"Stewardship"

Notes from the Pastor…

I grew up in a conservative-Evangelical denomination, and consequently, the word “stewardship” became synonymous with the words “guilt” and “money;” an odd couple to be sure.  During relentless times of stewardship I always judged the sermons on the basis of whether they motivated me as much as the commercials for children of malnutrition that could be healthy for just a dollar a day.  If the sermon accomplished that level of guilt, concerning the few dollars I stashed away in the pages of a book of
Baseball statistics, then it was a good presentation on “Christian stewardship.”  Each sermon closed with a crushing one-liner that was played like a wrong note at a piano recital; jolting us awake and cementing the point.  These were statements like: “Many people give a tenth to the Lord--a tenth of what they ought to give;” “A lot of people are willing to give God the credit, but not too many are willing to give God the cash;”
and “The only thing some people are giving these days is advice.”

As a youth, all I learned from stewardship series is that God wanted my money as if God were low on cash and needed a pay-day loan. Of course, my experience is narrow.  I have always wondered how Catholics approach stewardship, or for that matter, Methodists, Lutherans, or even  Mormons.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “stewardship” as: 1) the office, duties, and obligations of a steward.  2) the conducting, supervising, or managing of something.  These two definitions seem to follow the 16th century idea of “household management;” an idea that seems limited to Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred.

Yet I feel that “stewardship” may have a deeper, more spiritual nature to it.  If our bodies are the temple (or house) of the Holy Spirit, then I wonder if stewardship has to do with our bodies.  And if our bodies are our essence, our being, then does stewardship apply to everything about us?  Do we need to revisit “household management”?