Being A Good Steward (Precept #5)

 Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we pass through these Sundays after Pentecost, I thought it would be good to focus on some thematic preaching.  I still want to tie it to the readings, in some way, maybe only loosely, but still seeing how our faith and the Word of God are intertwined.  So, I’ve decided, for the next weeks, to concentrate on the Precepts of the Church.
    There are five precepts, which are described as “positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities…meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, int he growth in love of God and neighbor.”  So these are not all there is to being Catholic, but we could call them the basic rules and expectations of membership in the institutional Church.  The five (as found in the Catechism, paragraphs 2041-2043) are:

You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor;
You shall confess your sins at least once a year
You shall receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the Easter season;
You shall observe the days of fasting and abstinence established by the Church
You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church
 

Again, there are other necessary aspects of being Catholic (belief in the revealed dogmas of faith and living revealed moral teachings, respect and obedience to legitimate ecclesiastical authority, daily prayer, etc.), but these give us a base line.  Today, based upon our Gospel, I would like to focus on the last precept: you shall help to provide for the needs of the Church.

    Today's Gospel focuses on stewardship.  Our Lord tells a parable about a dishonest steward, who then makes side deals with the debtors, hoping that one of them will take him in after he’s fired, since he’s not able to do hard labor, and too ashamed to beg.  The fifth precept tells us that we are to provide for the needs of the Church, including, it goes on to say, the material needs of the Church, “each according to his abilities.”  
    We probably naturally go to money when we think of the needs of the Church and possibly even the word stewardship.  Priests are either very hesitant or very quick to talk about money.  One layman joked that when a priest talks about money it can be called the Sermon on the Amount.  Personally, I try to avoid talking about money unless I need to.  But this one time probably won’t hurt too much (for you or for me).
    Because, honestly, the people of St. Matthew are very generous.  And I greatly appreciate your generosity.  I believe that people give what they can, according to their financial realities.  As St. Paul says, he does not want us to make ourselves poor in assisting others, but that each could have enough, based on their own situations.  Some give weekly, others give monthly; some give cash or checks, others donate online with a credit card.  We recently have been the beneficiary or a large bequest, which is helping to make our office renovation a reality, so some even remember St. Matthew after death.  But, I’ll admit, it took me a while as a young man to consider giving to the church.  In high school, even though I was working a summer maintenance job for my parish, I’m pretty sure I didn’t give anything.  I didn’t make much, and that continued as a seminarian, and so I didn’t give much or anything.  But, after I was ordained, I made a commitment to give at least 5% of my income to the Church (whether the parish or the Diocese or even the universal Church), which would then leave me to donate up to 5% to other organizations.  And I think I’ve been pretty faithful to that.  But I don’t remember being approached by anyone as a young man, to remember to give.  So, for all you young adults, whether living with your parents or living on your own, here’s my plug: consider giving to the parish.  Maybe it’s only a buck or two every week, but you’ll be part of supporting our great parish.  
    Why give?  Because a steward is one who recognizes that what he has is not his.  A steward uses the goods of the master, with the master’s authority.  But they don’t, strictly speaking, belong to the steward.  When it comes to us, everything we have, whether directly or indirectly, comes from God.  The talents we use to get a good job come from God.  The talents of entrepreneurs who form companies that then hire us come from God.  Everything eventually gets traced back to God.  And so, as part of the virtue of justice, we give back to God some of what He has given to us.
    But I know that many of you are blessed with large families, and so don’t have a lot of money, even to give to the church.  And that is why it’s important to note that stewardship is not only about money.  It’s also about time and talent.  
    I have been so impressed by the donation of time and talent of parishioners here!  We have groups that help clean the church, ushers who collect our paper hand missals, gardeners who help care for the flowers, catechists who help form children (sometimes their own) and adults in the faith, those who donate food for our potlucks, members of our Finance Council and Pastoral Council who help guide the future of the parish, sacristans, servers, cantors, and the list goes on and on (I do not mean to leave you out, so please don’t take offense if I did not explicitly mention your group or activity).  People giving their time and talent to the parish are also a great sign of health and vitality.  And it gives a way for all people, those with large incomes and those who struggle to make ends meet each week, a way to build up the Mystical Body of Christ.
    And that is the real point of stewardship: that we do what we can to serve Christ.  I’m not the judge of your stewardship: that belongs to the Lord, who sees not only the external gifts, but also the internal gifts, and judges justly.  But we can never rest on our laurels when it comes to being good stewards.  Each June I re-evaluate how I am being a good steward of what God gave me, just as each Lent I re-evaluate my beneficiaries for what I will leave behind.  It’s a good thing not to view our stewardship with the perspective of fear, but in the freedom of being poor in spirit, relying on God for what we need and doing what we can to help others who are in need, to be, as St. Theresa of Avila says, the hands of God.  

