Vicar’s Thoughts about Stewardship
God is the source of all gifts, spiritual and material. Every good thing we have and every good thing we are is a gift from God. The greatest of these gifts is the gift of Jesus Christ, a gift that gives us love, mercy, and forgiveness of our sins and ultimately everlasting life. The gift of Jesus Christ calls for us to make a commitment to God and to God’s work. A commitment of our treasure is an important way in which we make a commitment to God and reflects the state of our spiritual lives. We seek to follow Christ in community and in prayerful witness to our faith, each of us commits to pledge generously from the bounty of God’s gifts. Joyful giving results in spiritual growth and I urge you to join in this commitment to deepening our faith.
William Law was a quiet schoolmaster from Putney, England and was not a likely to be taken by anyone as a revolutionary, yet his book, "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" had near-revolutionary repercussions. His challenge to take Christian living very seriously received more enthusiastic response than he could ever have imagined, especially in the lives of John Wesley, Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. More than any other man, William Law laid the foundation for the religious revival of the eighteenth century, the Evangelical Movement in England, and the Great Awakening in America. The following is an excerpt from his book concerning stewardship.
"As the holiness of Christianity consecrates all states of life unto God, as it requires us to aspire after a universal obedience, doing and using everything as the servants of God, so are we more specially obliged to observe this religious exactness in the use of our estates and fortune.
The reason of this would appear very plain if we were only to consider that our estate is as much the gift of God as our eyes or our hands and is no more to be buried or thrown away at the pleasure than we are to put out our eyes or throw away our limbs as we please. Our estates are capable of being used to the most excellent purposes and is great a
means of doing good. If we waste it, we do not waste a trifle that signifies little, but we waste that which might be made as eyes to the blind, as father to the orphan; we waste that which enables us to minister worldly comforts to those that are in distress. So if we part with our money in foolish ways, we part with a great power of comforting our fellow creatures and of making ourselves forever blessed.
If there be nothing so glorious as doing good, if there is nothing that makes us so like to God, then nothing can be so glorious in the use of our money as to use it all in works of love and goodness, making ourselves friends and benefactors to all our fellow creatures, imitating the divine love and turning all our power into acts of generosity, charity, and kindness to such as are in need of it."
From William Law, "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" Chap.VI ( published 1728).
In our day and age, one of the most neglected topics and ill treated duties of the Christian faith is stewardship. All too often, when we hear about stewardship, it is only the pledge that is discussed. God, however, is concerned with much more than some percentage our possessions. Indeed, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, God cares about "All that I am and all that I have." When we look for examples of stewardship in Scripture one of the most striking is David’s song of praise found in 1st Chronicles:
"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill offering? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you." (1Chronicles 29:14)
David’s song is well known to Episcopalians-and for good reason. For many years, through various revisions of the Prayer Book, the plate offerings have been brought before the Holy Table with these words: "All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." Like the traditional version of the Lord’s Prayer, it is the other piece of Elizabethan English that survives and finds it way unbidden into otherwise contemporary worship services, as well into the corporate
memory of congregations. I believe there is something appropriate-something "meet and right"-about the survival of these words. They just might represent the clearest foundational statement of stewardship in Scripture.
David’s words, "Who am I, and what is my people" (29:14) are to be viewed not as mere self-deprecation, but as words filled with awe and profound gratefulness in the light of the intimate relationship that the people have with the Divine. With this in mind, the people’s offerings are to be viewed not in terms of obligation but of appreciation. The New Testament proclamation that "we love because God first loved us" (1st John 4:19) echoes this. How easy it is for us in our busy lives to fall into the trap of believing that everything is up to us, and we have to clutch whatever we have close to our heart so that we do not lose it. We work, we earn, we own. Moving from a position of ownership to one of stewardship really can be liberating, for like David we can choose to move from a position where we are at the center total responsibility-and the anxiety that accompanies it-to a place where we can still work hard but at the same time let go, turning clenched fists into open hands of praise and giving.
