Editor’s note: Monthly articles from LCMS Stewardship Ministry are hosted here on The Lutheran Witness site. Visit the “Ministry Features” page each month for additional stewardship content.
A seminary professor once quipped to a group of soon-to-be pastors just before Call Day: “Congratulations, brothers. You are about to graduate and become pastors. You will likely get two weeks of vacation your first year. This means that for 50 weeks in that year you will get to say the same thing, in new and creative ways.”
Even though this professor was talking about proclaiming Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of sins every single Sunday, what he said also applies to the whole counsel of God, including Christian stewardship.
But this is the mistake so many pastors and steward leaders make every year. They relegate the teaching of stewardship to those weeks just before the creation of the congregational budget, or only begin teaching stewardship when the financial resources of the congregation are beginning to wear thin. This situation is the result of a truncated and impoverished view of stewardship. Instead, how should we teach stewardship?
Stewardship begins in our baptismal identity in Christ
The identity of the Christian steward is far more complex than any giving chart or commitment card. When we relegate stewardship to time, talents and treasure, though these are neat compartments, they obscure a much larger truth. For both the individual and the congregation, the identity and vocation of the steward is at the very heart of the Gospel.
No pastor worth their salt would ever balk at reminding those entrusted to his care that they are baptized. From the structure and flow of the liturgy to preaching through the lectionary, the Divine Service is a weekly reminder that those gathered around Word and Sacrament are baptized.
This baptismal identity is not one God’s people claimed for themselves. It is one that has been placed on them. The baptized have put on Christ. They are not their own. They have been bought with a price. The currency of that purchase is not gold or silver, but the holy, precious blood and innocent suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Repeat it often: Be who Christ redeemed you to be
This is a message that is repeated in new and creative ways every week in orthodox Lutheran preaching and teaching.
This repetition is essential for two reasons. One, it is a call to repentance. Even the most faithful saint daily and often forgets that they do not belong to themselves. They claim ownership of what is really a trust from God. In the process, they are wallowing in idolatry that can and will separate them from the mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Second, weekly repetition is necessary because it is often forgotten that what is lost and then restored by grace in one’s baptismal identity is also a call to stewardship. Stewardship needs to be taught weekly since we forget it daily!
But this repetition is not about being the leech of Proverbs 30, demanding “Give, give” (Prov. 30:15). This weekly repetitive call to Christian stewardship is be!
Be who the Lord has made and redeemed you to be. This is a lesson that cannot be taught too much.
Is there a financial component to that? Of course there is! But it is so much more. Teaching stewardship as identity is the weekly call to serve the Lord by serving the neighbor. Because of sinful flesh that is turned in on itself, the sinner-steward often forgets their identity. Then, without fail, this forgotten identity leads to failed and sinful activity.
For this reason, the steward leader needs to strive for repetition in stewardship formation. The lectionary is a great tool in this. Every week, the assigned readings allow for, and even demand, a treatment from the perspective of the Christian steward. Managing all of life and life’s resources for God’s purposes is what the individual steward is called to do every day of their life. Repetition teaches this.
Steward leader: do not be afraid to be repetitive. Parents, teachers, and even God Himself repeat things so that the child, student and steward may learn. These lessons are learned by repeated exposure to the Gospel. This is done 52 weeks a year. And in the process stewards learn. They learn who they are. They learn what they are called to do. And they grow to the glory of God and the benefit of their neighbor.
LCMS Stewardship ministry features may be reprinted with acknowledgment given to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
