There are many great joys in working as a Minister and whilst there are times when I feel tired and maybe on occasions fed up, on the whole, I am thankful that God called me into this work. One of the big negatives is that as ministers we move on from time to time to new appointments, working in new places with different people and when this happens, we have to pack up all our worldly possessions once again.
We are due to move from Ipswich during next summer and I am already starting to panic a bit at the prospect of emptying one house and finding new homes in a different property for all our things. Looking around our house today, the task seems quite a daunting one and I am reminded once again of all the things we have accumulated since we last moved ten years ago.
We should be used to the process by now, but every time, I set off with the best of intentions to get rid of all the things we no longer need. Karen and I are not the kind of people to grow attached to possessions, but for some reason, as I pick each item up and have to make the decision whether to keep it or dispose of it, I can’t help but remember the joy that I felt when I spent my hard-earned cash to buy something that was so essential at the time of purchase, but has maybe laid, unused for several years. Common sense would dictate that if I haven’t used something for even a year, then what is the point in keeping it, but even so we have a tendency to create attachments to inanimate objects.
Over the years, I have heard people say things like “you come into the world with nothing, and you leave with nothing” and “there are no pockets in shrouds” or “well you can’t take it with you when you go” and I can still remember emptying the home of my parents and making agonising decisions about items I know mattered to them. Owning items is a complex and emotional affair.
In Church we sometimes use the somewhat outdated term “stewardship” my understanding of that word has something to do with looking after something that belongs to someone else, and I find myself asking Churches “is this good stewardship?” The question is “who owns all of this?”
Please take a couple of minutes to read todays Gospel Reading Matthew 21: 33-46
Jesus uses this parable to talk about the way that the workers in the vineyard assume ownership and destroy anybody who threatens their supremacy. Maybe we need to think carefully about our consuming nature of everything in the world today. A bit like the workers in the vineyard, we assume that the world is ours to own, to do with it as we please, to own it. Maybe we need to be reminded from time to time that we are stewards and that the world is Gods.