From the time we are knit together in our mothers’ wombs until we take our final breaths, each moment of our lives is a gift from God. While every season of life brings its own challenges and trials, each season also gives us new opportunities to grow in our relationship with God.
Stewardship is about our response to God’s invitation.
Stewardship is an attitude, a stance in life of expressing through our daily living our gratitude to the Lord for all of His blessings. Stewardship is a way of life that calls us to ongoing conversion of heart and practical, concrete changes in our lives. Stewardship is what we do after we say “I Believe.”
Like our culture, we tend to divide people into winners and losers, admiring and hating the former, looking down on the latter, constantly sizing each other up, rating each other’s bodies, hair, intelligence, clothing, talents and achievements. We likewise defraud the poor while taking care of ourselves, and yet the Gospel this weekend shows us a way to be prudent and win even while losing.
In Scripture, we see many examples of people who seek out God’s guidance in prayer, especially so when they are alone and afraid as they stand before some major upheaval or impending suffering in their lives. We could easily see that in the well known Gospel today of the Prodigal Son.
Keeping up with the Joneses is an idiom referring to the comparison to one’s neighbor as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods. But what if the Joneses are broke? That means if you try to keep up with them, you will be more broke.
It’s always amusing to me when people say all we ever speak of in the Church is money. I heard it again a couple of weeks ago after discussing the Capital Campaign. I do speak about it maybe three times a year, but there are over 800 references in the Bible about money which makes it at the top of Jesus’ discussion list.
Work is not punishment or a necessary evil, nor is it humanity's means of accumulating control, power and wealth. Both of these ideas are contrary to the biblical view of work. We understand work as something intrinsically good, we are co-creators of God's world and work is part of our contribution.
I have turned in my pledge to the Archdiocesan Capital Campaign and I would ask you to do so as well. One Faith, One Family, One Future in Christ is an Archdiocesan wide capital campaign that will devote some serious resources to help with many extraordinary needs in the Church of Northeast Kansas. I’m giving extra over the next 5 years because I believe in the cause and so I am going to make some sacrifices to help.