Father Jeff kicked off our annual stewardship campaign in October. Our goal is to:
“Go And Love”
This year’s stewardship campaign is entitled “Go And Love.” I think it’s easy for us to see Jesus’ call to love. On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, John records that Jesus instructed us by giving a new commandment: that we love one another as he loved us. Living into this commandment requires us to consider what it means to love as Christ loved us. Clearly it means a sacrificial love, for Christ gave himself for us. But also, Christ gave himself for us out of God’s limitless love for all people, which means our love is meant to be a limitless sort of love. It is a love that reaches out to everyone.
The idea of everyone begins to get at who it is we are called to love. Christ called us to love “one
another.” Who we consider to be “one another” defines who we are as the church of Jesus Christ. This is where the call to “go” comes into play. In Matthew’s Gospel, the risen Lord as he ascends instructs us to “Go, and make disciples of all the nations.” “Nations,” in the ancient Jewish use of the term, meant the gentiles, so it meant all the people of the world who were not Jewish. The disciples were from the very start being called by Christ to think beyond their own people. It means who it is to whom we are called to go, who it is we are called to love with this limitless and sacrificial love, is the people who are not like us. It is the people some might consider “other.” It is the people at whom some might look down their noses.
And this is the way we are called to advance Jesus’ vision of going and loving: by giving of our time, talent and, yes, treasure to this work of going and loving. We are called to help the church to have the resources to go and love the world with God’s love. Being the church is about what we give, in terms of our willingness to go where God sends and to love those to whom God sends, with God’s limitless love.
This is why we have stewardship. It is not just about supporting the church or meeting the budget. It is about going, and loving. It is about our being empowered as the followers of Christ to go and to love the world with God’s love shown in Christ. When we do this, we can begin to see Jesus’ vision for the world as we participate in the going and making of disciples, and in loving one another as God has so loved us.
May God bless us as we seek to do God’s will
-Fr. Jeff
