Earlier today I posted the stewardship sermon that I preached at St. Paul's in Paterson this past Sunday. Stewardship has been an interest of mine a long time. While some may consider it another word for fundraising to me stewardship is best defined as "What I do after I say I believe" and "Everything that I do with everything I have all of the time" - both well know stewardship definitions.
This year at St. Paul's we have broadened our focus somewhat to look more at our stewardship of everything we have - thus the connection to the parable of the talents. So far I have had interesting conversations with a number of parishioners about both the importance and the difficulty of good financial management. It seems clear that as a church we need to spend more time on this. If so one thing that I think that is essential is that we teach that good financial management begins with giving - only if we give away enough (whatever that is for us) can we expect to manage all of our finances well.
One thing that was unusual about this year's sermon was that I preached it three times, twice in English and once in Spanish. I have preached in English twice in one day many times and also have preached in Spanish before, but never all three in one day. In fact it was the first time I had ever been to three church services in one day which was exhausting by itself. I think it went all right, the primary goal was to have the same message at all three services - I still think that is a good idea.
The experience once again made me reflect on the fact that I am bi-lingual, able to communicate effectively in both English and Spanish - listening in Spanish is still a challenge. I took four years of Spanish in High School and two more in college. The reason I took Spanish (for some reason I wanted to take French) was that my father had supposedly studied Spanish and he could help me with the language. Looking backward I don't know why anyone thought that was a good idea, but it certainly never materialized.
While I studied Spanish for six years, I really hadn't used much from 1966 until about 2000. it is amazing how much of it I retained which is due to my memory - I am both blessed and cursed with an exceptional memory. It is a gift, certainly not something that I earned. This experience was different because this was the first time that I had to practice the same sermon in two different languages. For obvious reasons, I had to spend more time on the Spanish, but I found that when I turned to the English version I really didn't have to practice it that much - practicing it in Spanish helped me with the English version.
My parents made the decision that I would study Spanish almost 50 years ago without having any way of knowing how it would be useful to me a half century later. Who would have known I would have ended up in an urban church in a predominantly Latino city. This reminded me of a similar decision that my parents made. They decided that I would take typing in high school so that I could type my papers in college - a sound decision that certainly helped me in college and graduate school. Who could have foreseen, however, the development of the personal computer utilizing the same key board as those old manual typewriters. It has certainly aided my computer skills immeasurably.
It underscores for me how important the decisions are that we make about our children's education. Sometimes like my parents case in ways that we can never foresee. Other decisions such as picking a private high school or college can have clear cut and immediate impacts. How we work with our children on their education may be one of our most important contributions to their lives. In this, as in so many things, there are no easy answers, but one thing I do know committing the time and energy to it increases dramatically the chances of making a crucial difference. How parents are stewards of their time to this end can help our children to steward their time to great benefit.
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