Lent Is Upon Us

Last weekend for his homily for the first Sunday of Lent, Fr. Tim began a series on Stewardship. Fr. Tim broke his homily down into three major areas: Gratitude, Responsibility, and Generosity. 

For the benefit of our parishioners in anticipation of Fr. Marcus’ continuation of the series this upcoming weekend, here’s a quick recap of Fr. Tim’s homily: 

Gratitude

• “Stewardship is seeing all as Gift.”
• We feel joy when people use the gifts we’ve given them well. God rejoices when we use the spiritual gifts He has given us well.
• The devil tempts us into comparing our gifts to the gifts of others; we stumble when we dwell on what we don’t have rather than what we do have.
• To fight against this trap, we must deliberately practice gratitude — for example, by keeping a Gratitude Journal.
• We must remember to say “Thank You”, to God and to the people around us; develop an “Attitude of Gratitude.”

 Responsibility

• When we become grateful for our gifts, it remains a challenge to be responsible with them and use them well: sometimes, we spend too much time dwelling on our weaknesses and incompetencies rather than our giftedness.
• Becoming overwhelmed by trying to be responsible can make us irresponsible. The remedy is to take proper inventory of our Time, Talent, and Treasure — to be responsible with our gifts, we must learn to use the gifts we actually have.
• We learn to give in proportion to what we have — not becoming overwhelmed by giving more than we have, and not underperforming by giving too little. 

Generosity

• We can’t expect millionaire parishioners to just walk into church and solve all our monetary issues. And even if they did, we can’t just sit back and become spiritually complacent. We can’t let a handful of other people do everything for us.
• We all need to play our part and be good stewards of our gifts.
• We need to be generous with our gifts. It shows us how we trust in God.
• It’s a leap of faith to give God more than just our surplus gifts, but it helps us grow.-       “We have to lean on His grace to fill in the rest.”
• We need to pray to learn how to be generous with what we have. What is the Lord asking us to do?
• If we give what we have, God will bless us abundantly.

• Stewardship is an adventure.
• We all have a longing to embark on something great and have a purpose and meaning that takes us beyond where we began.
• Adventures are never easier, but through adventures we learn things about ourselves and the wider world and find greater meaning, perspective, and purpose in our lives and a sense of accomplishment; this is only possible by going through the trials an adventure presents us with.
• “We worship a God who loves adventure.” [this would be a good title or pull quote]
• God is constantly calling people to embark on new journeys; for example, the calling of Abram, whose name would eventually be changed to Abraham.
• God came into Abram’s life when Abram is 75 and has been comfortably going about his life.
• God calls Abram to give up all he has: his country, his kindred, and his father’s house to go to the land that God plans to show him.
• “I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great, and through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
• God asks Abram to give up three things, but makes a threefold promise in return, but this is only possible if Abram embarks on the adventure God is calling him to.
• This promise will benefit the entire world and play a key role in salvation history.
• Abram brought his family and his possessions with him; his faith and obedience wasn’t fully develop yet, but God was willing to work with him. -       God “works with all of us where we’re at.”
• Abram faces doubt and temptation and tries to take control; this inevitably just makes things worse, but God keeps bailing him out.
• God reaffirms His commitment and establishes the covenant with Abram, who becomes known as Abraham.
• God tests Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac; Abraham doubts how the promise to him will be fulfilled.
• Everything Abraham has received was already a gift from God.
• In the end Abraham obeys and takes his son to Mount Moriah.
• “He finally came to that place of surrender that his entire adventure had been calling him to. He recognised that everything belonged to the Lord.”
• God provided Abraham with even more.
• The promise continues to unfold with Isaac, with Jacob, and throughout the entire Old Testament; but the promise that Abraham’s descendants would be a blessing to all nations is only fulfilled in Jesus.
• God is inviting us all to be stewards.
•  “He wants to call us out of our comfort zone. He wants to bring us to new territory.”
• The parish plan for the year ahead, as described in Momentum, is taking us beyond our comfort zone and into new territory.
• The previous twelve years at the parish were not bad. They were good. But parish leadership is sensing that God wants the parish to do more.  
• God wants the parish to do more in terms of outreach to bring more people from the community to the parish.
• “The Lord is waiting” to see how we will react as a parish and as individuals.
• “God wants to invite us onto an adventure.”
• This is an opportunity to be good stewards of our Time, Talent, and Treasure.
• How we respond most ultimately come from the Lord.
• Missionary discipleship is an ongoing process of conversion.
• “Will you say ‘yes’ to the adventure that God is calling you to?”