This is Thanksgiving week: family, friends, good food … a great week … except for the 46 million turkeys who will sacrifice their lives Thursday (OK, likely a few weeks earlier). Today is also Stewardship dedication Sunday. This is the final of four Sundays where we highlight our response to the goodness, and blessings, of God. All the good we have, all the good we experience, has its source in Him. How will we take care of (steward) what we have been given? Collectively, as God’s community of faith here at Grace, how will we steward the legacy, the relationships, the resources, the location, the mission, and the ministry, God has given us in our life together?

Wanting to be wise and faithful stewards, this morning we ask for a yearly financial pledge. Pledges are not legal documents … instead they are faith documents, statements of love; our love for God, for each other, and for those we do not yet know but who live around us. Your pledge of support helps us build a thoughtful annual budget. That budget provides for our staff, supports our ministries, and powers our collective mission.

We are committed to be, and to become, a mission-focused church. That commitment is evident through our budgeted support of missions, our additional giving to Ghormley, to Adam’s Elementary, our management of Mabel Swan, and in hundreds of ways, week in and week out, as we involve ourselves in lives across our city, our valley, and our world. There is more we can do, should do, and will do, as He calls us to risk more, spend more, love more.

The passage this morning is troubling and challenging. Why would a dishonest steward (manager) be praised? What can we learn from someone who steals from his boss in order to gain an advantage for himself? How can we live wisely, purposefully, in challenging times?