EpiscopalCenter at Duke University

Have you ever thought about how easy it is to draw a line between what we do on Sunday and what we do every other day of the week? We may think of some activities as ‘sacred’ (anything that happens in church, for instance) and others as ‘secular’ (anything that happens at school, work, or elsewhere in our everyday lives). For Christians, however, there is no line between Sunday and the rest of the week nor one category for ‘sacred’ and another for ‘secular.’ Christians can’t compartmentalize.

Christians believe in a God who is the maker of heaven and earth and of all that is, seen and unseen. All of Creation belongs to God who made it and who calls us to be its stewards, to enjoy it and to care for it as God would have us care for it. The practice of being God’s stewards bursts any boundaries we’d like to set up between Sunday and every other day and between things that are ‘sacred’ or ‘secular.’ Wherever we are and whatever we are doing we are always God’s creatures in the midst of God’s Creation.

Which brings me to treasure, and time, and talent. It is tempting to think of money (treasure) as something of ours, a portion of which we may pledge to the Church. In this view, money is secular although it can be put to use in service of the sacred. That is society’s way of thinking about money, but it is not Christianity’s way. Money, and the goods and services money can buy, is part of God’s Creation and is, therefore, included in the stewardship to which we are called. Making an annual pledge to the congregation of which we are a part is one of the ways in which we are able to live into the invitation God extends to us to enjoy and care for God’s Creation.

Time is another of God’s gifts. And as with all God has given us, we are called to be faithful stewards of how we spend our time. The starting place for how we spend our time is our practice of Sabbath-keeping (as I noted here last month). Among other things, Sabbath-keeping helps us see the world as it really is, as God’s wondrous Creation. And once we begin to see the world that way–to see that ‘the world is charged with the grandeur of God,’ as Gerard Manly Hopkins put it–then we begin to understand what it means to be faithful stewards of our time. We’re spending our time in God’s good Creation. How we spend it (with passion, with enjoyment, with commitment, with love) matters.

And finally to talent. Paul says in his letter to the Romans,

We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Which means we cannot be who God intends for us to be on our own. It means that if we go through life acting as independent agents we are missing out on the fullness of what God offers us. Literally. God’s gifts are distributed among us: some are good with numbers, some with words; some are great at working with our children and others with our elders; some are great cooks or great musicians and others of us are great eaters and listeners. God has blessed us with abundant life and we need one another and one another’s gifts if we are to live abundantly. Good stewardship of our talent means recognizing we have gifts to share. Offering those gifts is essential to the life of our community.

Offering our treasure, time, and talent is one of the concrete, embodied, practical ways we are given to respond to God’s grace. I invite you to make such an offering this year. Your offering can be a joyful response to God’s gracious invitation to join in the stewardship of God’s Creation.

In the joy and peace of Christ,

Sarah+