Posted on: November 9th, 2026 by St Stephens Office

Dive into the wisdom of stewardship with fr Matthew Waterman. Discover the parable of preparedness and how small acts can create significant impacts.

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When I was a curate at St. James Cathedral, I was given an assignment: to recruit more volunteers for refreshed service at 9am.

It was very slow going at the beginning, and just as I was getting started, many of the existing volunteers at that early service suddenly went into retirement.

While I was puzzling over what to do about the situation, I was reading a book by Peter Drucker about managing non-profit organizations. He was writing about a church that grew by 100 volunteers every year, and even had a waiting list above that of people who wanted to join.

I began to wonder how such a result was possible…but then I read a bit closer and got an idea. The church, I discovered, already had 12,000 members, and I calculated that their volunteer numbers only grew by 0.0083% every year.

This seemed like a much more manageable goal for me and I went with it, though I did keep it more or less to myself that that was my target.]

Today we are beginning a stewardship campaign in preparation for 2027, and our focus will be on how contributions in a few vital areas, which may seem small in themselves, have the potential to make a huge difference for our worship and our life as a community.

We return in our Gospel reading to the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. As we observed two weeks ago, he has turned his attention away from the Scribes and Pharisees, and is now preparing his true followers for what will come next.

His main teaching in chapters 24 and 25 is that the next major event we should look for is his Second Coming – the time he will return again to earth. At that time, his mission will not the same as in his first appearing as a Baby-Saviour in Bethlehem. His next appearance will be to judge the world in righteousness.

He describes the difficult times that will happen before he returns.

There will be false teachers attempting to lead the disciples astray – claiming to be Christ when they are not.

There will be relational difficulties and violence, and as lawlessness increases the hearts of many will grow cold.

There will be a great tribulation or period of great suffering, during which his disciples will need to flee from major cities.

But immediately after all these signs have taken place, then a final sign will occur: the Son of Man appears in the sky with power and great might, to gather his disciples from the four winds.

What Jesus has to say about this is that we must remain ready and awake at all times for his return. There will be some signs that it is approaching, but no one can truly predict when that moment will be. It will not do to try and time it; it will definitely come when no one is looking for it. The time to get ready and to live in a way that pleases the Lord is now, Jesus says.

To illustrate this further, Jesus tells a parable about 10 Bridesmaids waiting for a Bridegroom to appear for his wedding. This parable begins as many of the others do: “the kingdom of heaven is like… or it can be compared to this…” But something has changed now. Up to this point, most of his parables (some of which we have looked at since September) have been about the gracious character of the kingdom of heaven. They have taught about how gracious God is and why people should accept his grace.

Now that he has turned the focus of his ministry away from the crowds and his opponents (the Scribes and Pharisees) and is speaking privately to his disciples he begins to speak about judgement.

This is worth noting as it is something Christians often get the other way around.

When Jesus spoke to people who were not following him or who were against him, he used grace to bring them closer.

And When he was speaking to his close disciples and followers, he used the teaching of judgement to bring them closer.

This approach is meant for us too. When we are calling people in from out there, we are to use the message of God’s grace. As we emphasized on our prayer walk yesterday, it is the kindness of God shining through us that calls people to repentance.

And when we are in the church, speaking among those who already believe, we use the message of God’s judgement as a reminder to ourselves not to become too comfortable or too careless in our relationship with God just because we are saved.

Preaching a message of costly judgement to those who are outside and cheap grace to those who are inside, pushes everyone further away from Jesus, and that is not what we want to do here at St. Stephen’s.

In this parable about Judgement, 10 bridesmaids are waiting for a wedding to begin. This story is a bit different because we may be more used to waiting on the bride to start the wedding, but in this case it is the groom. Let’s just stick with it for now.

They were waiting in the evening, and as we have seen this past week, it can get dark very quickly and very early. But it’s more than that. We are surrounded by lights and electricity, so it is difficult in this city to get an idea of the kind of darkness Jesus is talking about. He is talking about the kind of darkness where you can see all the stars in the sky; or where at times you can’t see your hands in front of your face.

In these kinds of conditions, if you do not have a reliable light source, then you are completely stuck until the sun comes up again.

The 10 women in the parable know they are living in that kind of world, and yet 5 of them who are described as foolish do not bring extra oil in case they need to wait a while for the wedding banquet to start. Jesus calls them foolish, but I am sure they knew in their minds that they were so smart to bring just the right amount of oil. The wise bridesmaids knew that they weren’t so smart to predict the future, and so they brought extra oil in case their first guess was wrong.

They may have looked foolish to be lugging around a big tin of oil, but because they knew what they did not know, they are called wise by Jesus. But those who were so confident that they DID NOT know what they DID NOT know, were called foolish by Jesus.

