Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

Recovering Christian Stewardship from Secular Fundraising 13
We give in gratitude, and therefore praise God. It can even be
argued that our vocation as Christians is based in our faith, and lived
out (expressed) through our acts of stewardship. A good steward is
mindful of time, talent, and treasure, and uses all three to engage in
prayer, worship, acts of charity, mercy, kindness, humility, and love,
sustaining them all by embracing stewardship.
The Church, and the society in which we live, are increasingly
showing signs of alienation from these classical ideas of
stewardship. Resources are no longer seen as precious gifts from
God with which we have been entrusted, but as assets by which
profit might be gained or the institution protected. While there is
nothing wrong with profit per se, unwholesome profit belies our
vocation as stewards, be we sellers or consumers.
The notion of biblical stewardship obviates the distinction
between wealth and poverty. What matters is generosity. A good
steward understands his or her wealth as gift and shares it
proportionately. This means that even the poorest of the poor can be a
good steward. The small gift of a pauper may be vastly more generous
than the large gift of a rich person. Like the widow of St. Mark’s
Gospel, with the mite that was “all she had to live on” (Mk 12:41-44),
good stewards are impelled to give from the well of their deep desire.
Poor stewards, by contrast, are more concerned with the dollar amount,
recognition, and what might be gained in return for their “gift.”
I often wonder if St. Francis, himself a lover of poverty, when
contemplating the bounty of God’s love and generosity in a very
troubled world, might not have committed to prayer something like
this:
God, make me a steward of your bounty.
Where there is need, let me see it;
Where there is abundance, let me share it;
Where there is time, let me spend it;
and where there is treasure, let me use it to your glory!