One of my favorite stewardship starter stories goes something like this. A chicken and a pig are walking down the road together early one morning when the chicken spots a roadside diner with a great big neon sign out front. In flashing green and red lettering, the sign reads, “Ham and Eggs Breakfast, $1.99”. The chicken gets all excited and says, “Oh Pig, doesn't that sound so good? We have to stop in, Pig. We have to. I could really go for a breakfast like that.” The pig joylessly responds, “Of course you could, Chicken. For you, a ham and eggs breakfast is easy. For you, a breakfast of ham and eggs, especially the eggs, represents merely a contribution. But for me, a breakfast of ham and eggs, especially the ham, represents total commitment.”
I freely admit that I've never understood the set-up to that joke. Why are a Pig and Chicken walking down the road together, much less talking to each other? And what in the world would possess them to go into a diner and order Ham and Eggs? But reservations aside, I do like that punch line. “For you it represents just a contribution, but for me it represents total commitment.”
At Pilgrim Church, we are looking for total commitment.
Because that is what discipleship and stewardship are all about, right? When we say that we follow Christ, we don't just mean a little bit. You can't just be a part-time follower of Jesus. We cannot so compartmentalize our identity as to say, “In this part of my life I'll be a Christian; but I have to stop doing that over in this other part of my life” or say “Well, Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and every other weekend I'll follow Christ” or even worse, “Okay, I'll be a Christian from 10AM to 11AM on Sunday mornings, but that is it.” It doesn’t work that way.
Jesus reminds us that being a Christian, being a follower of Christ, being one of his disciples isn't as easy as a donation. He reminds us that it takes total commitment. Maybe that is why the word Steward comes from the word styward, the one who cares for the pigs (as in the pig sty). Hey, nobody said it was going to be glamorous. Our task is simply to care for what God has entrusted to us. And, oh, yes. We are to return it when he asks for it. Don’t you hear him calling?
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