With the beginning of March, we enter into the liturgical season of Lent. While Lent is intended to be a time of penitence, self-reflection and spiritual growth, for me personally, and for many I know, most of our attention seems to be on the penitence and self-denial side of things.
This, I think, is a function of an historic tendency to view God’s love as conditional, and a sense of guilt about “what we have done, and what we have left undone … .”
A re-focusing on self-reflection and spiritual growth can lead us to a realization that stewardship should be part of our Lenten prayers and practices.
Stewardship is the idea that humans are responsible for the world and its peoples, including ourselves, and that we have an innate responsibility to care for every aspect of God’s creation. While it’s true that Lent is commonly associated with giving up stuff, a spirit of stewardship encourages us to view Lent as more active and positive — more selfless actions than self-denial.
How can stewardship be a focus of Lent? While stewardship can be expressed in many ways, two common understandings are environmental stewardship and spiritual stewardship, and we’ll explore a few ideas here.
Environmental stewardship starts with an understanding of the Earth and all life upon it as a gift from God, to be tended in such a way as to hand it on unscarred to future generations. Consequently, we are to care for its natural resources — animal, vegetable, and mineral, as it were — in a way that is less “exploitative,” less focused on trying to monetize those resources, in favour of seeking ways to cultivate those resources for the benefit of all, including coming generations.
This Lent, we can care for creation by considering how we currently show our concern for the world and all life on it, and by looking for new ways to protect and heal the Earth.
Spiritual stewardship, as with all things spiritual, may look easier — think, pray, reflect — but such actions require us to examine ourselves with a critical, albeit forgiving, eye, and making foundational changes in our very selves. It involves growing one’s faith and helping others grow theirs.
To grow our own faith, we are pointed towards considering the Word, both in its original context and authorship, and in light of our contemporary realities. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16); So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom 10:17).
Giving such attention to Scripture, whether through personal reading, attending Bible study or additional worship services, requires us to steward our time — choosing between competing priorities or desires, and making a conscious decision to put God ahead of the sometimes easier and more appealing options of watching TV, scrolling social media, or other temporal pleasures.
Spiritual stewardship and growth of our faith also involves considering how we spend our time, talents, and treasure in service to others.
As we are reminded by the well-known teaching set out by St. James, What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works… so faith without works is also dead (2:14-18, 26b).
Such works may include:
- Feeding the hungry – directly or indirectly though donations to food banks or by advocating for better social programs
- Teaching, whether in Sunday school, or in adult education or outreach programs varieties that help develop skills and independence
- Visiting the sick, lonely, or in need at home, in “hospital” or in “prison,” whether those hospitals and prisons be literal or metaphorical
- Freeing the oppressed, whether through support for Amnesty International or other programs supporting freedom in emerging democracies, working for justice and reconciliation with the indigenous peoples of Canada, or working to free ourselves from our own biases and prejudices
Lent is a time to prepare for the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter) through prayer and spiritual discipline, such as fasting, and almsgiving, which may be done through selfless acts of stewardship. How will you steward yourself this Lent?
