JESUS AS STEWARD

            My continued reading of the Catholic Church’s Stewardship Letter[1] from several decades ago, has led me to the section titled “Jesus’ Way.” Reading the title of the section made complete sense to me, of course, we must follow Jesus, and as Christians, we want to love like Jesus. But then, I started reading the section, and it took a little differently about the example of Jesus that we must follow.

·         The Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount describe our lives as Christian disciples (Matthew 5:3-7:27)

·         Jesus described a disciple’s life in terms of stewardship…not because stewardship is the whole thing, but it is part of it. (Matthew 25:14-30)

            A steward is someone to whom the owner turns over responsibility for caring for what is owned, managing everything and making the sources yield as much as possible. You can’t be a steward if there isn’t trust and accountability.

            But it’s not just our “stuff.” Everything—worldly and spiritual—were created by and come from God.

• ·         Spiritual gifts like faith, hope and love
• ·         Talents of body and brain
• ·         Relationships with family and friends
• ·         Material goods
• ·         Achievements
• ·         The world itself

The stewardship letter says:

“one day God will require an accounting of the use each person has made of the particular portion of those goods entrusted to him or her.

Each will be measured by the standard of his or her individual vocation. Each has received a different “sum”—a unique mix of talents, opportunities, challenges, weaknesses and strengths, potential modes of service and response—on which the Master expects a return. He will judge individuals according to what they were given.” (20)

            So, it seems it’s not about the tithe (giving of 10% of what WE have); it’s not about “what would Jesus do”; it’s about being responsible with everything we’ve been given.

            And we must ask ourselves:

·         What will be used for God’s work?

·         What will we keep clenched in our fists for ourselves?

·         What will be returned go God?

  By the way: the two pictures at the top are from my trip in January 2018 to The Holy Land and were taken at the Church on the Mount of the Beatitudes.

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[1] The 1992 pastoral letter, Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response, by U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Stewardship.