Striving for Stewardship: Lessons from the Encounter with Jesus

Stewardship, our theme for this issue, reminds me of the encounter between a young man and Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear a story of a young man who ran up to Jesus and asked Him what he must do to reach eternal life. Jesus Said, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven; then come follow Me.” It says the man went away sad because he had much.

We might cringe when we hear this story because it is sad this man was so close to becoming an active disciple of Jesus, but instead turned away. We also might cringe because it could be deeply applicable to our lives.

Jesus states that, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” One of the metaphors for the eye of a needle, was a tight passageway into Jerusalem that people had to enter to get into the city. In order for their camels to pass through, they had to remove whatever the camel was carrying. Only then, could they enter.

If we look at our own lives, we can most likely think of something that we tightly carry with us. Maybe it is possessions, as in material goods or money, like Jesus references in our Gospel. Or, maybe it is something less material, like status, pride, or control. Jesus doesn’t want our stuff, our job promotions, our designer houses, or our bank accounts. He just wants us. So, we need to be willing to strip those things from our lives in order to reach Him. It might seem difficult, but the outcome will be more than we could have ever imagined ... peace on earth and treasure in heaven.