Readings
Isaiah 1:10-18
Psalm 32:1-8
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10
Unlike most Sundays, today’s sermon is not based on the readings we have just heard. Today I want to talk to you about a word that strikes fear in the heart of every Episcopalian. No, I’m not talking about “evangelism.” Today I want us to think about “stewardship.”
Stewardship is one of those words that brings to mind a host of things, and for many of us, in this context, it simply is a substitute for the annual fall pledge appeal. But, while my sermon today kicks off that appeal, I would invite you to take a journey with me and explore what we might consider when thinking about our own stewardship and its relationship to the stewardship of the church.
In the dictionary the word stewardship is defined as “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.” So, put simply, stewardship is about taking care of what we have been given. This means that stewardship isn’t simply about money, but about all that we have been given. Stewardship includes our care of the environment, our care of the resources within our reach, our care of our neighbors, our care of our society, our care of our finances, and our care of our families. Stewardship is a big idea and a big task.
For many years, I thought that stewardship was simply about how much and how often I gave money to the church. As a child my parents would, on occasion, give me money to put into the plate. As a youth I would, from time to time, make a donation out of the money I was earning from a part-time job. When I became an adult, and I began to understand that the church relied on donations to fund its operations, I made a pledge based on how much I felt I could afford and/or what I felt was my fair share based on my participation.
Not much changed for most of my life. Then I met a priest who radically changed my thinking. He introduced to me 3 concepts that I would like to share with you today. They are not complex, but they are challenging. They offer a spiritual approach to the question of stewardship and offer us an opportunity to live more fully into the kingdom of God.
Put simply, those three concepts are:
- Stewardship is about thanksgiving.
- Stewardship is about abundance and not scarcity.
- The first is more important than the tenth.
First, though, is stewardship is about thanksgiving.
Who among us is immune to the cultural assumptions that surround us? We live in a monied society. We live in a world where what we have is often directly tied to the worth of our work, not only now but throughout our lives. Whether we are making a salary or are living off of retirement the message that we are given is that what we get we have earned. That we deserve what we have and perhaps more than we have. In some ways there is truth in such a sentiment. Unfortunately, such thinking blocks us from the recognition that regardless of how hard we have worked, we alone are not the source and cause of what we have. Many people and institutions lend themselves in a system to create the opportunities that we are afforded. We live in a network of life that includes not only people, but all the natural resources that support us. In the end, that matrix is a great and wonderful mystery whose source is God. In other words, all that we have is a gift from God and something for which we can be grateful.
Among other things, stewardship is the recognition of this reality. It is moving from a place of assumption and/or presumption to a place of thanksgiving. It is an honoring of all that lends itself to our wellbeing and to the world in which we live. In order for us to be good caretakers we must first be grateful what we have been given.
In my own stewardship journey, for many years I thought of my money as just that, “my money.” But an attitude of thanksgiving allows me to see it not simply as mine, but as God’s given to me for my wellbeing. It is an opportunity to recognize that all that I have and all that I am comes from God and ultimately returns to God.
To return to our list, second is stewardship is about abundance and not scarcity.
This one is more difficult to wrap our heads around, especially if we are struggling financially. But I would invite you to recognize that this concept, or principal, comes out of the first one we discussed. If we are called to recognize our interdependence and our dependence on God in order that we might be thankful, then we live not in a world in which resources are scarce, but in a world in which there is an abundance available to us.
When I look back on my life I have had periods of scarcity and periods of abundance. I have had times when I was financially challenged and times when I lived more comfortably. But what is most interesting about those times was that my sense of scarcity or abundance was tied not to the material realities at hand, but to my assumptions about the state of my life.