God is the source of all gifts, spiritual and material. Every good thing we have and every good thing we are is a gift from God. The greatest of these gifts is the gift of Jesus Christ, a gift that gives us love, mercy, and forgiveness of our sins and ultimately everlasting life. The gift of Jesus Christ calls for us to make a commitment to God and to God’s work. A commitment of our treasure is an important way in which we make a commitment to God and reflects the state of our spiritual lives. We seek to follow Christ in community and in prayerful witness to our faith, each of us commits to pledge generously from the bounty of God’s gifts. Joyful giving results in spiritual growth and I urge you to join in this commitment to deepening our faith.
William Law was a quiet schoolmaster from Putney, England and was not a likely to be taken by anyone as a revolutionary, yet his book, "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" had near-revolutionary repercussions. His challenge to take Christian living very seriously received more enthusiastic response than he could ever have imagined, especially in the lives of John Wesley, Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. More than any other man, William Law laid the foundation for the religious revival of the eighteenth century, the Evangelical Movement in England, and the Great Awakening in America. The following is an excerpt from his book concerning stewardship.
"As the holiness of Christianity consecrates all states of life unto God, as it requires us to aspire after a universal obedience, doing and using everything as the servants of God, so are we more specially obliged to observe this religious exactness in the use of our estates and fortune.
The reason of this would appear very plain if we were only to consider that our estate is as much the gift of God as our eyes or our hands and is no more to be buried or thrown away at the pleasure than we are to put out our eyes or throw away our limbs as we please. Our estates are capable of being used to the most excellent purposes and is great a
means of doing good. If we waste it, we do not waste a trifle that signifies little, but we waste that which might be made as eyes to the blind, as father to the orphan; we waste that which enables us to minister worldly comforts to those that are in distress. So if we part with our money in foolish ways, we part with a great power of comforting our fellow creatures and of making ourselves forever blessed.
If there be nothing so glorious as doing good, if there is nothing that makes us so like to God, then nothing can be so glorious in the use of our money as to use it all in works of love and goodness, making ourselves friends and benefactors to all our fellow creatures, imitating the divine love and turning all our power into acts of generosity, charity, and kindness to such as are in need of it."
From William Law, "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" Chap.VI ( published 1728).
In our day and age, one of the most neglected topics and ill treated duties of the Christian faith is stewardship. All too often, when we hear about stewardship, it is only the pledge that is discussed. God, however, is concerned with much more than some percentage our possessions. Indeed, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, God cares about "All that I am and all that I have." When we look for examples of stewardship in Scripture one of the most striking is David’s song of praise found in 1st Chronicles:
"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill offering? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you." (1Chronicles 29:14)
David’s song is well known to Episcopalians-and for good reason. For many years, through various revisions of the Prayer Book, the plate offerings have been brought before the Holy Table with these words: "All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." Like the traditional version of the Lord’s Prayer, it is the other piece of Elizabethan English that survives and finds it way unbidden into otherwise contemporary worship services, as well into the corporate
memory of congregations. I believe there is something appropriate-something "meet and right"-about the survival of these words. They just might represent the clearest foundational statement of stewardship in Scripture.
David’s words, "Who am I, and what is my people" (29:14) are to be viewed not as mere self-deprecation, but as words filled with awe and profound gratefulness in the light of the intimate relationship that the people have with the Divine. With this in mind, the people’s offerings are to be viewed not in terms of obligation but of appreciation. The New Testament proclamation that "we love because God first loved us" (1st John 4:19) echoes this. How easy it is for us in our busy lives to fall into the trap of believing that everything is up to us, and we have to clutch whatever we have close to our heart so that we do not lose it. We work, we earn, we own. Moving from a position of ownership to one of stewardship really can be liberating, for like David we can choose to move from a position where we are at the center total responsibility-and the anxiety that accompanies it-to a place where we can still work hard but at the same time let go, turning clenched fists into open hands of praise and giving.