Читать книгу Grateful and Generous Hearts - John H. Westerhoff III - Страница 6

How we understand and live our lives is a result of how we perceive life and our lives. Christianity is a way of life dependent upon our perceptions, which is to say our faith. We all live by some faith. And that faith determines how we live.

Recall the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30). It is a story that is related to stewardship, but not in the way we might think. In this story, like many others, there are two throwaway characters whose purpose is to draw attention to a third character. In this case, there is the master, who is God. God entrusts his three servants with his money. God returns and asks them to account for their stewardship. The third one explains, “I perceived you to be a harsh, demanding, critical parent, and so I saved what you gave me and here it is.” And God responds, “You say I am a harsh, demanding, critical parent? Well then, let’s take what you have saved and give it to the others, and then cast you out where there is gnashing of teeth.”

Here is a parable intended to teach us that the God we perceive is the only God we can experience, even if the God of our experience is not God at all. Further, this faith or perception of God will influence our understanding of stewardship. Stewardship, therefore, is first of all about how we perceive life and our lives—about faith.

Stewardship is one dimension of the Christian life of faith. It is not a program, not an every-member canvass, not a fund-raising campaign, not an occasion for people to vote whether they like or do not like how the church spends their money or treats them.

Stewardship is what we do after we say Credo, we believe, that is, after we give our love, loyalty, trust and obedience to God, the God of our faith.

Christian faith, I acknowledge, makes little sense in the modern world. It is a perception of life in which everything we have and are is gift. It perceives that we are called to be servants of the master, ministers of the magister, stewards of God.