We were sitting around a table some time ago, talking about the circumstances of our lives. One of the people with me there began to fume and sputter about their housing situation, a townhome in a condo corporation. Complaints:
-the rooms were too small
-undesirable neighbours were making things hard for the others
-the rents were high
-needed repairs weren't being made.

Complaints like these aren't uncommon. Fact of the matter is, if you ask a group of landlords, you will end up with an equally long, if not significantly longer list of beefs against the tenants.
It's all part of the ongoing Landlord-Tenant saga.
Sometimes it works well, and at other times..... oh dear.
Most of us are familiar with it, having been involved on one side of the equation or the other.

Sometimes this process involves whole groups of people, as is the case with various aboriginal groups seeking land claim settlements with the federal government. Only in this case the whole issue is much more clouded. Who is the tenant? And who is the landlord? Who owes who how much? What are the rights involved? Who dictates those rights?

As one person said to me - "Say the word 'Landlord" and it brings out many kinds of emotions. Not all of them nice."

Against this kind of a mixed-up, jumbled background I want to turn our attention to one landlord in particular. This one owns ranches and city lots. He holds the deeds to islands, streams, lakes, forests and fields.
He owns them completely. The real estate, the water rights and mineral rights, development rights, full control over ALL resources. It's total ownership. And unlike a lot of other landlords, who are willing to make a deal, and who often are engaged in the process of flipping real estate, this Landlord never puts anything on the block. Ever.
This amazing landlord is, of course, God - the Creator of all the Cosmos. Continents and oceans, sky and land, heaven and earth - they all belong to him.
And yet, he allows us to live on his property, rent-free. More than that, actually. He also allows us free and unrestricted use of his great bank of resources, from which we may and DO borrow, rent-free, interest-free.

It is our Lord's ownership of the Universe, and our living in it as tenants that we want to focus on today.

Consider the message of Genesis 1. In carefully, descriptive language we are told and shown that God has made the entire creation - from the bottom up.
It is all is the result of his masterful work.
We hear it in the repeated phrase - "And God said.... and there was..."

Follow the language of the chapter -
It begins with God's creation of the raw materials out of nothing. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. At stage it all was still formless and empty, a swirling mass of jumble; sort of like a contractor dumping a load of building supplies on the site - piles of stuff everywhere, nothing put together. Then the delicate, brilliant, powerful process begins to move:

Days 1,2 and 3 of creation, where the great Landlord moves around the swirling mass and forms the basic structure of the universe, the underlying components, he frames the house, if you will.
a.) Day 1: God creates separates light from darkness in the uppermost reaches of the heavens
b.) Day 2: He creates the sky and the great oceans
c.) Day 3: He forms up the dry ground with vegetation

Now the structure is in place, and he begins to fill it, moving things into the house he has built, so to speak. This is days 4,5 & 6:
a.) Day 4: The sun and moon are created to fill the outer heavens with the light by day and night
b.) Day 5: Sea creatures fill the great oceans and birds flock through the air
c.) Day 6: All sorts of creatures begin to run across the dry ground of God's earth.
And, as the crowning act an image of the Creator is made - humanity, man and woman. In the ancient world emperors would set up stone images, statues of themselves, throughout their kingdom proclaiming their sovereignty.
God goes one better, creating living likenesses of himself to proclaim and respond to His sovereignty, and to also function as His advocates, His representatives, His workers in His empire.
Understand the message, dear people.
Understand it WELL!

Nothing in this Cosmos just happened to be.
Nothing is there on its own.
Nothing is there that does not have a stamp of ownership on it.
Everything has been deliberately and carefully
made by God,
is owned by him,
cared for by him.

Nothing is independent of him.
Nothing has life apart from him.
Neither the great external structure
Nor the many smaller things that fill it.
Absolutely nothing!

That's not an easy message for us to understand. It never has been an easy message for any human being to understand. People all along the way seem to have this incredible desire to accumulate possessions, acquire and maintain control over it. They proudly proclaim it "MINE!"

It's true you know. And virtually all of us in Canada have been sucked right in.

