We all search for a path. We search for a path that will guide us on our way to happiness and fulfillment. We all want a sense of purpose. These are universal human desires.

For millennia, we have searched in our souls, prayed to our gods, followed our prophets and come together in great faiths to try to find this path. For me, all the faiths, in different ways, lead to the same destination: stewardship. Each of us wants, and deep down needs, to become the Good Steward.

What do I mean by stewardship? How can one become the Good Steward? The great faiths fundamentally agree that the right path, the righteous path, is the one that leads to love beyond ourselves. The Good Steward is able to think and to act beyond narrow self interest and toward the greater good.

Stewardship, as I am framing its meaning, is the ability to love and consider beyond ourselves. The further beyond ourselves we can love, the better the steward we can become.

In life, we progress through stages of growth. At first, we can think only of our own immediate needs. Many of us pause in growth, focusing on self-love and personal interests. But, as we develop, we begin to think of and to consider others. We grow from awareness, to concern, to love. Our love may extend beyond ourselves to our families. Over time, we may grow in our stewardship, and begin treating others with the nearly the same consideration as our families, extending our sphere of love to our communities and beyond. The further we can expand our awareness, concern and love from ourselves, in distance, in kind, and in time, the greater our stewardship.

Think of our progress in growing a sense of stewardship as concentric circles beginning with awareness and expanding to concern and caring, then eventually to love. Ironically, over time we learn that the less we think of ourselves, and act in our own narrow, short-term interests, the greater can be our personal satisfaction in life. The more we become Good Stewards, the more contented and rich our own lives.

The purpose of the good life, the life well lived, is to serve and to love others, to become the Good Steward.

The Good Steward is not selfish, but is generous in spirit. The Good Steward is not self-centered, but considers others. The Good Steward is humble, recognizing personal limitations, and not arrogant. The Good Steward is constantly learning, and does not assume correctness. The Good Steward embraces the unity of humankind and can move beyond the personal and the tribal. The Good Steward acts not just for the moment, but for the long term. The Good Steward makes investments for the future, rather than simply consuming in the present. The Good Steward considers all nature and not just the current interests of humankind. The Good Steward understands that one generation should not take from the next.

The further from ourselves our love extends, in kind, in place and in time, the greater our stewardship. A world of women and men striving to be Good Stewards is a world of peace and justice between people, between humanity and all creation, and extending to generations to come.

On this, great faiths — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam — agree: we should each endeavor to become the Good Steward.

Hinduism

Hinduism recognizes different stages in the path to fulfillment. Individuals move from level to level, pausing and growing, beginning with the quest for personal pleasure, then shifting to worldly success aimed at fame, wealth and power, making up the Path of Desire. Eventually, though, most of us begin to consider what meaning there is beyond the self. Religion really begins in that effort to find meaning after the self.

Beyond short term desires lies what the Hindus call the Path of Renunciation. The first step after self-centeredness is a concern for community. The next level in consciousness, after pleasure and success, is duty. But even that social concern, to the Hindus, has limits, leaving us less than completely fulfilled. What then?

The answer lies in the infinite and the eternal. Life’s frustrations come when individual expectations are unmet. The Hindus ask, what if the interests of the self were expanded? What if, instead of our personal point of view we were able to see the world like God, seeing all things for all eternity, detached from the individual and joined to the whole?

For Hindus the point of existence is to transcend the concern for self, to act for God’s sake, without concern for personal gain. As the Bhagavad-Gita says, “Do without attachment the work you have to do. Surrendering all action to Me, freeing yourself from longing and selfishness.” This is the Yogi, the Good Steward of Hinduism: “He who does the task dictated by duty, caring nothing for the fruit of the action, he is a Yogi.”(Bhagavad-Gita, VI:1)

Buddhism

Buddhism has been characterized as a religion of infinite compassion and the Buddha himself treated all with equal respect. In Buddhism, as in Hinduism, personal dissatisfaction comes from selfish individual desires, called tanha. The cure for this craving is to release oneself from the narrow path of self interest, to overcome the ego drive for separate fulfillment, by following the Buddhist Path.

This Path toward becoming what I call the Good Steward begins with the Buddhist concept of right association, rooted in the belief that virtue is learned through social interaction. The Good Steward requires role models; we all need support in our progress down the Path.

The Path has different steps, beginning with Right Views, or understanding the core of the challenge in life, and moving to Right Intent, the imperative to commit to what is really important and correct in life. Intent must be followed by Right Conduct, framed by the need to act with generosity rather than self seeking. With concentration and mindfulness come thoughts and actions of loving-kindness. It is then that we can become free from the chains of the belief in the separateness of existence.

