Last month, we began talking about themes of gratitude and generosity. Many of you took up the 30-day gratitude challenge, and utilized the Gratitude Journals available to the congregation. Together, we took time to notice what we are thankful for in ourselves, in others, and in the world around us. But now what? As people who’ve returned to our Lord to offer our heartfelt thanks and praise, is that where it ends? Or, is there still another response?
Well, as our Gospel lesson indicated to us on Celebration Sunday, once we have returned to our Lord in thanks, we are commanded by Jesus to “get up and go.” In the Gospel story, Jesus encounters 10 lepers. Begging for mercy, they look to Jesus for healing. Seeing these lepers at a distance, Jesus sends them to the priests, and somewhere along their way, they are made whole. They are made clean. They are made new. But only one notices.That one returns. But even that isn’t the end of the story. Because after the man gives his thanks to Jesus, Jesus commands him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
The truth is that YOU—like the man—have also been made well. You have been cleansed. And you have been given new life, restoring you to relationship with God and with those around you. But now, like the man, we are given the challenge: what are we going to do, or where are we going to go, as we “get up and go on our way”?
This is the question that is laid before us as disciples of Jesus and as a congregation. And, in truth, this is the question that is laid before us as we consider what it means to live a life of stewardship. Often, the word “stewardship” has left a bad taste in people’s mouths. For so long, “stewardship” has come to be equated with the church asking for money. But “stewardship,” at the heart of it all, is not just about money. Because stewardship is about more than money, offering plates, and pledges. And, to go even one step further, stewardship is about more than the “3 T’s”: time, talent, and treasure. Instead, stewardship, is about discipleship. In the words of Grace Pomroy Duddy, “It is the way that we love God and neighbor with our whole lives.” To take it one step further, stewardship is the way that we “get up and go,” living out of gratitude as we live on purpose for a purpose in God’s Kingdom.
On Sun., Oct 20, we paused as a congregation to intentionally think about one aspect of stewardship: our finances. To be clear, just as much as every other aspect of our lives is a part of our life of stewardship and discipleship, how we manage our finances is also a part of our life of stewardship and discipleship. This is one reason why the Stewardship Team and Council are encouraging households to consider their financial giving for year 2020.
But if we were to only talk about our financial stewardship and nothing else, we would be missing the point. Because stewardship is a lifestyle choice. It is a conscious decision to ask ourselves: As someone made new by the gift of Jesus, now what am I going to do to “get up and go on my way”? And how would Jesus have be use the gifts entrusted to me, for the sake of God’s whole kingdom?
When we start thinking about stewardship in this manner, it doesn’t take long for stewardship to encompass every part of our life. As much as we’d like to stick stewardship in a box and take it out about once a year when fall rolls around, the reality is that, just as much as discipleship is a lifelong commitment, so is stewardship.
So, as you consider your financial stewardship this season, I also invite you to consider how the entiretyof your life is an act of stewardship. And as you consider your life—the ways God has shown up to you, and the gifts God has entrusted to you—I invite you to consider: How is God calling me to “get up and go,” loving God and those around me? In thinking about that question, you just might begin to have an answer to what it means for YOU to live as a faithful steward.