You know, it’s interesting, almost every time we have had more than enough to meet our needs is when I have gotten caught in a sense of scarcity. I have thought long and hard about this wondering why I would have a sense of scarcity when I am doing better off. But again it goes back first to the question of gratitude and second to a question of desire. When I have had additional resources I have often gotten trapped into wanting more than I have. I have often fallen prey into not being grateful for all the blessings in my life and instead desired the new, the better, or more. And when that has happened, I have found my life lacking and myself wanting. And here’s the thing, the more I want the less I seem to have. The more I take for granted the less I am thankful for what God has given me. It is very hard to take care of something you do not value. It is hard to feel like you have anything to share if you assume you do not have enough. Put simply, when we live in scarcity, it is difficult, if not impossible, to be a good steward of what God has given.
In contrast, and perhaps ironically, not too many years ago I was for a period living on public assistance. We wondered how and where we would find the money for our rent and how we would stretch our meager resources for groceries and gas. But, in that time we chose to trust that God was loving and faithful. We embraced the belief that there was more than enough for our needs to be met. We chose not to hoard our limited funds but to live generously and abundantly. It required us to carefully steward our resources and to be mindful with our spending. But you know what, we found that we had enough, and I found that my gratitude for what we had went up exponentially. We became more generous and more aware of the opportunity to take care of what we had been given.
Finally, to return to our list one last time, in stewardship the first is more important than the tenth.
This last principal or concept incorporates both the first and the second we have already explored.
When thinking about what we will give back to God, we do so off the top of our resources rather than from what is left over.
This was the hardest concept for me to incorporate in my life. Even when I began to intentionally live in a thankful way; even when I have tried consciously to embrace the abundance of God’s creation, I have struggled with the idea of taking my gift off the top of what I have rather than off the bottom.
Like most people who give, for much of my life I budgeted first taking into account all of my obligations (e.g., bills and other commitments I had made). In most cases, after doing that there was money left over. That was where my charitable giving came in. I figured out what I could afford to give out of that remnant and then gave it.
But I ask you to consider, is that a gift back to God or simply charity? By managing our resources in such a way are we recognizing that to give back to God is an essential obligation?
My own journey led me to say no. I realized that giving was an essential part of my obligations. I have come to understand that it is as important, if not more important, than any bill I have. Giving back to God is a part of how I give thanks, it is a recognition that my life is marked by the grace and abundance of God. Since then, I have made my pledge to the church and some other charitable gifts a bill that needs to be paid, just like all my other bills.
Now, some of you may worry that I am asking you to take a 10% hit to your disposable income. But I would say that while 10% is the biblical standard of giving, thanks to the example of the patriarch Abraham. Getting to 10% is a spiritual journey that may or may not be informed by a whole host of factors including our level of income, the circumstances of our life, where we are on our spiritual journey, and the newness of these principles in our life.
The point I am making is that giving is an essential part of our spiritual wellbeing if we desire to be good stewards, if we desire to live out of a sense of gratitude and abundance. What is most important is that we take our gift off the top of our income rather than off what is left over. While the goal is 10%, the first is more important than the tenth.
Let me say that I love you, all of you. And because of that, I love Christ Church. I love our worship, our fellowship, our times of education and formation, our times of outreach, and all the myriad other ways we interact and grow in God. At this point in my life, I cannot imagine my life without all of you and without this Church.
The reality is that in order for what we have to exist and to grow we have an institution that has real financial needs. I have used this metaphor before, but one way to think about it is to think about the launching of a spaceship. If the mission and ministry of the church is the rocket, then the institution is the launch platform. Without one the other cannot accomplish its mission.
The same is true for us. Christ Church, your vestry, staff, and volunteers serve as faithful stewards caring for the building and grounds, managing the utilities, funding our programs, and ensuring that the staff are adequately and justly compensated. In order for them to do so requires our generosity through our faithful practices of gratitude, abundance, and giving.
I give that the work of the church may continue. I give off the top with a sense of gratitude out of the abundance in my life. Each of our gifts will differ based on our life circumstances, but those gifts put together will give us the resources necessary to continue being the church we all so deeply love.
May we have the courage and the conviction to embrace the call to be stewards. May we be thankful for all we have, trust in God’s abundance, and commit ourselves in faith to the work he has given us to do.