| Feature Article – October 2007 |
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Who is the most extravagant lover and who is the most radically generous one you have ever known? If you didn’t answer God, then go back to the Book and look again.
It is the season of hand wringing for clergy, wardens and treasurers as they look to try to balance the books for the current year and develop next year’s budget. As parishes and the diocese engage in this annual ritual of trying to make the money fit the needs it’s hard to imagine that our heritage is this God of extravagant love and radical generosity.
I have two favourite definitions of stewardship: “Everything I say or do after I say ‘I believe’” and “All that I am, all that I have, all of the time”. For me, stewardship isn’t about how much money I give to the church, or other organizations for that matter. It is solely about how I choose to respond to the God who loves me beyond my wildest imagination and who showers me with gifts that I do not deserve.
Over the next few paragraphs I invite you to suspend all judgments about stewardship and join in a discovery of what it might mean to be a steward of ‘all that I am and all that I have’.
The word steward comes from two old English words ‘sty’ and ward’. A sty ward was the person who looked after the pigs, usually those belonging to a landowner. Steward came to mean one who looks after something that belongs to someone else. If we can accept that all we have comes from God and that it all really belongs to God then we can see that we are all stewards, looking after those things which God has entrusted to our care.
How good a steward am I, are you, of those things which God has given into my/your care and keeping? How well do I care for my body – get enough exercise, eat healthy foods and not too much; drink sufficient water (preferably from the tap; not a commercial bottle), get enough rest? Do I nurture my spirit and my soul with attendance at worship and the Eucharist; read good literature; listen to uplifting music (which will be different for each of us)? What about my family? Do I provide for their physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs in appropriate ways? How do I care for the environment? What is my carbon footprint and what am I doing to reduce it? How do I respond to those lest fortunate than I am – victims of disaster, those who are hungry, in need of shelter? For example, if I live in a community where there are homeless, beggars, or panhandlers on the street, do I give them pocket change? If not, then do I acknowledge their existence with a nod or a word or just walk by as if they did not exist?
What about the financial resources that I have at my disposal? How do I steward my money? How well do I live within my means? Am I in debt, other than car loan or mortgage, and if so, why and how am I planning to deal with that? Am I putting money, even a little, away for the future? If I live on a fixed income, am I grateful that I know how much will come in each month? To what extent do I share my resources with others? Does God get the first fruits or the leftovers?
Most of us reaffirm the Baptismal Covenant at least occasionally during the year. The Covenant can provide a guideline against which to measure how well we are doing as stewards. Take a look at it. It is on page 159 of the Book of Alternative Services. Reflect on the questions above in relationship to the questions of the Covenant. You can ask yourself what am I doing well, where do I need improvement and which area am I going to work on first. Don’t try for an extreme makeover all at once; it won’t likely take.
I suspect you have been waiting for the issue of financial stewardship to show up and I won’t disappoint you. I do, however, hope to surprise you, at least a little. Each one of us who donates money to some cause or other, whether or not it is the local church can be described as a proportional giver. That is, we give away a proportion of our income. The question for each of us is: “Is it enough?” In the Anglican Church there are no rules about how much we ‘ought’ to give to the church. So how do we figure this out for ourselves? In the Hebrew Bible, the standard was the tithe of first fruits or 10%. Some modern church leaders have suggested a modern tithe of 5%, perhaps because a portion of our taxes already goes to help those less fortunate. I can’t say how much is right for anyone other than me. The question is how do I adequately respond to the God who has given me everything and who loves me more than I can possibly fathom.
I learned this exercise from Archbishop Douglas Hambidge, retired from the Diocese of New Westminster. It is called the fraction exercise. On a piece of paper, write down how much money you take in a year from all sources. Draw a line over this number. Above the line write down how much money you give away – to everything, not just the local congregation. This amount is a fraction. To discover the percentage that you are giving away multiply the top number by 100 and divide the result by the bottom number. Look at the percentage and ask yourself “Is this enough?” The answer is purely between you and your Lord. If you decide that it is not enough, develop a plan to increase your giving to the point where it is enough. Again, that is between you and God. Remember to include all the places where you give money away. Support those organizations that you believe are in some way helping to make the world a better place.
Stewardship is our response to a wildly generous and loving God. Much as I would wish, as do most others, that our congregations and diocese have more money than they know what to do with, my hope for each of us is that we learn to respond to God with gratitude from a heart that desires to imitate the love and generosity that has been showered on us.