I was reading from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals this morning and came across a quote from Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade (18th Century). Now, don’t forget, this upcoming sermon is on stewardship; it is about realizing all we have is God’s and we are responsible to use it for his purposes.

“The great and firm foundation of the spiritual life is the offering of ourselves to God and being subject to his will in all things. We must completely forget ourselves, so that we regard ourselves as an object which has been sold and over which we no longer have any rights. We find all our joy in fulfilling God’s pleasure — his happiness, his glory and the fact that he is our great and only delight. Once we have this foundation, all we need to do is spend our lives rejoicing that God is God and being so wholly abandoned to his will that we are quite indifferent as to what we do and equally indifferent as to what use he makes of our activities.” ¹

You may need to read this a couple of times to let it sink in. It is a powerful confession that our lives are not our own. We have given them over to God to use for his purposes.

When we see the word “steward” or “stewardship” in a sermon title, we assume the pastor is going to talk about money. But stewardship is much deeper than dollars. Sure, it has to do with dollars. If our checkbooks are not submitted to God, there is a problem. Jesus has much to say about money and it a key concern for anyone who seriously follows Him. Yet, living as a steward is a worldview; it is about how we understand our proper relationship to the Creator.

We are going to explore the parable of the prudent steward in Luke 16:1-13 this week. Jesus defines our position before God as He shocks us by praising questionable behavior. Join us on Sunday as we engage the story together.

But what if I had a couple of million dollars that I needed someone to guard while on a three year expedition. I would make sure that I chose a qualified caretaker. I would want experience, attention, and qualified results.

This week, our parable consists of a wealthy landowner and three servants. He leaves each a different sum of money and takes off. When he returns, he finds that two of the servants have doubled their money. The third servant, however, was paralyzed with fear. He buried the money, presenting it back to the master. No gain. No loss.

How will the master respond? Will he appreciate the fact that the money was not lost? Will he congratulate the man on preserving his wealth? The master’s response may catch you by surprise. He is extremely hard on the guy. He boots him out, calling out his laziness and incompetence.

What does this parable teach us about the Kingdom? How are we to understand what has been left in our care? Is God more concerned with maintenance or risk-taking investment? Join us on Sunday as we explore this parable together.

Jesus’ disciples were beginning to understand that forgiveness was a necessity. They heard Jesus talk about it on more than one occasion. But how was it going to work with Jesus? The religious leaders said that you should forgive three times, but you did not have to on the fourth.

So Peter asks the question,

“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21 NIV)

That seemed reasonable. It was double plus one of what the religious leaders proposed. What do you think Jesus?

Jesus did not work in a religious manner. He was not about lists, rules, regulations and limits. While his followers wanted to formulate his teaching, his response pointed them to a story.

Join us on Sunday as we study a parable about forgiveness. Maybe you have a friend that needs to hear this story, invite them to come with you.