As I travel in my work and worship in different congregations I can often tell how healthy their stewardship is by their hospitality expressed through the way they welcome people to worship and their coffee hour. This is true because one has to feel blessed to think they have anything to offer. Giving of the self and our resources flows from gratitude out of our sense of blessedness. Paul expresses this to the Galatians saying, "the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
The other side of gratitude is being humble enough to be able to receive a gift as a blessing from another. There is an inverse relationship here as illustrated in our lesson from Luke by the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and hair and anointed his feet with ointment. The more humble and in need of grace one feels, the more blessed and generous one is in gratitude for the gift. But humility was the Pharisee's barrier to receive the fullness of the blessing that Jesus could offer him. While the Pharisee had plenty of wealth and social stature to hold a dinner party for several people in his home, it was hard for him to feel blessed because the perspective he projects is that these are self-derived. That also is the problem with his work-righteousness theological perspective, which Paul was addressing with the Galatians, too. If you think you have derived your righteousness from your own doing (keeping the Law), then why do you need God's grace expressed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? So it stands to reason, we also need to be humble enough to feel blessed to express our gratitude. Both options from the Psalter echo this theme. And interestingly, the more we give the more blessed we realize we are!
In our reading from 2 Samuel, David moves through the human struggle with arrogant narcissism to humility when his sin is revealed to him and therefore, his need for the gift of grace. Even here David's sin is paid for by the life of another, and he gets that and feels that pain. However unjust we may see that, this injustice is not the point of the story recorded here. The point is David's return to humility out of his sense of entitlement as king. Remember, nothing is a gift if you think you're owed it. In our 1 Kings reading Ahab had similar struggles. That is, if he struggled to be humble at all. Ahab's and Jezebel's sense of entitlement, their lack of humility, was a barrier to their seeing their abundance as blessings. So it gave them a scarcity mindset craving what they did not have in their insatiable inner and subconscious quest to feel blessed. They practiced what might be called a sort of "counter-stewardship," taking what was not theirs instead of sharing the gifts they had with others in gratitude. In the end Ahab's arrogant entitlement was his undoing, and he died with unrealized blessedness. Sad, very sad.
Do you feel blessed?
If not, what barriers are you struggling with to receive God's gifts to you? Have you fallen into a sort of "counter-stewardship?" What about your congregation?
If you do feel blessed, how do you express your blessedness through the giving of yourself and your financial and material resources?
Remember, the more we give the more blessed we realize we are!
Realize your blessedness!
