Returning to our unpacking of our diocesan and parish mission statement, the next phrase to consider is where we express our desire, as missionary disciples, to be “steadfast stewards of God’s creation.”
In the early 1990’s, the Bishops of the United States issued a Pastoral Letter on Stewardship, Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response. In that document, they reflected on the image of stewardship by citing the Parable of the Talent in Matthew 24:14-30. The story is about a man going on a journey who “called his servants and entrusted to them his property.” (Mt 25:14) He gave each of them a different number of talents. Upon his return, he commended those servants who used the talents entrusted to them, and he punished the one who did nothing. Here is an important point the document makes on this parable:
The silver pieces of this story stand for a great deal besides money. All temporal and spiritual goods are created by and come from God. That is true of everything human beings have: spiritual gifts like faith, hope, and love; talents of body and brain; cherished relationships with family and friends; material goods; the achievements of human genius and skill; the world itself. One day God will require an accounting of the use each person has made of the particular portion of these goods entrusted to him or her. (p. 20)
The first thing that a steward needs to acknowledge is the primacy of God for everything. All that we have is a gift that has been entrusted to us by God, and He is asking us to be good stewards of those gifts. As Christians, that stewardship is expressed in generously sharing our gifts with others, not just clinging to them selfishly as though they were our exclusive property.
Perhaps one of the most valuable, and seemingly scarce, gifts is our time. We are pulled in so many different directions that when we are asked to consider giving an extra hour or so, we are hesitant to do so. In fact, we would just as soon give an extra $20 to a cause than take an hour of our valuable time to volunteer for that same cause. We often conclude that our time is more valuable, and that somebody else will step up to fill the need. We sadly are aware of the fact that when this dynamic exists, a small number of people are left to do the majority of the work, resulting in their getting burned out more quickly, when had everybody been willing to be generous with a little bit of their time, the burden would have been more equally distributed.
Speaking of our stewardship of time, the Church asks us for an hour each week to set aside to worship Him at Sunday Mass. If we acknowledge that all the time that we have comes from Him, how can we possibly not want to give Him that hour of thanksgiving and prayer each Sunday? If we commit to this most fundamental form of stewardship, we will be well on our way to being open to being good stewards of all of the others gifts with which the Lord has blessed us, and be ever more willing to share them generously for the good of others.
Father Alford