAY: “Send forth your Spirit, Lord, and renew the face of the earth.”

PRACTICE: See everything in the light of Christian mystery.