Called to be Christ in the World

I am becoming more and more convinced that stewardship is not about doing, but about being.  It is not whether you carefully count out a percentage of your income or your time to devote to the proper church funds or activities.  It is about where your heart is and where your passion is and who you are becoming as a child of God.

I have long been bugged by the "What Would Jesus Do?" attitude.  It was started with the best of intent by a faithful Lutheran Christian, but it has been used to evaluate individual actions and causes in a way that is not always helpful.  It has been used way too much to call someone else to account and too little to search ourselves.  But more than that, even though all of life is a series of decisions, we don't stop to think who we are at each decision.  We become who we are and the decisions flow out of that.

So my question for you is, Who Would Jesus Be in This World?  It is so much more far reaching.  It not only determines the answer to the what to do questions, it often puts you into entirely different circumstances where different questions need to be answered.

For example, Jesus' faithfulness unto death was not just a letting of the occurrences happen on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  Those things happened because of decisions he made based on who he was way back when He set His face for Jerusalem.  Those things happened because of who he was and because of that what he did.  It was whom He befriended and whom He ate with and whom He healed.

We too when we become Christ, (we will never truly succeed at it, but we are called nevertheless to be Christ in this world) will find ourselves moving in a whole new way, perhaps with whole new friends and presented with decisions we never even thought we would have to make. It won't just be how much to give.  It may actually be how much to keep for myself that I need and we will get so excited where God is taking us that we will be thrilled to give to His cause in this world.  He cause is the redemption of the world. 

Because the political arena is heating up for the primaries and I have heard people excited over one candidate or another, I start thinking of Jesus that way.  Here is someone whose cause is worth putting our money and our lives into. 

Who would Christ be in this world?  What work would He be doing?  Whom would He befriend?  Who is God calling you to be today and for the rest of your life?

Lord,  While I am not worthy to be your emissary in this world, yet you have called.  help me to become your hands and your heart for a hurting world.  Amen.



Copyright © 2007, The Rev. Dana Reardon. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Email her at mspastor@aol.com.



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.