Dana Reardon - The cross powers our stewardship

The cross powers our teaching on stewardship

Any time is a good time to talk about stewardship. We can quote Jesus about selling everything, we can quote Jesus about not worrying about possessions, we can always quote Jesus. He was a great teacher. Lent was an especially good time to talk about stewardship. Because we don't just listen to Jesus as a teacher, we follow him. We talk about giving up things. We talk about the journey to the cross. But now as we approach Easter what does the message of Easter have to say to our understanding of stewardship?

Easter has everything to say about how we live and how we love and how we care for each other.

Without Good Friday Jesus is just a teacher and there are many good teachers to follow. I could still write about generosity and find lots of models and stories. But the cross is what moves me to do it because it is there greatest symbol of giving that there is.

But no, it is not just about a better teaching or a better example. It is that it has been given to us. It changes who we are. We are no longer just people looking for someone to follow, someone to believe. We are the children of God.

It was at the death of Jesus that the dead were raised. A power that great puts to death every other understanding that we have of why we do what we do, and resurrects us as new people created for loving and giving.

Easter Sunday is for me the proof of that power. Rereading the Gospel of Mark today I was struck by its rawness and its power. It doesn't have a glib answer. It is at its best what the Word is and does. It confuses because everything we knew before is no longer valid. It frightens because the future is now a blank slate. But it promises. It promises that Jesus will go before us.

Jesus teachings about money fill two thirds of His teachings and that is great, but what really moves us to lives of service and generosity is the power of Christ and the promise of Jesus to be out there ahead of us as we move into a new mode of a larger and more generous life.

Lord, May we hear your teachings for us, but more may we know your power and be strengthened by your promise to lead us into this life to which you have opened our eyes. Amen

The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI. A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care. She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander. She is still trying to understand the accent. While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team. That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.