The throne room is austere. A chill emanates from Denethor as he sits brooding on his cold throne. Gandalf is trying to convince Denethor to call for help from Theoden, king of Rohan, to defend against the armies of Mordor that rise up all around Gondor. The conversation proceeds as follows:
Denethor: You think you are wise, Mithrandir [Gandalf]. Yet for all your subtleties, you have not wisdom. Do you think the eyes of the White Tower are blind? I have seen more than you know. With your left hand you would use me as a shield against Mordor, and with your right you would seek to supplant me. I know who rides with Theoden of Rohan. Oh, yes. Word has reached my ears of this Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and I tell you now, I will not bow to this Ranger from the North, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship!
Gandalf: Authority is not given to you to deny the return of the king, steward!
Denethor: The rule of Gondor is mine! And no other's!Watching this scene, it is clear that Denethor is power hungry, selfish, and delusional. He lays claim to a throne that was never meant to be his. He claims to have knowledge, wisdom, and a right to rule, when in reality he has none of these things.
I cannot help but wonder how many of our lives might look the same to an outside observer. We read in the Bible that God created the heavens and the earth, and that he entrusted the earth to mankind to care for it. So from the beginning, we were meant to be good stewards of what God has given us.
The problem arises when we start to ask, what is a good steward? Undoubtedly, Denethor thought he was being a good steward of the throne by not letting a Ranger (basically, a yeoman hunter-soldier) rule the kingdom of men. Often, we use the term "being a good steward" to tell someone to put their money in the bank, go to college, save up for retirement, and develop talents that we seem to be naturally gifted at. But is that really what good stewardship is? I recently heard a sermon by Matt Chandler, a pastor at The Village Church, on "The Parable of the Ten Minas" found in Luke 19:11-27. In this parable, a man who is king of a country gives some minas (a lot of money) to some of his servants for them to put to work while he is away. When he comes back, he rewards two of his servants that used their minas to earn more minas. But one servant had simply buried his mina until the king got back, and here is his report: "Sir, here is your mina. I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow."
So what does this mean? We are supposed to use the money God has blessed us with to make more money? No. Like all parables, this is not meant to be taken literally. Hopefully by now you are starting to see the parallel. The king was already king. His servants could not change that by how they acted, just as we cannot detract from God's glory and dominion at all by our actions. The minas are everything God has given us--our money, our time, our energy, our intellect, our strength, our talents, our relationships, our desires--and they are given to us for a spiritual profit. God gives it to us, and he rewards us for spiritual profit.
So this "wicked" servant is delusional! He thinks that the king "takes out what he did not put in and reaps what he did not sow." But the minas were never his to begin with! They always belonged to the king, and he entrusted them to the servant for a spiritual profit. And the king's reaction is even better. In the next verse, he says, "I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?" Note that there is a question mark at the end of the second sentence. He is not agreeing with the servant, he is calling him a liar! If the servant really thought that the king was harsh (hint: he isn't) and would take what isn't his (hint: he doesn't), then he would have at least tried to make sure he had something to give the king! It is akin to when people say, something to the effect of "Well, if God judges us like that, I don't want anything to do with him." Right, that'll show him. You're not going to make a point, you're just going to be judged.
The point of all of this is that everything we have is not ours. It is, and always has been, God's. He has entrusted it to us and charged us to go and use it to make a spiritual profit.
This past spring, I went through a particularly rough period of life. I began to withdraw from social interaction, and I lost almost all of my motivation to go to class, try hard in school, eat healthy, work out, and just live a decent life. I ended up being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and I eventually went on anti-depressants, which I am still currently taking. Praise be to God that He has delivered me out of that storm, but I did not emerge as the exact same person. I learned a crucial lesson in the process.
You see, an interesting thing happened when I found myself at the very bottom of the dark pit I had fallen into. When everything had fallen apart, I had to put my life back together piece by piece. In doing so, I had the unique chance to examine each piece on its own, outside the context of what I thought had been a pretty well put-together life. Imagine, if you dare, starting over from nothing, and having to explain to yourself exactly why you spend nearly 40 hours per week sitting in a chair, either taking notes or regurgitating them in various forms. Why did any of this stuff matter anyways, I asked myself.
Fortunately, God answered this question when I could not. And his answer has already been stated in this post, which is now getting to be much longer than I originally anticipated. He told me "I gave you everything you have for a spiritual profit."
So there it was. The defining criterion. My life in its entirety is meant to bring glory to God; to know Christ and to make him known; to love God and to love others. Everything else--school, work, money, exercise, health, food--is only important insofar as it contributes to that one single purpose. In the end, my life did not end up looking that much different on the outside than when I began. But now, I recognize that the center of my life, the sole, single purpose to which everything else must relate and submit, is Christ himself, and his mission for the world.
In the popular worship song "Came to my Rescue", we sing the words "Lord all I am is Yours." I know in the past, I have taken this to mean that I am giving everything that I am to God and calling it His. But in light of all of this, I don't think that is what it means. In reality, everything I am is already God's. It was never mine to begin with. I can't even claim to be giving Him something, because I am just giving back to Him what He just gave to me to hold on to. Even then, I am giving him back a broken, shattered remnant of the good life he originally gave me. Praise be to God, then, that we read in Psalm 53 (ESV):
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.
You will not be please with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Where we start to get into trouble is when we begin to view our lives as our own. We then begin to place ourselves at the center, and assume that everything else in our lives has to submit to us, to our needs and desires. We become like Denethor and the wicked servant.
From this perspective, it is easy to see how Denethor became as callous as he was. For 1000 years, 26 generations, no King sat on the throne of Gondor, and Denethor's family had ruled as Stewards. Similarly, we sit on 2000 years since God himself walked the earth. But the length of time is not what matters. What matters is, how will you react when the King comes to claim His rightful throne?
EDIT: Here is a link to the Matt Chandler sermon I referenced: http://www.thevillagechurch.net/sermon/good-servants-wicked-servants-and-the-enemies-of-god/
From this perspective, it is easy to see how Denethor became as callous as he was. For 1000 years, 26 generations, no King sat on the throne of Gondor, and Denethor's family had ruled as Stewards. Similarly, we sit on 2000 years since God himself walked the earth. But the length of time is not what matters. What matters is, how will you react when the King comes to claim His rightful throne?
EDIT: Here is a link to the Matt Chandler sermon I referenced: http://www.thevillagechurch.net/sermon/good-servants-wicked-servants-and-the-enemies-of-god/
