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Like Water Flowing to the OceanBy Ed Taylor |
defining stewardship for the 21st Century
The place of my birth, affection and belonging is central Illinois. It is familiar to me. Like much of central Indiana, its fertile f lat land fans out in each direction. Summer rains soak the grassy waterways, generate small streams and fill local creeks. A child launches a small boat of sticks, leaves and string and asks, "Where does it go?" I would reply: "Well, it's a long journey, but the water could eventually make its way to the ocean."
In Indiana, rain might first make its way through Fall Creek to the White River to the Wabash River to the Ohio River to the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico and maybe to the Atlantic Ocean. Waterways were my first recollection of making the connection between where I lived each day and the vastness beyond the familiar.
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To define Christian stewardship for the 21st century seems as easy as defining the ocean. No description adequately conveys its incredible complexity and wonder, its patterns and promises. |
To define Christian stewardship for the 21st century seems as easy as defining water f lowing to the ocean. No description adequately conveys its incredible complexity and wonder, its patterns and promises. Like the waters that f low from a farm in Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico, stewardship is as fluid and resistant to our many attempts to tame it. Yet, I enjoy standing on the beach while the sea washes over my feet and I breath deeply of the ocean air. And, I enjoy the Sunday morning offering presented under the canopy of Doxology. Stewardship is at once mysterious and familiar.
To be a steward in the 21st century is not altogether unlike what was required in years past - except we have never been here before. It may be helpful to consider what healthy stewardship looks like, address potential barriers and give some attention to the path before us.
Stewardship Begins With Receiving
Scripture speaks sparingly of stewardship as we have come to understand it. Putting pieces together, we begin to get a sense of what the Apostle Paul referred to when he wrote: "Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy" (1 Corinthians 4:1-2). Stewardship is foremost a matter of identity and relationship.
The Bible yields few definitions but abundantly supplies us with engaging images. In Deuteronomy 26, Moses offers final instructions to the Israelites before they cross the Jordan into the land God promised.
"When you have come into the land that the Lord your God gives you ..." This is our first hint of healthy stewardship. Before it will be found in our generosity, in ventures of wise management, or in care giving, stewardship begins with the awareness that God gives. In this story, it is the gift of land, a perpetual sign of belonging to those who would be God's people. Living with integrity upon the land also was an act of receiving God's gift. A healthy stewardship begins with receiving. "When you have come into the land ... you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground." A portion of the harvest was to be put it into a basket and taken to the place God chose. Entrusting the offering to the priest, the people were to tell the story of who they were by recounting what God had done. A prescribed ritual for making the offering joined the labors of the field to household of God. Repeated year after year, ritual becomes holy habit, an act of worship in response to God's graciousness.
John Golv, in Our Stewardship - Managing our Assets wrote, "Gifts and assets are received well when we are overwhelmed with the need to give thanks to God." Such worship overflows the rim of the community of faith gathered on Sunday mornings and spreads across the whole of our lives.
Scott Rodin said, "Our work as stewards takes on the form of worship defined as a free and joyous response to the grace of God toward us in Jesus Christ."
In Deuteronomy 26:11, Moses continues, "Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house."
When we give, we participate in God's unfolding mission. Such giving joins us to God's household, including those, like the Levites and aliens, who are dependent and living at the edges of belonging.
Give Beyond Budget
As Christian within our congregations, we are invited to give to that which lives beyond the budget. In caring for the environment, we are invited to engage and celebrate the fullness of the natural world beyond the initial steps of saving and protecting. As stewards of the Gospel, we give beyond proclamation to live within the fellowship of hearers.
As Christian stewards, we embrace a generosity shaped by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A healthy stewardship in the 21st century gives in such a way that he or she becomes a part of God's expanding household as it reaches those living in the hope of hospitality and welcome. Christian stewardship receives, cares and gives beyond our life together in Christ and into daily life of the community as our discipleship.
A participant in a seminar I conducted asked: "What keeps us from being as generous as we would like to be?" Her question acknowledged barriers that hinder our ability to understand, communicate and practice the stewardship to which we are called. Among a number of barriers confronting the steward in the 21st century, these two come to mind.
First, confusion surrounds stewardship as it is referred to in so many ways with no well-defined expectation. Too often we reduce "stewardship" to mean the annual financial appeal in congregations. Too often we reduce "environmental stewardship" to recycling.
