This sermon was preached as part of our teaching on Stewardship in the Benefice of Saints Peter, Andrew and Michael on Sunday 1st March 2026.
Let’s talk about stewardship. As Christians, God has called us to be stewards of this world. When God created the world and made Adam and Eve, he placed them in the garden, and there he entrusted them with caring for it, and for all the fish, birds, and animals within it. From the very beginning, God has chosen to include us in his work of caring for the world. God calls us to be active participants, not simply passengers. God doesn’t have to involve us, but he chooses to include us in caring for the world.
It seems strange that God would choose to include us in caring for the world and stewarding it. Surely none of us are going to do as good a job as our perfect God. But when we remember that God is our heavenly Father and we are his children, it all makes a bit more sense.
Cecily and I are excited about welcoming our first child later this year. I know that I am really excited to be a dad. One of the things I am most looking forward to about being a dad is getting to teach things to my kids. I remember when, as a kid, my dad would involve me in cooking. He would have me chop onions, peel potatoes, and taste-test how much seasoning to put in the food. Now, it would be easier and quicker for Dad to just get on with doing everything by himself as he could chop, peel and season faster than it took to wait for me to do it all, but that’s not the point. He took the time to involve me, even if it took longer, and my veg was wonky and my seasoning unbalanced, so that I could learn how to cook, and so that I could be more involved and connected to family life. And even though it was all more work and effort, my dad loved cooking with me, and still does to this day (even if he doesn’t say it). It brought him so much joy to see me learn how to cook and to share in it together. It was a special and beautiful time we were able to share.
Dad would also send me to Sainsbury’s to pick up missing ingredients (often as the first thing for me to do on a Saturday morning), giving me a £10 or £20 note, and I was expected to spread this out to get everything I needed at the shop. If I mis-spent it or got the balance wrong on my shopping calculations, then we would not have all the ingredients we needed. Thankfully, I was usually pretty good at getting everything needed, and with change to spare. Again, it would be easier for him to do it, but he wanted to involve me and have me learn how to cook and manage a budget to buy the ingredients needed for the food.
You might have your own stories of how your mum and dad involved you in jobs as a child. If you are a parent, you can think of the things you involve your kids in doing. So, if we do involve our children in these jobs, even though they might be terrible at them (I was very slow at washing the dishes), why wouldn’t our Father in heaven want to do the same with us, his children? The answer is: of course God wants to involve us, which is why we are called to be stewards of this world.
So, if God involves us as stewards of this world, what does that look like for us? As I mentioned at the start of the service, stewardship is about taking care of something. This does include caring for the world, and we are all very conscious about caring for creation and the environment, which is great. But stewardship also includes the everyday matters, like looking after our families, homes, and what we have. As Christians, it also includes God’s call for us, as the church, to share the good news and God’s love with others. Sharing in God’s work of the church is exciting, but it also requires us to share the responsibility of making sure the work happens. This means that we need to take part in sharing God’s love with others. It means we need to take part in telling others about Jesus. It also means we need to take part in practical things, such as caring for our church building and managing the costs of mission work in the parish. This is our call as Christian disciples in Corby (and Great Oakley). To put it simply, God has involved us in his work, and he has provided many ways for us to be involved.
So what does it look like to be stewards of our church and our parish? In our Old Testament reading, Moses speaks to the Israelites about caring for their place of worship, the tent of the Tabernacle, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and where God’s Spirit dwelt among the people. He tells them to make an offering to the Lord. That is, he tells them to give to God something of what they have. He makes it clear to the people that they give to God not because they are forced to, but because they wish to. Moses says to them:
Everyone who wishes to do so is to bring an offering of gold, silver, or bronze; fine linen; blue, purple, and red wool; cloth made of goats’ hair; rams’ skin dyed red; fine leather; acacia wood; oil for the lamps; spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet-smelling incense; carnelians and other jewels to be set in the High Priest’s ephod and in his breastpiece. All the skilled workers among you are to come and make everything that the Lord commanded.[1]
I love this long list that Moses gives to the Israelites, because it includes such a wide range of things that people can give to support their worship life. Moses says, if you can give money, i.e., gold, silver, or bronze, give money. If you have resources such as clothes, leather, wood, oil, and spices, then give them. If you are a skilled worker, come and give your skills in carpentry, textiles, design, organisation and so on. And above all, just coming to do what you can, to give your time and energy to the work, if that is what you have to give. This was their stewardship, how they played a part in the work and life God had called them to. As Christians here in Corby, we too are to ask ourselves what we can give to support the work and life that God has called us to.
Part of thinking about our role as stewards includes thinking, like the Israelites, about what we can give to support the work and ministry of our churches. It could be easy at this point for us to just think this is about giving more money to the church, but that is not what I am asking us to do. I am asking to consider what are the ways in which we can give to God and his church?
I love how in our Corinthians reading it says, ‘You are so rich in all you have: in faith, speech, and knowledge, in your eagerness to help and in your love for us. And so we want you to be generous also in this service of love.’[2] It shows us that we are rich in so many ways beyond material means. We have rich faith, words, wisdom, knowledge and love that we can offer to God and his work. Each one of us has something that we can offer to God and his church.
I want each of us this week to think about what we can offer, give or do to steward and care for God’s church. Within all that, I want us to remember that we give not because we are forced to do so, but because, like a child invited to cook with his dad, God invites us to take part in his work so that we get the joy and delight of being involved with him.
As you ponder what you can offer and give, you will naturally wonder how much you might want to give. Again, I bring us back to what Moses said, give as you so wish. As Paul said to the Corinthians about giving, I don’t ask you to give to place a burden on you, but so that we can all share in God’s work together.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how much we give, but how much heart with which we give. I think of the poor widow, who gave two small copper coins. They were tiny compared to the large sums of money others were giving. But these coins were so precious to Jesus because the widow gave generously of her heart. Jesus wants us to give fully from our hearts. It doesn’t mean that we bankrupt ourselves in our giving, because that would not be faithful stewardship of our families and households. But God wants our giving and offerings to him to come from a love in our hearts that is generous and wants to be a part of God’s work.
Go away this week and over the next few weeks, pray and ask God to guide you and show you how you can give to him and his church. Ask God, ‘How are you inviting me to partake in your kingdom work?’ It doesn’t have to be big. It could be making the teas and coffees on a Sunday. It could be welcoming people as they come in. If it is giving financially, even £10 a month makes all the difference. If 20 people decided to give £10 a month, that would be £2400 extra a year to support the work and mission of our churches. As we ask ourselves, ‘God, what are you calling me to give?’ it doesn’t necessarily mean we give more; it might mean less. It’s about what God is asking us to give right now. Maybe you have been going through a period of ill health, and you have less energy and time to give, and that’s okay. Maybe you have kids you are getting ready to put through university, and so money is a bit tight. That’s okay. Ask God to show us what are the ways he is calling you to give. Not how he is calling others to give, but how he is calling you to give.
In all things we ask ourselves: are we giving to God fully from our hearts? Or are we holding something back from God? Everything is God’s. He is the creator of the world, and when we give to him, we give from what he has already given us. It’s like when you give your child pocket money, and they use the money you gave them to buy a birthday present for you. You know that the money is all yours. But it matters that your child took what you gave them, and chose to use in a way to love and honour you. How can we give faithfully of what God has given us to be faithful stewards?
Let us seek to give faithfully of our hearts, that we may see God’s kingdom grow, and our parishes and communities come to know the love and goodness of God.
Amen.
[1] Exodus 35:5-10 [GNB].
[2] 2 Corinthians 8:7 [GNB].
Shakeel Nurmahi 