    Thank you for your generosity of time, talent, and treasure, which helps St. Matthew continue to be a lamp in the city of Flint, radiating the truth and love of Christ to a city which desperately needs it.  Let’s re-evaluate what we can do, so that we can be even better stewards of all that our generous God has entrusted to us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Faith or Money?

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            My dad’s trade is business.  As long as I have known him, my dad has been running the financial operations of a company: first Friedland Industries, a recycling/scrap processing company in Lansing, and now the operations manager for St. Jude parish in DeWitt.  And yet, I would also say that my dad, like so many parents, is also a de facto teacher.  He never went to school to get a teaching certificate, but he’s taught me a lot about what he knows, especially finances.  Whether it was not buying Gushers because they were too expensive and too extravagant, or cutting out coupons for our regular grocery needs; or when I was getting ready to leave for college and he was teaching me the importance of building credit, and how to apply for and properly use a credit card; or when he would make sure that I didn’t spend more than I have, my dad taught me how to use money well.  And it has paid off for me when I lease a car, or when I’m deciding how I want to invest my money to save up for retirement (if I’m ever allowed to retire).

            Whether we like business or not, most of us are very particular about how we spend our money, especially if we are adults.  And we try to teach the next generation the same lesson.  I even found myself this summer, after I returned from school, talking to a Lansing Catholic alumnus about the importance of a credit card, as long as it is used responsibly.  We tend to treat money as a precious commodity, because without it we don’t have a roof over our head, clothes on our back, and food in our bellies. 

            In our Gospel today, Jesus invites us to treat our life in God with the same cunning as we treat our money.  He commends the dishonest steward for making sure that he was taken care of, even after he found out that he was being fired for squandering the master’s property.  This parable comes right on the heels on the parables we heard last week, and they’re in the context of Jesus speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees who were upset with Jesus spending so much time with sinners and tax collectors.

            And Jesus tells the Scribes and Pharisees that the sinners and tax collectors are to be commended, not because of what they have done in the past, but because of how they are changing their life when confronted with their sins.  They are honest enough to realize that their life is not godly, and so they decide they better take faith and religion quite seriously.  Just as the master in the parable was impressed by the dishonest steward making sure he was taken care of after his employment had ended, so Jesus was impressed, not by the sins of those who were following him, but by how seriously they were taking Jesus’ call to conversion, to turn away from sin and be faithful to Him.

            Our culture does not deal with sin very seriously.  How many times have we seen on TV, whether from a politician, or a rock star, or an athlete, “I am sorry if…” or “I apologize if…”?  That is not the message of someone who realizes the severity of the offense.  That’s someone who is not really concerned and just wants to get away with whatever was done.  That’s not the message of repentance.  That’s the message of excuse.

            If we are to be commended, then we have to face our sin head on, and make changes.  We have to truly turn away from our sin and give it the gravity it deserves, especially those grave sins which destroy our relationship with God and make us His enemies, rather than His beloved sons and daughters.  A lot of times people face their sins near the time of death.  When faced with mortality, and recognizing that a judgment is coming, people get very practical about how to make sure they’re not going to suffer.  But, as Jesus said so often, “Stay awake!  For you do not know the day nor the hour.”  We don’t know when our time to be judged will come upon us.  And, to quote Francis Cardinal George, “Jesus is merciful, but he is not stupid.”  

When faced with our sin, and this doesn’t only happen on our deathbed, what is our response?  Are we like the sinners and tax collectors of the Gospel who leave behind their past evils in order to follow Jesus?  Do we do all we can to make sure we are spiritually taken care of, just as the dishonest steward did all he could to make sure he was materially taken care of, or do we figure we’ve got time to keep living it up, and we can always repent later?  Do we treat our spiritual life as seriously as we treat our financial life?

If we do, then God is not just a three-letter word.  Our faith is not restricted to these walls.  It is something that changes the decisions we make.  It guides the way we vote.  It guides what we watch in the theater, on TV, and what we listen to.  It changes the way that we spend our time so that we are giving of our time and talents so that they’re not just used for our work to earn us money, but are used for the benefit of our Catholic family to show our acceptance of God’s grace and love.  It even changes the way we handle our finances: which charities we give to; how much we spend on niceties; how much we give to the Church.  We realize that, just because we don’t personally benefit from the Undergraduate Retreat, Alternative Spring Break, our Catholic schools, Senior Ministry; Youth Ministry; etc., does not mean that we do not volunteer our time or the things we do well, and even our money to these worthy causes. 

Jesus today confronts us with our sins, not to beat us up, but to give us the opportunity to make the changes so that we are taken care of spiritually in the life to come.  Make the change so that you will not be left outside of the gate, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, but will be welcomed to the wedding feast of the Lamb in the banquet hall of heaven.