Genesis 2:4-9, 15
1 Corinthians 9:3-14, 17
Luke 12:42-48
“Each of us will be accountable to God.” Romans 14:12
“Every faculty you have, your power of
thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by [The
Lord]. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His
service, you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own
already.”
– C.
S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
So according to Mr. Lewis (and no less according to
sound biblical principles), there can be no part of our being that is not
already claimed – and more especially so by the Blood of Christ Himself. It stands to reason, then, that everything we
do and every word we speak are responses
to this reality. We are in a constant
state of response to The Eternal Covenant.
This is an important distinction because we must not believe being
justified before The Lord automatically makes everything we do or say good or
right. We still possess the capacity to
do our own thinking. It is the power of thinking which is given from
Above.
So the first thing the modern Protestant Church needs
to do is to shed the common assertion that in the Covenant of Christ, we don’t
“have to” do anything. This is not only held
to be blatantly false by Jesus’ many words; it has been proved over the
generations to be extremely destructive to the Church and Her mission because at best it is an incomplete statement.
This “alibi” has led to the statistical reality that only
20% of the people of the Church gives, and only 20% of the people of the Church
does the work. The other 80% simply does
not care. The Church is already limping
through the 21st century; imagine what the Church would look like if
EVERY Christian decided he or she didn’t “have to” do anything.
On the other hand, imagine what the Church could
accomplish for the Kingdom and the communities we are called to serve if every
Christian spent more time thinking in terms of stewardship instead of ownership.
What is most unfortunate about the biblical principle
of stewardship is that many, maybe most, Christians immediately think of money;
and almost immediately after this thought crosses the mind, we go numb, we shut
down, and we stop listening. Tithing and
other offerings are certainly a part of a total heart for stewardship, but
money in and of itself is not at all a component of a life devoted to faith and
to Christ and His Body, the Church. Stewardship
is entirely about what we do
with money and with every other component of our being.
So we must not think of stewardship as an “expensive”
proposition but, rather, as an “expansive” one that encompasses every facet of
our lives – whether we are working, shopping, playing, babysitting the
grandkids, worshiping, or studying the Scriptures. Stewardship is where the concepts of faith,
work, and leisure time come together. There
is no part of our doing that is not “accountable to God”, as St. Paul
wrote to the Romans and no part of our speaking that will not be called to
account, as Jesus spoke in Matthew’s
Gospel (12:36); because every part of our being - in how we worship and
work and play in stewardship - is equipped and called for the sake of the
Gospel.
The psalmist begins the 24th psalm with,
“The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in
it, the world, and all who live in it.” And from the very beginning, humans were
created to work. The work in the
beginning was to tend and care for all of creation – not only for man’s own
benefit but for the sake of The Lord’s charge to him. Then, of course, as the Genesis
account goes, The Lord determined that man could not do this alone, so woman
was created.
This account can go in a
couple of different directions, but for our purposes let us consider what I
believe to be the dominant principle: stewardship is too big to do alone. And let us also consider that each human was
not charged to do only so much as what may have been required for individual
need or desire. The charge to care for
it all is humanity’s first “commandment”.
And within the structure of woman being created for man, we should
consider the very broad principle that we are created to care for one another
to make the work possible.
Stewardship, then, is our
expression of obedience, a measure of faith and devotion to all The Lord has
entrusted to us. This is part of the
reason why the vows we take when we join the United Methodist Church – which must
never be taken lightly - challenge us to consider stewardship to be of the
utmost importance in the life of the Church; because much like our marriage
vows, we are not promising to go along as long as everything is going
well. We vow to The Lord Himself that we
are committed to the very end.
Hugh Whelchel is executive
director of the Institute for Faith. In
a 2012 article, he pointed out four fundamental principles of stewardship: ownership,
responsibility, accountability, and, last but not least, reward. Each principle has a biblical justification,
and each principle speaks volumes about the biblical reality that we own
nothing. And if we do happen to think we
are entitled to these things we think we own, even as we worked and saved for
and hold title to these things, we are also reminded by the Scripture, as the
Israelites were cautioned by Moses, “Remember
The Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth”
(Deuteronomy 8:18).
The “ability to produce wealth” but still with a mind
to decide what to do with it, however much or little. As a nation, we’ve come to expect the
so-called “one-percenters” to pay their fair share – whatever “fair” may be;
but as the principles of biblical stewardship go, we often fail to realize that
no one who claims the Holy Name is immune.
No one of us should consider ourselves so poor or so in debt that we
have nothing to offer to The Lord and His Church – or so ‘saved’ that we don’t “have
to” - because it simply is not true.
This is why stewardship must never be reduced to only a discussion about
money and tithing.
Jesus’ parable in Luke
12 (42-48) combines all the principles of stewardship held forth by Mr.
Whelchel (ownership, responsibility, accountability, and reward), but take note
that the parable says nothing exclusively about money. This is not to say
that stewardship is about everything except money; but we do see by this
parable that while the Master is away, those who live and work and do according
to His imminent return will find reward.
Not the reward we think we are entitled to by our own standards, but by
our faithfulness with everything entrusted to us will The Lord decide what our
reward will be.
It is not enough to think of stewardship in terms of
how severe or light our punishment may be when The Lord returns and calls us
all to account. What is most important –
above every principle, every standard, every ideal, certainly above every silly
superstition – is that in stewardship, we live and work and play and shop with
the joyful expectation that
our Lord IS coming back!
Like the slave (or servant) in the parable, we must
not allow ourselves to be convinced The Lord “is delayed” in His return to the
point that we may do according to our own desires and exploit what is at our
disposal for our own pleasure or personal gain.
Rather, we must learn to live in the Promise of Joyful Anticipation –
the kind of anticipation we experienced as children while counting down to
Christmas! Remember “being good” for
Santa? Helping around the house?
In the simple mind of children, it was – and still is
- all about what might be found underneath the tree on Christmas morning. For the mature disciple, however, it is
entirely about a state of mind and heart to live with the knowledge that The
Lord’s Promise is sure and certain – much more certain than our paychecks or
Social Security!
Stewardship is discipleship more clearly defined. Stewardship goes far beyond believing something to be true;
it is a life spent in knowing
our Lord is true. And just. For the principle of stewardship is not at
all about gaining adequate reward; it is entirely about showing The Lord what
we can be trusted with in His Eternal Kingdom!
Because that Kingdom is coming! Glory to The Lord Most High! Amen.
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