Tenants of the King 

Trevor introduces our new sermon series for June.
Like many other people we know, the way we take our holidays has changed in recent years. Instead of booking a place to stay via travel agents we do it ourselves, usually renting accommodation in someone else’s home via Airbnb. Other online rental sites are available.  

Anyone who’s ever arranged a holiday like this will I know be aware of a sometimes tentative process that takes place afterward, the business of reviews and ratings. As a guest, you get to leave a review of where you stayed: did you find it as advertised? Was it clean? Would you go back? But at the same time the owner of the property will also leave a review about the sort of guest you were: did you leave the home as you found it? Were there any breakages and, if so, did you report them?

From the beginning of June, we’ll be spending four Sundays in SBC thinking about what it means to be good tenants, not of a house or flat that might offer temporary accommodation, but guests of the very planet we live on. Our sermon series is called ‘Tenants of the King’, and is based on material produced by the Christian environmental charity Operation Noah. We’ll be following up our studies with conversations in home groups, using videos and questions from theologians and church leaders including Ruth Valerio and Bishop Graham Tomlin. 

The title of this series is taken from one of the best known of the stories told by Jesus, the Parable of the Tenants, recorded in three of the four gospels (Matthew 21:33–46; Mark 12:1–12; Luke 20:9–19). Like many of Jesus’ parables, there are a few themes explored including the treatment of leaders sent by God and the rejection of Jesus himself. At the heart of the story is a simple but powerful idea – that we are all tenants, living in a world created by God which he has asked us to look after.

This a truth found in Scripture from the very beginning: Genesis 1 describes how God fashions each detail of our planet with love and care, culminating in the creation of humanity itself, men and women made in the image of God who are given the following mandate:

God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ (Genesis 1:28).

Over the coming weeks, we’ll reflect on what God does and doesn’t mean when he tells the humans to ‘subdue the earth’. This is not a free pass to do whatever pleases us with regard to creation: to mine, drill and farm in whatever way we see fit, viewing the earth merely as a resource put at the disposal of humans and for their benefit alone. As one theologian helpfully puts it:

‘Humans in this case are charged with carrying on God’s creational work of bringing order to chaos. For just this reason, we are said to be in the image and likeness of God… we are in this view co-rulers with God over the earth and co-warriors with God against the forces of chaos for the earth.’ ¹ Greg Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict

Over these four Sundays, we’ll reflect together on what it means for us to partner with God, caring for the world he has made in a way that impacts our daily decisions about how we spend and what we use. What sort of rating would God give us for the tenants we’ve been in the world he’s made for us to live in?

¹ Greg Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict, 1997, p106