From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

Stewardship is one of those words that gets commonly used in churches but that we perhaps don’t examine closely enough for its deeper meaning. Our theme for stewardship this year is How Firm a Foundation. It reflects the commitment, faith, and vision of our forebears in the place we’ve inherited. More importantly, it reflects the foundation of our life together, our faith in Jesus Christ.

The foundation of stewardship, ultimately, is gratitude. Faithful stewardship is built on the simple notion that everything we have is a gift—a gift to be used for the betterment of creation, the building up of the Kingdom, for the care of those in need, and for the worship and adoration of God.

The foundation we’ve inherited here, at Saint Philip’s in the Hills, is most certainly a gift. It has been a gift not only to each and every one of us us but to the community around us. Whether is the roughly 1,700 households that had their medical debt forgiven through your generosity, those who have received a kind word and a meal handed out in our food bank, the folks who have found a new life through JobPath and the work of Pima County Interfaith which we helped start decades ago, worshipers at churches we helped plant, students at schools we helped start, the young people serving with Beloved in the Desert, the kids who have learned music with ASMP or learned reading through the In School Mentoring Program, the families we housed overnight coming to find a new home and hope in Tucson, or the countless folks who have found a new relationship with God through music and worship here, we have sought the betterment of our community, to build up the Kingdom of Love, and to worship and adore God in so many ways from generation to generation.

For this and for so much more we can only thank God—giving gratitude for the foundation laid here upon which so much has been built. Our job, as stewards of this gift, is to care for it with the care we would show for any precious gift in our lives.

The pandemic has shown the strength of our foundation. We continued to work, pray, care, sing, serve, and more through it. Of course, like every non-profit and church, it has also shaken some things loose. So we find ourselves looking at how we will do a variety of things in different ways. We’re looking at new opportunities to serve, worship, and reach out. We will build on the foundation that has held fast and held us together.

One of the amazing gifts of ministry is talking with people who look for ways to be generous. It’s an attitude of open, joyful, warm care for the people and communities around them. My experience has been that these folks have a conception of God that matches that attitude—they know God as open, joy-filled, and warm. They see God as generous and so they practice generosity in all the ways they can.

When I talk with people who are less open, more miserly, more critical, and joyless it is generally no surprise that their conception of God is of a God who is critical, stinting, joyless, and distant. 

The way we conceive of God is the foundation of our sense of generosity, the way we view other people, the joy or lack thereof with which we live, our readiness to gossip and slander or our enjoyment of sharing good news and kind words. The way we conceive of God is, in so many ways, the way we conceive of the world around us—and is the foundation for how we live in that world and how we live our faith.

We worship a God of abundant, flagrant, scandalous generosity and love. He pours out on us blessing upon blessing, new life, love, and more. We stand in the midst of so much more love, meaning, care, prayer, and joy than we can ever fully see or appreciate. That is the immense gift of God—all that we have, are, hold, hope, have been, will be, and more. That gift, the gift of our lives, is what we steward. We care for it and all it is because it is a gift.

What we do with that gift will be determined by our willingness to be grateful. It will be determined by who we know God to be—how we hear God call us to live that gift. I’ll be praying in the weeks ahead for a more open, generous, and loving heart. I’ll be praying for God to guide me to new ways to serve and give. I’ll be praying for God to strengthen the foundations of my faith and to give us all a deeper awareness of all the ways we are blessed.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert