John Scearce on Stewardship

Happy 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time!

I think of stewardship as an opportunity to share, in the simplest description, a reasonable portion of my time and treasure.  I say share instead of give, because honestly, I receive something back when I bring something to this community and to God.  I receive a feeling of satisfaction and joy from sharing something with this community to support our mission: Worship with Joy. Work for Justice. Grow in God’s Love.  

I want to point out that to give or to share time and treasure is to worship with Joy.  When I give something or volunteer in some way, it is prayer.  Sometimes, we pray with our hands, sometimes with our voices and music, and sometimes with Venmo or checkbook or purse.  For example, when I decide how much to donate for the weekly collection, working with Nancy, we jointly decide how much we can safely give.  We look at our fixed retirement income, our fixed expenses, variable expenses, optional or entertainment expenses and so forth.  We talk about the uncertainty of future asset value and future costs, and we consider if we should change our strategy or assumptions, based on changes in what we know and what we expect.  We work with a financial advisor periodically, as well as reading up on current events to check that our short-term and long-term future expectations are realistic.  In other words, our stewardship decision for donations to St. Therese is a routine part of our financial decision-making.

But don’t forget there is also time.  Some of it you see but much of it is unseen.  For example, it takes time for each of our choir members and our choir director to prepare for our service during Mass as choir members: rehearsing, learning new songs, organizing information, assisting new choir members and more.  All of it is prayer.  

Many ministries outside of celebration of the Mass contribute to the health and success of our church and school as a community.  We all receive great blessings as members of this community.  We can all find some visible or invisible activity to contribute to the community to make it stronger, safer, more welcoming and more comfortable for each other.  

Each of us has some kind of talent, no matter how great or small, which can help achieve our shared mission in some way.  In my own case, there are a few other things I like to do that sometimes are considered useful around here, like fixing a few odd bits of electrical wiring, switches, lights and such.  A while ago, we got some new metal wire shelves for storage in the Parish Center basement, and a call went out for volunteers, so I helped assemble those. Many volunteers are needed to help clean and decorate the church before major holidays, so Nancy and I have shown up for those tasks, on some occasions.  Assembling shelves and cleaning a room are things all of us do at home, so we all have the necessary skills for at least those kind of simple tasks.  

And who could forget last year, when a lot of parishioners working together built that tiny house right here in front of the church steps?  Swinging a hammer while holding up a 16-foot beam might also count in the “Work for Justice” category, but I say it’s still prayer.  Same for using shovels, rakes and hedge clippers to beautify the grounds as part of the Laudato ‘Si ministry.  Even these humble and sometimes dirty ministries still count as prayer in my opinion.   I’ve only done—and only mentioned here—a small part of the many different volunteer tasks, performed by our wonderful parishioners; tasks that go into keeping this parish alive and afloat.  But I hope you can see from my few examples that our mission statement gives us all wide latitude with how we might use our many diverse talents to make this parish and our corner of the world a little bit better.  All such works are pleasing in the eyes of God.