Steadfast Stewardship

October 19: Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time:

Isaiah 45:1,4-6; Psalm 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10; 1Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21

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What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship? 

(To support  Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life... Step Five).

Steadfast Stewardship

“I have called you… giving you a title” (Isaiah 45:4)

The Responsorial invites us: “Give to the Lord the glory due his name! Bring gifts!”

What better gifts than the ones he has given us? How “bring” them better than by using them in his service?

God “called” each of us and gave us several “titles”: “son, daughter of the Father,” “prophet,” “priest,” “steward” (manager) of Christ’s kingship. Our all-inclusive title is “Messiah,” since by Baptism we “became Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 795).

Paul gave “thanks to God” for the way the Thessalonians used their gifts of faith, hope and love: “calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus.”

“This is the work (ergon) of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:9). The “action” (ergon) of faith is to show love (agape) by “laborious toil” (kopos), and to persevere in it with steadfastness or “patient endurance” (hupomone) through the gift of divine hope and “expectation” (elpis).

This is stewardship.

This recalls the “steadfast love” of John 1:14, usually translated as “grace and truth” or, by the Jerome Biblical Commentary (1968), as “kindness and fidelity” (Hebrew: hesed, emet, Greek: charis, aletheia), adding: “These terms are the characteristic of the God of Israel’s covenant. In Exodus 24:6 they appear together as a virtual definition of God.”

Faithful stewardship is being like God.

PRAY: “Lord, keep me faithful!”

PRACTICE: Use your gifts. Persevere.