5th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024

Stewardship is as old as time. It started in the garden of Eden. After creating the first family, Adam and Eve, God gave them their first job--He made them caretakers (stewards) of all of creation. They were to care for all the plants and animals God created. Our first parents were in charge of all the resources God gave them.

After the fall and sin entered the world, what began was a series of events that moved the people of God further and further away from an intimate, personal relationship with Him. God initiated a series of covenants or promises

between Him and His chosen people. Abraham’s covenant with God established a tribe, Moses’ a nation, and David’s a kingdom. With each covenant, the people seemed to move away from knowing and serving God and  instead setting a more formal, yet distant, relationship. A series of prophets emerged always calling God’s people back to a committed relationship, but often Israel ignored their prophets and went their own way. Eventually God stopped sending even prophets to reach His people.

Then, after centuries of silence, Jesus came. He came to save us from our sins and reestablish the family relationship we lost in the garden of Eden. The revolutionary idea of seeing God as our Father (Abba or Papa in Aramaic and Hebrew) scandalized many in Israel. They were content to keep God at a comfortable distance. They were content to simply engage in formal religious practice rather than respond to the invitation and the demands of a dynamic, loving relationship; but, that is what Jesus calls us to--an intimate relationship with Him, God our Father, and the Holy Spirit.

When you love someone, you don’t try to figure out, “What’s the least I can do to maintain this relationship?” No, you seek ways to deepen the connection and give more of yourself. Certainly, Jesus did not think of us that way when He came to save us. He didn’t think, ‘What’s the least I can do to save my people?” He instead gave everything,

the last drop of His precious blood to bring us back to a family relationship with God.

So, what’s our response to such a generous, lavish love? Do we calculate the least we can do to keep God happy, to earn a place in heaven? If so, what does that say about our love for God? Is it simply a like a bad marriage with a series of “quid pro quo” transactions?

When God calls us to love Him, He doesn’t want a portion of your heart. He doesn’t want us to do the minimum to keep Him satisfied. He doesn’t ask for a tithe of you, ten percent of your time, money and use of the gifts He’s given you. No, He wants one hundred percent of all of us and all He’s given us--not because it makes Him any greater, but because it draws us into right relationship with Him. He invites us to think how we spend our time, financial resources, and abilities. Once we reexamine all that we have through this lens, we realize that it all belongs to Him and giving it all back to Him is for our own good.

In Luke 8:8 and again in Mark 10:30, Jesus talked about sowing good seed and producing a rich harvest a hundredfold over. We are invited to surrender all we are, all we have, back to Him and receive in return a hundredfold. Not a financial return, but a return of brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers as part of the family of God.

So, what is stewardship? It is the opportunity to give all we are, and all we have, back to God and watch what He does with it. An invitation to hold nothing back and imitate Jesus--Who gave all He had to save us and make us children of the Father, a family once again.

There is a sleeping giant at Our Lady of Grace, and it’s not the priests on the altar--it’s us sitting in the pews! Once we “get in the game” and give God everything, just watch what He does with willing hearts to bring new life to His kingdom in Greensboro!