Eventually, we move past tanha and toward Nirvana, the highest destiny of the human spirit. Literally, Nirvana means extinction. But the extinction the Buddha refers to is the extinction of the boundaries of the finite self, so that everything that constricts consideration for the infinite has died away. Life is literally boundless and we become one with all.

In the thinking of the Zen Buddhists, we can begin to appreciate the universal beauty of creation, and to appreciate that each creature has the same importance. In Zen, we are deeply grateful to the past and feel profound responsibility for the future. The Good Steward in Buddhism knows that each of us is part of the same One, the same whole of existence, stretching forward in time infinitely.

In the Zen poem by Seng Ts’an:

The One is none other than the All, the All none other than the One

Take your stand on this, and the rest will follow of its own accord.

Judaism

God in Judaism is rooted in a sense of righteousness and love for humanity. And humanity has obligations for all creation. In this worldview, nature is to be revered, with humans possessing dominion and responsibility for all creatures of the planet. In the Jewish tradition, the root of the concept of stewardship derives from the notion of covenant, as God renews this covenant continually — first, with Adam, and then, through Moses, with the people of Israel. As part of these covenants, human beings are called to care for creation, for “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” (Psalm 24:1) Our planet belongs to the Lord and we have an obligation to care for it.

As God’s children, we are given a choice in the path to follow. Our decisions mold our destinies and the Lord urges us to “cease to do evil, learn to do good.” (Isaiah 1:16–17) God provides the model for human action as His “compassion grows warm and tender.” (Hosea 11:3–4) The Jewish holy teaching provides a foundation for the Golden Rule: “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.” (Talmud, Shabbat 31a)

In Judaism all are children of God, entitled by their existence to equal consideration. It is a social imperative to fight injustice. In the words of the prophet Amos: ”Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24). Stewardship in Judaism is an obligation to fight power for justice and for peace, harnessing hope for a brighter future. Isaiah envisioned a time when the world would “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4) The Good Steward works for peace and reconciliation.

At the core of the Passover story is the command to the Israelites not to “oppress foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21) This message, repeated in different forms throughout the Hebrew Bible, is an overarching lesson that by understanding oppression ourselves, we can live and amplify the word that others should never be oppressed.

All have the same worth in the Hebrew tradition. According to legend, when God took clay to form Adam, he collected it from every corner of the world to ensure the oneness of the human race. We are all from the same source and we are all beholden to strive to become Good Stewards for each other, for creation and for generations to come.

Christianity

Christianity draws inspiration from the Hebrew scriptures. The Christian sense of stewardship combines the teaching that the Earth does not belong to us, rather to God. However, we are entrusted with creation. The very first vocation given to humans, before the Fall, was the stewardship of the Garden of Eden: “The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to take care of it and to look after it.” (Genesis 2:15)

The God of Christianity is a God of compassion. Jesus advocated a social covenant founded on an egalitarian vision of humanity. His vision is, in fact, more radical than mere equality, promising that “the first will be last and the last first” (Matthew 20:16) and “the greatest among you will be your servant.” (Matthew 23:11)

For Christians, Jesus has been sent by God to hallow the world, so the faithful “shall be holy as I the Lord your God am Holy.” ( Leviticus 19:2) Jesus was a model of God, a fleshly image of God on Earth. “He went about doing good.” (Acts 10:30) Without pretense or publicity, the Christian Lord wants us all to help the less fortunate, to heal the sick, to work for justice. How we treat the least among us determines if we go to Heaven or not. In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus reveals that “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25: 45–46)

The Christian God is a God of love, reflecting his infinite love of humanity. Jesus demonstrates pure love, a love that is equal for each soul, no matter their earthly status. He asks that we love one another without reservation, as brothers and sisters. This love is shown to all, especially to “the least of these.” (Matthew 25:40) The Good Steward in Christianity tries to serve and support and love all humanity equally, without social barrier.

Because we are all equal in the eyes of the Lord, Christians have a duty, both as individuals and working together, to create a society that supports that vision. What we call the Golden Rule, was articulated by Jesus in a positively framed echo of the Talmud: “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” (Matthew 7:12) The selfless love of the Christian calls for a cadre of Good Stewards who actively work for a society that treats all as equals, each divine image bearers of the Lord, dearly loved by Him.

Because Christians believe that Jesus was God on Earth, his life is the model for the perfect Steward. Those who want to follow his righteous path should strive to be as he was: humble, a servant of the least among us, loving all equally. Like Jesus, as Good Stewards we all must work to save humanity and natural creation, both for the present and for future generations.

