What do you do as God's steward?

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In our gospel today (21:33-46), Jesus is reminding us on our role as stewards.  The gospel talks about a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When it was a time for the harvest, he sent his servants but were either beaten up, killed or stoned.  Same happened to another servants.  Finally, he sent his son thinking they will respect him.  Same thing happened.  Obviously, Jesus was speaking about Himself and those ahead of Him.

The message of the gospel is about stewardship.  It could be stewardship on our talent, gifts, family, work, relationships,  or responsibilities.  What is stewardship?

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1. Gift receiver.  Stewardship is a gift. God gives us properties, people, things and wisdom.  Some of us are gifted more than the others.  Others have more properties. Some have more relationships. There are also few people who have excellent intellect or wisdom.  Whatever you have it is a gift.

2. Developer. Having received gifts from the Lord means you accept and develop them.  If you have a gift of music, hone your music skills.  Those who have the gift of speaking or writing are called to develop more this skill.  Whatever you receive you ought to develop it. A developer of God’s gift means he/she is good caretaker.

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 c. Sharer.  Your gift is not just given for you alone to enjoy.  God gives you a gift so that you can bless other people.  For instance, my mentor has gift of preaching and writing.  He uses this gift to spread God’s kingdom here on earth.  My students who have the gifts of singing are members of the school choir.

d. Co-owner.  The problem with the tenants in the gospel is that they think they own the vineyard or think they can if they kill whoever will claim possession.  While we can claim our own gift, we are not the sole owner.  The concept of co-ownership comes from the concept of co-creatorship.  All of us are God’s co-creator.  This is the meaning of stewardship.  Since creation is gift from God, we are called to receive, develop and share it to others.  It’s the same with talents or whatever gift we have.

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 Stewardship means we recognize that God is the ultimate owner of everything.  However, being the most privileged of all creatures, we have the mission to safeguard, develop and share our giftedness so that God will be glorified by in all of creation.

Let us glorify the Lord through the things we religiously do as His stewards.