Stewardship, Like Conversion, is a Lifelong Process
In the interest of full disclosure, it is my responsibility to inform you that this weekend (this Sunday) is commitment week for Parish Stewardship. It is the Sunday in which we ask you to prayerfully consider how you will give of your time, talent, and treasure to serve God and our fellow brothers and sisters through a host of ministries and activities.
I wanted to get this out of the way early in this homily so we could also get the groans out of the way. For peoples’ reaction to stewardship appeals often is a kind of collective “here we go again.” And indeed, no matter how much our pastor and other pastors seek to strike a balance between liturgical worship and worship through stewardship, a certain insidious sense of the Church as an institution of never-ending needs can develop. We can be tempted to think that God is a demanding god and we cannot do enough to please him.
We do not want you to feel that way. We do not want you to consider stewardship through a sense of guilt, of bargaining with God, of fending off bad things by putting up more money, much as pagans did with sacrifices to this or that god.
All Christians are on the road to salvation. Jesus died and rose so that we could work our way back to God by the way we live. And so at the heart of stewardship lies the question of just what kind of relationship do we want with God? Indeed what kind of life do we want to have? Stewardship is a part of conversion, of making loving God and others the central priority in our lives. While to be sure we have dedicated campaigns of stewardship, at the end of the day such activities will not work well unless we think of stewardship not as a campaign, not as an isolated task, but as a daily call of the Christian life.
This is not an easy lesson to learn. It certainly has not been for me. I was born a cradle Catholic. I had wonderful parents, who sent me to excellent Catholic schools, took me to church, and lived their faith. Despite all their best efforts, like many young people, when I was old enough to be on my own, I drifted away from God. It is often said that youth is wasted on the young. That was certainly true in my case. When you are in your twenties, you think you can do anything. Physiologically, you usually have a lot going for you. And you can develop passionate professional interests with the energy to help carry them out, you think, without God’s help.
I was very lucky. God gave me many, many gifts in which to ply my professional trade and earn a comfortable living. As I took on a wonderful wife, and we were blessed with two wonderful sons, I began to realize it was time to come back to the church, and try and provide a Catholic education for our own kids. But in retrospect, it was at best an incomplete conversion, driven by guilt and a desire to somehow buy God’s continued good graces. Putting God first was lacking as I rather radically separated my spiritual life from my professional life.
At the relatively young age of 37, I rose to nearly the very top of my profession. In a key organization in my field, I was the Senior Vice-President and had been a key figure in increasing the size of the budget of that organization five-fold.
But I was not putting God first. No matter how many grants and contracts I won, there was pressure to do more, to keep winning, to keep growing. My devotion to God and to my family suffered and so did I. My success produced mostly jealously from others and self-absorption and resentment in myself when I did not succeed. I began to hate myself, and others began to hate me.
So for all my success in business, I was hauled into the office of the President of our organization and summarily fired. I had an enormous sense of injustice about it all. And I was frightened to my very bones. I was 42, with a wife and two teenage boys, wondering how in the world I was going to be able to give them a good life. I sunk into a deep depression and contemplated suicide.
After this near death experience, I finally, after all these years of going to church, began to develop a real relationship with God. Not as some kind of celestial Santa Claus. Not as a supreme being needing to be appeased, but a loving, merciful God who wants what is best for us and wants us to be close to him if only we will let Him. It finally dawned on me at the deepest emotional level that I was not alone. I could not do things without God. I realized that without God, I would fall flat on my face, and indeed I had. I decided to get closer to God, to allow Him to work in me, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit for the benefit of others. To pray and receive the sacraments. To serve God’s people. To receive by giving.
There is a happy ending to this story. I got professional help and I began to become more active in my church in Maryland where we lived. I found a new job, one which enabled me to stay in my field, but in a smaller organization so I could bring some balance to my life. I took on new ministries. And I thirsted for full ministry. I felt called to the permanent diaconate. I was ordained in 2002.
In working with and for others, I receive joys beyond imagining, joy far greater than the power, money, and influence I once had. And then one day in August, 2004, sitting in my office in Washington, DC, I was to receive an offer from the University of Washington to move my organization to Seattle. Lois and I had planned on retiring on Whidbey Island anyway, but here came this manna from heaven, right into my lap. We would build our retirement home eight years early. I then began to search in earnest for the nearest Catholic church. Deacon Huber found St. Hubert’s. An accident? I don’t think so.
I have included this personal witness this morning not because I am special. But rather because I am not. Many of you could share similar experiences. The point, however, is that we have lots of reasons brothers and sisters, to pursue stewardship and put God first. And it is true in good times and in bad.
If we put God first in good times, we realize that everything we have comes from God. This attitude toward stewardship is one shaped by gratitude rather than guilt, envy, resentment, and vengefulness. It is an attitude about stewardship that helps us put God first, to give first fruits rather than last. In such good times, St. Paul reminds us in our second reading from the second reading to the Thessalonians, we can easily discern God’s love that encourages our hearts and strengthens them to give back for what we have been given.
It is undoubtedly harder to pursue stewardship when life seems not full of blessings. For if gratitude for gifts received is the only reason we pursue stewardship, then hard times can easily destroy our relationship with God and others. In bad times, we pursue stewardship because bad times can actually bring us closer to God. Our own troubles remind us clearly how much the greatest person of all time, Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered grievously. And, in human terms, for no good reason. Jesus was nailed to a tree for serving God and others, so gratitude in human terms can be fleeting indeed.
Yet his suffering did not overcome Him. He conquered sin and death. He brought salvation to humans in His death even though He sought to do so in life. And when we share Jesus’ mission to serve God and others, we join our suffering to his. We come closer to God who always stands with us. We are reminded of the many people, like the saints and our veterans who we honor officially tomorrow, who had the courage to face death and emerge victorious in faith, making our world and our country a better place.
We also learn to step back and discern what God is asking of us, where He wants us to go. Even when we are hurting and wanting, discerning the presence and workings of God means we have developed a deeper sensitivity to God’s presence and how God acts in our lives. Our second reading also tells us that in bad times the Lord directs our hearts to love of God and the endurance of Jesus Christ. What an insight! To give thanks in bad times through stewardship is to be truly shaped by a deep faith. And what a gift that is!
There is much to consider in the process of stewardship. But let our stewardship be a part of an authentic Christian life in which we give not because we have to, but because we want to. Don’t give out of guilt. Give because it makes you joyful in giving in order to receive. Give, because we want to be like Jesus, the God and person who showed us how to live. Stewardship, like conversion, is a lifelong process. But the blessings, whether we face good times or bad, are enormous. Our pastor, himself a great steward, will now lead us through the process of commitment to a greater stewardship in our own parish.