Another way to approach the concept of whole-life stewardship is to pick up the thread of Baptism and vocation that run together through the Scriptures.

 

The first principle was formulated in these words:

 

God’s stewards are stewards by virtue of their creation and their recreation in Holy Baptism. Therefore, they belong To the Lord.

 

This statement was attempting to build the giftedness of each individual at birth and the dynamic that the Holy Spirit adds at Baptism. The Creator entrusts gifts so that the people of God are able to accomplish His purposes. Paul’s language in Romans 12 about giving our bodies as a living sacrifice, or response to God, connects everyday life to worship and service. This is what we are called to be and do. As such, it encompasses all of life. It knows no limitation to only certain aspects of daily living.

 

Stewardship is but a synonym for the life of a Christian who is living rightly with all of his relationships: before God as well as before his fellow creatures. Stewardship is the Christian life and Christian life is stewardship.

 

In Our Calling, a classic essay on the relationship of the Christian faith and Christian living. Einar Billing writes:

 

My call is the form my life takes according as God Himself organizes for me through His forgiving grace. Life organized around the forgiveness of sins, that is Luther’s idea of the call (vocation).

 

Our calling is the sum of all those tasks that God daily gives us along with the forgiveness of sins until the end of life.

 

So often we equate vocation as employment, a job . . . This language has a way of undermining our common baptismal vocation to be the people of God.