Reflections on Stewardship

05 Oct 2009

I recall hearing about a couple that would speak frankly in front of their children about sex, death and all manner of subjects. When it came to talking about money, they would go off to their bedroom and close the door so the children couldn’t hear. That’s how we sometimes treat the issue of financial stewardship. But Jesus wasn’t coy about it. Take the story of the Widow’s Mite. He sat in front of the temple treasury and watched people putting in their offering, and dared to comment on it. Jesus talked a lot about money. In fact, he spoke more about money and material possessions than any other subject except the Kingdom of God.

In that story, Jesus saw the rich making large contributions. Then the poor widow drops in a few cents, and he says, “She’s put in more than all of them; she, out of her poverty, has put in all she had to live on. The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford – she gave her all.”
Jesus is asking us to look at this woman as a model of trust in God and total commitment to God. The challenge and encouragement of her example is in how her gift shows the extent her life was turned to God. She didn’t calculate what was reasonable to give; she didn’t carefully work out a percentage; she gave all she had to live on that day. Her giving was total. It was an expression of utter generosity and trust.
The value of any gift isn’t set by its cash value, but by what it represents for the giver. It’s set by its cost to the giver, in terms of what she or he has and by the commitment that’s gone into it. For the rich people Jesus saw first, their gifts were a small drop from their buckets. For the widow it was the whole bucket. From a biblical point of view, giving isn’t about meeting a budget or paying a bill. It’s about our relationship with God, and the commitment and faith that lie behind it.

The Israelites were told to set aside the first fruits of their harvest as an offering to God as a response to God’s gifts to them. God had blessed them by freeing them from slavery in Egypt, leading them through the wilderness and giving them a land to settle in. Because of their relationship with God, they set aside the first and the best of what they had, in order to acknowledge God’s amazing generosity to them.

So when we consider financial giving, let’s think on who God is for us, on what God has done for us, on what God has given us. Then ask, “How does my giving reflect that? How does my giving reflect my trust in God and my relationship with God?”

WORDS: ALISTER HENDERY