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Fear tempts us to acquire more and give less. |
Second, stewardship also is susceptible to overly broad definition like "stewardship is the practice of the Christian religion" or "stewardship is the care and keeping of all creation."
It's easy to become entangled in defining terms. More than 50 years ago, Clarence Stoughton wrote in Stewardship Facts that "the difficulty with stewardship, however, is that we have an oversupply of definitions; so many, in fact that instead of clarifying they have now become a muddying element in much of our thinking."
Some assert that the very word "stewardship" has grown weary by being overused and overburdened. Words like "trusteeship" and "generosity" have been recruited in an effort to replace stewardship. Others see stewardship as a word in need of encouragement and renewed attention. This confusion over a definition too often leads to silence. The church strains to find its voice to offer a language that helps us make sense of the economies of money, time, environment and even relationships.
John Haughey notes: "In our American culture money speaks all the day long and faith is virtually silent. It's not like faith to be silent, but in the presence of money it has learned to accept a monologue."
Overcoming Culture Shaped By Fear
In responding to our stewardship of the environment, much of the conversation and models for caring take place outside the faith community. We may be required to put away the word stewardship, not for the sake of finding a replacement, but to find new ways to tell the story, our own faith story of what it means to receive and care and give.
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When we give, we participate in God's unfolding mission. |
Faithful stewardship in the 21st century continues to be counter-cultural, particularly in a culture shaped by fear. Before we had taken very many steps into this century the fears surrounding 9/11 and terrorism demanded our attention in new ways. The evening news, both local and national, reminds us of the imminent danger of everything from common kitchen bacteria to the West Nile virus, from unemployment to weapons of mass destruction.
Fear inhibits the practice of a stewardship that welcomes strangers, receives the generosity of another or accepts a new responsibility. Fear tempts us to acquire more and give less. In such an environment, it makes little sense to "give away what I may one day need." Fear of not having enough, paralyzes our ability to receive and to give. The greatest fear may be to believe that we are not enough. Our consolation and challenge is to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for the very nature of Christianity is to speak hope to fear. Breaking through fear, a sustaining stewardship for a new century requires:
Awareness - What is hidden by privilege or overshadowed by busyness, can be brought to light through ref lection. For example, consider having a non-electric day in your household. With the exception of the furnace and refrigerator, don't use electricity-dependent items such as lights, microwave, washer and dryer, television, computer. Where do unconscious habits take over? Are you more anxious or relaxed? Do you know where your electricity originates? Its source - nuclear power, coal, wind and water?
The book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez offers a disciplined approach to becoming aware of financial habits. It encourages an assessment of what we value most and which decisions support those values. In a very simple and practical exercise a colleague has developed cards for his wallet and checkbook Each reads "STOP Is this purchase consistent with what I value most and with my goal of faithful stewardship?"
Affirmation
- In the Deuteronomy 26 passage, the people of Israel were instructed to tell a
story as they presented their offering. The story was one shared by the
community - "My ancestor was a wandering Aramean." What story tells who you are
as a Christian steward? What story does your congregation tell regarding your
lives as a stewarding community? In such stories, we begin to tell the truth of
who we are and what we believe.
The Sunday morning offering provides a good opportunity for recounting personal and congregational stories of the rhythms of receiving, caring and giving that honors God's generosity. Where have you discovered the truth of the passage, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16)?
Affinity - Understood in a variety of ways, I am drawn to the references of affinity as "companionship or voluntary association." In becoming aware of our relationship to that which has been entrusted to us and aware of what we believe about this trust, we move toward wanting to share our insights.
Christianity is a communal faith - lived out in fellowship. We seek out people who share similar interests and views as well as those who challenge our thinking. Existing church fellowships provide excellent opportunities to explore our call to be stewards at home and in the gathered faith community. Local groups such as food buying cooperatives, river clean-up teams or socially-responsible investment clubs offer a wider perspective.
Action - This is the place of stewardship most familiar to us - giving, organizing and managing. For that reason it may be more important for us to linger awhile longer with awareness, affirmation and affinity.
Enjoy the path of the steward - as complex as water f lowing from creek, to river, to gulf, to ocean and as simple as a rain shower giving life to the ground.
To contact Taylor, write to Ecumenical Stewardship Center, 1100 W. 42nd St., Suite 225, Indianapolis, IN 46208; call 800-835-5671.
Ed Taylor is executive director of the Ecumenical Stewardship Center in which The United Methodist Church is an active member.