A television comedian once said, "You know, I discovered a Rolls Royce on Fifth Avenue in New York. Beautiful, it was. I loved it, so I took it. I figured it was mine because I discovered it."
The audience laughed.
But unknown to them, they were really laughing at themselves, and at you and me. Because like the comedian, many of us live with the idea that possession is nine-tenths of the law - especially when it comes to our earthly possessions. We are proud of what we have earned and what we own.
It's my house, we say.
my car.
my cottage, boat, trailer.
my bank account, salary, investments.
......my kids.

Hear the word of God, Psalm 24:1 -
"The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it..."

Ownership is not in our name but in God's.

Just in case these passages aren't enough, the refrain is repeated throughout scripture:

• "The heaven is the Lord's, the earth also and everything on it." (Deut 10)
• "The silver is mine, and the gold" (Haggai 2.8)
• "Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a 1000 hills..." (Ps 50)
• "The land is mine, you are sojourners with me." (Lev 25)

Let's also remember that the Great Cosmic Landlord not only makes this world available to us, along with all its resources. He actually puts us in charge of it. He makes us "Building Superintendents", so to speak.
Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.....God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. [Gen 1.26,28]

It's an awesome challenge, and a marvellous responsibility.
The great King, the Creator, the Landlord of heaven and earth places people like you and me in charge of His world, stewards, administrators:
To explore it - and seek answers to some of the great mysteries
To develop it - unpacking the latent potential
To cultivate it - using it for the well-being of all
To care for it - managing the resources carefully to preserve them for another generation.

So..... how have we image-bearers of the Master responded?
Sewage poured into rivers; sulphur and nitrous oxides into the air; pop cans and candy wrappers along streets and sidewalks, toxic chemicals into the soils. Animal and plant species exterminated at ever increasing rates. Resources ravaged in the name of economic development.
Ozone depletion; greenhouse effect; resource depletion.....

That's not subduing in the manner creation speaks of it --
that's rape, and destruction!

Witness the distribution of resources - we in North America, with 5% of the world's population, grabbing for ourselves some 87% of the world's food, clothing, shelter resources, and luxury.
We have gone on a wild rampage through creation like wild barbarians, rather than treading carefully as guests in someone's house - which we are.

Think about that, and then review the time of confession and rededication from earlier in the service.
Think about that when we get into our second car, turn on or up the air conditioning and heat, apply the 2^nd and 3^rd coat of pesticide to our yard, throw away instead of reuse, ignore environmental issues in political conversations.

So thanks be to God that his grace is larger than our fallenness. Thanks be to God that he, the Great Divine Landlord, has grace available for we fallen Stewards.
He came to us who were like stewards in a vineyard, tenants who refuse to recognise the legitimate claims of the Owner, and who have been treating it like our own.
He came to us in the person of His son, Jesus Christ.
We tenants took that son and killed him.
But in that death there was payment for the crimes we have committed against our God, for the sins which we are guilty of, the offences for which we stand culpable before God's throne.
In him there is complete restoration. Our slate is wiped clean.

If we give our lives in faith to Jesus Christ, confess that we too have been part of the grab-as-can-grab attitude in the world, that we too have been less than faithful in our service of the Master
We are marvellously freed, forgiven.
We are given a new lease on life, and a new opportunity for service!

Please remember that it's not a cheap lease.
It cost the Landlord plenty - the life of his own son.
But it is freely available to all who in humility open their hearts to receive it.

It is in this grace that we are able to function once more as stewards, as creation administrators.

In the gracious goodness of Jesus we can leave here to care for this beautiful house of God known as Creation.

• We can wander the woods and trails of campsites and parks in awe and appreciation.
• We can treat with care and dignity our yards, neighbourhoods and community landscape.
• We can be careful about our use of resources.
• We can ask encourage politicians and candidates to keep environmental concern on the table, not just economic returns for shareholders.
• We can handle money in our care as God's money, and joyfully take up opportunities to share generously from the first cut, the cream at the top with the work of Christ's Kingdom - riotous tithing.

It also comes to nuts and bolts things like clean air, drinkable water, shade trees, wilderness, and sustainable resource use.

These are our challenges.
These are our opportunities.
This is scripture's call - to handle with great care those things that have the Lord's stamp of ownership on them.
To live, day by day, with a keen sense of responsibility to the Landlord, and a joy that for Jesus' sake, we can handle that responsibility until he comes again.

The challenge of Genesis 1.28 again -
working as building superintendents for the Landlord
administrators for the King,
stewards of the vineyard
Until that great and final day when the Master returns.