Islam

The holy book of Islam, the Qur’an, gives much credit to the holy teachings of Judaism and Christianity. The Qur’an states that “we have made a covenant of old with the Children of Israel [and] you have nothing of guidance until you have observed the Torah and the Gospel” (5:70, 68)

Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, like Jesus worked to support the interests of those who suffer, of the poor and the weak. His teachings were fundamentally democratic and they challenged a stratified social order. As did Jesus, Muhammad preached that all people are created equal and have equal worth under God.

The God of Islam is compassionate, treating each as equal, and providing a model for all who wish to serve as Good Stewards. The Lord in the Qur’an is “the Holy, the Peaceful, the Faithful, the Guardian over His servants, the Shelterer of the Orphan, the Guide of the erring, the Deliverer from every affliction, the Friend of the bereaved, the Consoler of the afflicted; in His hand is good, and He is the generous Lord, the gracious, the Hearer, the Near-at-Hand, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Very-forgiving, whose love for man is more tender than that of the mother-bird for her young.” (Ameer Ali, The Spirit of Islam, p. 150)

In an echo of the concept of Nirvana, the word Islam literally means “surrender.” It should not be interpreted in the sense of military surrender, but rather as a complete giving of oneself to faith, just as we can surrender to true love. In Islam we surrender to God’s love by embracing God’s heart.

Islam, like Christianity, preaches a gospel of compassion and charity. The Qur’an urges us to “turn away evil with that which is better.” (42:37) It is a faith of equality, promoting parity of the races and promoting reforms that dramatically improved the status of women in education, vocation, suffrage and inheritance. The Qur’an promotes the democratic distribution of wealth, the elimination of caste, and the provision of charity. The Muslim vision of the Good Steward, as in the other great faiths, has a full heart for all humanity.

Care for creation is a fundamental part of the Islamic message and the Qur’an tells us how Allah “created every living creature from water” (24:45), and it expects its readers to become the khalifatul-llah on earth, God’s stewards on earth.

The Hadith says that “the Earth is green and beautiful, and Allah has appointed you his stewards over it. The whole Earth has been created a place of worship, pure and clean. Whoever plants a tree and diligently looks after it until it matures and bears fruit is rewarded. If a Muslim plants a tree or sows a field and humans and beasts and birds eat from it, all of it is love on his part.”

Being The Good Steward Today

The great faiths echo each other in calling for stewardship in similar and parallel forms. What do these shared appeals mean to us today, thousands of years later, living in a complex, modern world?

Ourselves

Becoming the Good Steward today starts with loving ourselves and appreciating the unique value that each of us brings to creation. Without self-love, we cannot begin the process of looking outwards to love others.

Our families

The next step in growing our stewardship is to care for and love those most close to us. There is nothing more natural than the love that parents have for their children and that children have for their parents. The family is the root of civilization and the foundation for human society. To become the Good Steward, though, we must learn to love beyond the family.

Our societies

Stewardship grows as our awareness and concern grows beyond the self and the family to larger and larger communities. We grow as loving people, as Good Stewards, as our awareness, concern and love expands to our neighbors, to our tribes, to our nations and to all humanity. We are diminished as complete human beings to the extent that our love is constrained only to those most close to us. Our spirits soar as our love expands beyond ourselves, ever outward, as we treat and love strangers half a world away just as we would those close to us. The Good Steward endeavors to have equal love for all humanity.

Our planet

Our consideration and love should not be limited to humanity. As we grow our spiritual capacity, we should increasingly consider and value all of nature. Each of the faiths agree that God’s natural creation is holy in the same way that is humanity. It is our responsibility and our privilege to be Good Stewards of the Earth, not just for our own benefit, but also for the creatures and plants who share our planet, and not just for our own generation, but for generations to come.

Our shared future

We exist in the present moment, but our actions have consequences for eternity. The Good Steward considers not only the effects of actions on the present, but also on the future. We have a responsibility to leave creation better than we found it, to borrow not from future generations but to save for their prosperity.

Not one of us is a saint. We all are humans, humbled by our frailties and mortality, but we can each join hands to strive, one day at time, to grow from our experiences, to devote our strength and to focus our hope on improving ourselves and our mutual existence. The Good Steward endeavors each day in ways small and great to look beyond self, to love all humanity, to consider all creation, and to devote ourself to our shared future.

(In future articles I will expand upon the concept of stewardship in the great faiths; explore practical ways in which we can each work toward becoming our own personal versions of the Good Steward; and propose paths to help craft a society rooted in stewardship. -Chris Hedrick)