Covenant: God’s Model for Stewardship
Mark S. Roberti, Director of Stewardship
Heartland Parishes of Ellis County
We are all familiar with the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. “Covenant” comes from the Hebrew word “berith”, which is translated into Greek as “diatheke” and means “testament.” In common usage, the word “testament” in Old Testament days was contract language. It passed over into religious language, however, to signify the historical relationships which God deigned to establish with the people of Israel and the whole of mankind. When God uses the word Covenant, it means infinitely more than a contract. God means it as an oath or holy bond between God and His people. Through our baptism, we become part of this Covenant. We become part of the New Israel.
Old Covenant oaths were sealed in blood. Even, the New Covenant was sealed in Jesus’ blood. Why? The clearest explanation I have heard harkens back to the Book of Leviticus. “Since the life of a living body is in its blood, I have made you put it on the altar, so that atonement may thereby be made for our own lives, because it is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement” (Lev 17:11). In New Covenant language, Jesus, through His one-time sacrifice on the cross, spilled His blood for us. We don’t have to spill our blood (although we may chose to do so). Instead, we enter into our Covenant with God through our baptism.
A covenant between God and man is an absolute and unconditional promise confirmed by an oath. This is quite different than Old or New Testament legal accords through negotiations which culminate in a contract between two equals. In fact, the covenants between God and man are more like that of the relationship between a sovereign (ruling) king and a vassal (servant) king of the Old Covenant. In that type of agreement one king promises to protect the other while the weaker king promises his fidelity to the master king.
In our case, because He is the Sovereign, God makes an infinitely greater oath. He promises incredible blessings if we follow this Covenant. Likewise, He lays out consequences if we don’t. Our role is to respond with an oath of fidelity and displays of our fidelity to Him. We are to respond with faith! We can’t really give our Sovereign King more than that. We have nothing else to give Him. Everything we have, everything we are, He has given to us. We are, in truth, only returning to Him what He has already given to us.
Yet, it brings God great joy in this relationship when we respond like this in love, we please Him immensely. As stewards -- and that is what the vassal kings of the Old Testament really were -- we help God in managing His kingdom for the good of all.
In today’s Covenant, the governing element is the Church. When we pledge and commit to the Church, we are committing to the King. The Church, through Peter (the Pope), is the King’s prime minister here on earth. That is how the kingdom is being administered. But this kingdom is so much more personal than a nation, it is a family, a family of love, bonded in that love through the blood Christ spilled on the Cross.
The oath we make in our Baptism, and renew in the Sacrament of Confirmation -- is a sacred family bond to our God and our entire family of faith.
When we fail God and each other by not giving sacrificially of our time, talent, and treasure, we hurt each other. We hurt the Body of Christ, because we are not really giving from the essence of who we are. We are giving not the first fruits, but the leftovers. We cheat, in a sense, on our sacred vow.
Unlike a contract, however, the Church, the mediator for the body, does not pull our privileges. She continues to extend them. Although she asks us, she demands of us, to be accountable, she constantly cajoles us and calls us, back to Herself. She asks us to bathe in the sacraments, particularly the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She asks us to come to the King through Her, to be reconciled in the Eucharist. She wants to heal us. She wants to bring us to wholeness again.
If you are looking for a better, stronger, relationship with God, try to better understand this Covenant, this relationship you have with God your Sovereign. Look to stewardship. Be looking for ways to give of yourself, sacrificially, to God. Give of your time in prayer and worship. Give of your talent in ministry and service. Give of your treasure through your income and assets. Stewardship, like our relationship with God, is all about Covenant.