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Generosity trumps the austerity impulse
I have been on austerity budgeting as my readers know. It may have to last longer than I thought to pay for a new boiler that my house seems to require. I am not good at austerity budgeting. Okay I am not good at budgeting of any type, but I am doing it.
Good stewardship often requires those of us who are not good at such financial things to learn to be good at them if we are going to have the resources when we need them to do the work that the Lord calls us to. I am grateful to more financially astute people in my congregation and in the larger church who help to keep things running.
But just as I have things to learn because of my difficulties with budgeting, sometimes financial wizards learn things too.
In the midst of my austerity effort, a man came to me with real need. Hard working ,trying to take care of his family, this man seems to have had way more than his share of calamities lately. He was doing construction and the job ended, and he scrambled for a while and came to me for food. Then he was excited to get another job, but got hurt almost the first day. Their family situation is compounded by a disabled wife.
Whatever money problems I have, his are worse. He lost his house quite a while back and is now facing eviction from the apartment that he, his wife and four children live in.
So I have helped him with my discretionary fund. I have given money of my own, for which my austerity budgeting should not allow.
I was heartened in the midst of all this to read the gospels from the last two Sundays. One about God's extravagance as Jesus tells us the story about the prodigal son and his father's lavish party, and one about Jesus' blessing Mary's extravagance in anointing His feet.
Being good stewards is about being cost conscious and careful. But being good stewards of God's grace sometimes also means giving extravagantly.
I am not sure my discretionary fund even has money left, and yet we are still helping. I guess it means that my finance people are hearing the same gospel I am these days. Hopefully you too are reading these same gospels and the same Spirit is at work in you to help you to know when to be careful, but more when to give extravagantly to God's work in this world.
Lord, Help us to faithfully be your loving presence in this world, by what we save and so are able to share. 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.
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