Stewardship

It is a few months in from the annual August parish reassignments. Across most dioceses, parishioners have said goodbye to long-serving priests and helped clean out rectories in preparation for new pastors. Priests have packed their belongings and made the trek to new venues. Now, both parishioners and priests are negotiating new landscapes as they begin to get to know one another. For some, there’s a flurry of change as, ‘the new broom sweeps clean;” for others, there’s a cautious pause as, “we get to know one another.” For sure, whichever the case, changes are in the wind and everyone will have to make adjustments. At some point, from both sides, will come the question, “What have we got ourselves into?”

It is unavoidable. Change involves both tearing down and building up. There’s chaos as structures and procedures are examined and adjusted according to new needs and visions. Loss and grieving travel hand in hand with possibility and hope. Parishioners might feel, ‘Father is ruining everything,’ while Father struggles to bring people to, ‘a new way.’ As pastors and parishioners walk together into something new however, there’s an important reality to remember: the parish belongs to neither. It is not ‘owned’ by its leader nor by the individuals or groups that comprise it. The parish is larger than both and rather than ownership, it is stewardship that is called for.

What, after all, is a parish? Is it the building? Is it the administrative entity within a geographic area under the control of a particular Bishop? Is it the pastor or is it the parishioners? Is it all of these or none?  Perhaps we could say, a parish is this:

• The elderly woman who slips silently into a middle pew every weekday for daily Mass. Rosary beads dangle from her fingers and her lips move silently as she waits for Mass to begin.
• The blue-jeaned young mother standing in the parish staff room, baby balanced on one hip, toddler peering between her legs. She is photocopying a Scripture passage for the Children’s liturgy group.
• The parish secretary tapping away on the computer keys as she formats the weekly bulletin. She often finds herself answering the phone and greeting visitors at the same time.
• The Care Ministers who quietly bring Eucharist and companionship to the home-bound after Sunday Mass.
• The young couples listening attentively to the team couple’s presentation in the Marriage Preparation class.
• The volunteers cleaning up the flower beds, mowing the lawn around the parish, sorting clothes for the basement Clothing Nook, and stocking the shelves at the Food Bank.
• The congregation that gathers every Sunday. Sometimes they are alert and engaged, other times, in the words of theologian John Shea, they are one vast face and that face is seemingly asleep.
• The priest celebrating reconciliation with a teenager and sealing it with a hug, baptizing the squalling baby as the congregation looks on, beaming as broadly as the proud parents.

The parish: the young, the old, the large, the small, the volunteers, the employees, the ordained, the religious, the laity, men, women and children. The parish is not the church building nor the priest that leads it: the parish is the ekklesia, the living Church, gathered in this place, at this time.

It’s a concept we still grapple to understand. Father Jim Dinning, founder of the Catechumenate Movement, used to begin Eucharistic celebrations by saying, “Will the Church rise?” It took quite a few times before the congregation realized that they were the Church to whom he was speaking. It’s an image courtesy of Vatican II which recovered the biblical notion of the church as the gathered community of believers.  The parish is the microcosm of Church.

As such, it is neither accurate nor appropriate to act as if the parish were ‘owned’ by anyone. It is not ‘Father’s church’ to be shaped according to his image, but neither is it the possession of the congregation to make in their image! The parish belongs to God: God has called this community out of time and place and God is fashioning this community as God’s own people. Parishioners and pastors alike, we are given the parish as a gift and placed as stewards, that is, care-takers, within it.

We struggle with the idea of stewardship, however. It’s not part of our everyday language and it’s hard to understand, let alone live. Unfortunately, when we do hear of it in church, it is usually reduced to the tired trio of the donation of, ‘Time, Talent and Treasure’, with the emphasis on ‘Treasure.’

The reality, biblically based, is deeper: “A Christian Steward is one who receives God’s gifts gratefully, cherishes and tends them in a responsible and accountable manner, shares them in justice and love with others, and returns them with increase to the Lord.” A quick survey of the verbs in that statement reveals the profound meanings attached to the concept: RECEIVE, CHERISH, TEND, SHARE and RETURN.

What would it look like if everyone involved in parish life, priest/pastors, administrators, pastoral council members, and all the parishioners understood that ‘their’ parish came to them as a gift from God to RECEIVE it as a gift and CHERISH and TEND it so that it grew so that its gifts were SHARED and RETURNED to God, multiplied a hundred times over?

It is a mindset of care-taking not ownership. We’d realize we are entrusted with our parish, responsible and accountable to God for it. We’d be maybe a little more cautious in asserting our own way and a little more respectful in listening to others. With such a shift, we might find that the transitions of leadership taking place across our dioceses were a little less fraught and a lot more grace-ful.

By Sandra Prather, HOMI