Do People or Things Come First?

Stewardship in Church Community

June 14, 2021 by Coretta Thomson

What if a five-year-old kid drops an expensive tool I’ve let him handle? What if that person is a teenager? Or an adult who should know better?

Inadvertent damage: we’re all susceptible to it. In fact, I’d argue that we can do the most harm just when we’re trying not to. So when careless neglect results in things breaking, what should we do about the culprits? Take them to task for poor stewardship? (Stewardship: that formal-sounding but still-popular word is defined by Merriam Webster as “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.”) Or magnanimously look the other way, valuing people over things?

The Bruderhof’s Foundations of our Faith and Calling discusses stewardship in the context of community of goods, pointing out that “under the stewardship of the church, everything we have is available to anybody in need,” and in the section on common work, which should be carried out to the best of one’s abilities, keeping in mind the aforementioned “careful and responsible management” of resources for the good of all. But in my thirty-plus years of community life, I’ve run into many ideas of how this plays out. So much seems to depend on a person’s upbringing and personality, and most of the examples are banal: at what point can a room be considered “clean” – when it’s swept and tidy, or not until it’s scrubbed? Should we tend lush gardens bursting with perennials or recur to low-maintenance, perpetually neat rock-and-shrub arrays? Save every scrap of old building material, or invest in new lumber that will last? Dedicated, well-meaning people inevitably disagree on these and myriad other points.

This question of stewardship can get even more thorny. For example, what happens if I invite a stranger to dinner in my house and he leaves with more than just a full stomach? If my neighbor is in need, how much should I shortchange my own family to assist hers? Individuals and groups alike will probably not find a tidy answer to such real-life questions.

So how do we navigate disagreements on questions like stewardship on the Bruderhof? One way is to defer to the opinion of the team leader when the matter is fairly inconsequential. Still, as members we are each charged to speak up if there are pressing reasons to disagree (for instance, if something valuable is being thrown away instead of reused). If two people can’t settle the matter, we follow the path set out for conflict resolution: first trying to come to an agreement with the help of a third person, and then, if necessary, discussing the subject in a members’ meeting.

I can’t say I’ve heard questions of stewardship hashed out in any recent meetings, but they certainly have been in years gone by. A favorite reference of mine, which I’ve returned to when navigating my own clashes of opinion over the mundane, is a series of meetings held by Bruderhof founder Eberhard Arnold in October of 1933. At that time, the fledgling German community was indigent; Hitler was threatening its very existence; new members, with a variety of cultural backgrounds, were swelling their ranks. Tensions were high, partly due to disagreements over the care of tools and heirloom furniture.

In the resulting discussion, Eberhard – characteristically – lays out both sides of the argument in the strongest possible terms, leaves the tension unresolved and points to fraternal love and God’s cause as the solution. It’s not a question of one opinion steamrolling another; it’s everyone considering what love demands in this specific situation, in light of the common goal. As you read these thematically-arranged excerpts, please remember that Eberhard came from a privileged German academic background, had a PhD in Philosophy, finished his formal education when Kaiser Wilhelm II was still on the throne and was speaking at a time when modern conveniences like plastic and synthetic fabrics were not yet commonplace. Still, the thread of the discussion is timeless and, I believe, a valuable resource for communitarians everywhere.

We must take good care of the material objects entrusted to us.

Love makes us think what better use can be made of material possessions so that we do not have to send the next ten visitors away because we do not have food, beds, or shelter for them. The forward-looking duty of love must show us how to make serviceable even the smallest and shabbiest materials. We cannot afford to go on buying new things. We know that many people have a sick conscience in this respect and that they can hardly grasp that there is a relationship between God’s love and inanimate things.

We don’t care for things for their own sake; rather, they are resources to be used for God’s cause.

Objects must not be allowed to tyrannize us, or we would be lost. We must place them in the hands of the Holy Spirit, who will fit them together to show utmost simplicity in all our work. By simplifying our life we can serve more people, faithfully caring for objects in this sacred sense of love and devoting their use to everyone who will visit or join us in the future.

We could in a fairly short time achieve bourgeois neatness and proper care and maintenance of our rooms and furnishings, but then we would have betrayed the fundamental reason for our taking care of them. The essential thing is that we care for the objects so that we can use them to serve many people. If these visitors ruin our things, we let them do so, for the people for whom we gather and maintain these objects are more important to us than the objects themselves.

We should educate new co-workers to care for things.

We must hate that bourgeois spirit that has more love for material objects than for people. But we must equally hate the spirit that loves people more than God’s order. We might say, “After all, people simply expect us to have a chaos here; the more valuable a piece of furniture, the more they want to see it smashed (for example, all veneered table tops).” If we were to tolerate that attitude, we would idolize people and sin against God’s order. However, these people have to be guided to God and his kingdom; thus they have to be guided toward love and responsibility, so that, no longer desiring chaos, they long for the orderliness of love.

Moralism is not the answer.

If we moralize in these matters, there is a danger that we see orderliness in small things as the highest virtue and greatest cause. That must not be, else we have betrayed the kingdom of God and our cause is lost. What we mean by orderliness in small matters must be born of love, the love that embraces all people even if they smash up all our things; otherwise, it is idolatry.

So we cannot make superhuman demands of one another, for that would lead us into a legalistic, moralistic place where those who have the gift of order push aside and despise the others. This evil spirit of hostility and arrogance is the greatest enemy; we must banish it from our midst. We must find humility, knowing that even if a person has more gifts in this or that area, the same person perhaps has fewer gifts in another area. We need to be able to bear one another in love and in daily forgiveness. Otherwise community is impossible. No group of human beings will ever have gifts so perfectly attuned to one another that no conflicts arise. Having said this, neither must we lose our faith that the Holy Spirit, who permeates our inmost being, also wants to bring what is outward and material under his rule.

All things find their rightful place with a broad vision and a good dose of love.

Seek the kingdom and its righteousness, then everything else will fall into place. If you are not faithful in small matters, no great things will be entrusted to you. These two sayings belong together. Faithfulness in nothing but small matters would be idolatry. What is decisive is not being faithful in small things but rather that the great thing can be entrusted to you. The great thing is complete love.

May God give health to our consciences and fill us with the great love that is ready to sacrifice everything, and yet faithfully cares for things for the sake of God’s kingdom. The kingdom of God demands from us an open door and open hearts. This demand is the duty of love: to continually provide accommodation, food, and clothing for as many people as possible.

It is our faith that material objects may be fully mastered by the innermost spirit of perfect peace and perfect unity. To the extent that we believe in the spirit and allow it to permeate us, to that degree will we care for material things, building up the cause and serving others.

Excerpted freely from Eberhard Arnold’s contributions to Bruderhof members’ meetings held on October 20, 21, and 22 of 1933.

Coretta Thomson is a contributing editor for Plough Publishing.