This parable and those that follow are told by Jesus so that we know what we need to know about his return, and what we most need to know is to be ready at all times. I don’t know if anyone needs to hear this but: Don’t wait until the time you are supposed to leave the house to start getting ready. And don’t leave home exactly based on the time google maps says you will arrive, or you may be looking for parking and miss Jesus when he comes.

This Sunday we are focusing on Stewardship and making pledges about what we will contribute to ministry at St. Stephen’s in 2027. I believe this parable of Jesus is very appropriate for what we are thinking and praying about today.

Stewardship is the moment where we take a look at our lives through spiritual eyes, and recognize all that God has given us for our own needs and for the needs of his kingdom in this world. Once we take stock to understand and appreciate what we already have, we can begin to think about where God wants us to direct or steward the things he has given us.

At the same time, Stewardship is an opportunity to recognize what we do not have, and how we respond to that is also a form of stewardship: this can look like asking God in prayer for more or asking him for the courage to be content for now.

In every case, stewardship is about being a disciple. We are taking time to recognize what God has given us and what God has not yet given us, and seeking him about how to respond. Stewardship is all about God and drawing closer to him. And this time of year is a good time for that, as we look ahead to a new year calendar year: how is God preparing us for life, work, rest, ministry, blessings, and trials in the year ahead? And a deeper question: how am I meant to discover him to be enough for me and rest in him in the year ahead, no matter what happens?

What this parable has to say to us in this process, I believe, is that the foolish bridesmaids were called foolish primarily because they were not good stewards of what they had – not because of what they did not have. All 10 of the women had lamps; but only five of them knew how to be good stewards of what they had.

I believe for us at St. Stephen’s stewardship means being really, stubbornly focused on what we do have already, to treasure it and care for it, rather than walking the path of discouragement focused on what we do not have or on what we used to have.

I am new here so I can say this: St. Stephen’s is one of the richest churches I have ever been too: and I’ve been to some rich churches in the past.

I have witnessed the richness of your faith as I have gotten to know many of you more closely and heard your stories; and I have seen the way you continue to show up – to church, to Morning Prayer, to Bible studies, to prayer walks – because your love for God and desire for him is so strong.

I have witnessed your richness in generosity, contributing financially over the years to the stewardship of this building, towards outreach ministries like the Saints’ Cafe and Angel Tree, and toward special celebration such as the luncheon for Daisy last week.

And I have witnessed your generosity in service, people contributing their time and their abilities to the ministry of this church, and not with a sense of entitlement or a longing for recognition, but out of love and faith in Jesus.

The purpose of thinking about stewardship in the coming few weeks, is to give thanks for the riches we have, and to put them into God’s hands to do with them what he will in 2027. This is a time to pray as we have never prayed before and to discern what God wants to do with us and with the gifts he has given us in the year ahead.

What I have discerned, through prayer and reflection on this parable, is that God wants us to think small in the year head. [yes you heard me right]. I believe God wants us to think small in the year head. This is what I mean.

In the parable, the bridesmaids Jesus called wise were those who had enough. And for us, wisdom may be recognizing what enough means for us our ministry, and what it means to bring enough of ourselves to the tasks before us in the coming year.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus was always talking about small amounts yielding much more than expected.

These are not just realistic images about a ministry trying to get off the ground, so that later on we can get to larger and more spectacular imagery. I believe that Jesus used these images in his teaching and ministry because this is how it is always supposed to be. This is how his kingdom grows and advances.

A little bit of faith as it begins; a little money given cheerfully, a little service done as unto the LORD, placed in the hands of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ will do amazing things.

But this can be hard. I am learning about long distance running these days, and what everyone says is that keeping within a zone 2 heart rate (runnning or walking so slowly that you can keep a conversation going with someone) that is where the heart really gets strong. And you know, I don’t like running in zone two. I like running fast, and running slowly can be really hard; but that is the way to build the heart and the mind of a runner.

The Israelites had to learn this in the wilderness, as we saw in Exodus this week. They wanted to sprint out of slavery and into the promised land, but God told them they would need to stay in zone two, because their hearts were not yet strong enough to get all the way to the promised land. If they ran too fast and were too eager to get to the destination, they would miss the provision and the goodness of God along the way that would really strengthen their faith for the long run.

And I believe that if we want to be ready for the blessings we are longing to receive from God in this place – for these pews to be full, for their to be lots of children in Sunday School, for the ability to renovate this building and property – we will need to learn to think small and add a bit more oil while God builds us up in faith, in finances, and in fellowship for many years of good things into the future.

As you leave this morning, I encourage everyone to take one of the envelopes prepared at the back. Inside is a letter from me explaining in practical terms what we are inviting you to pray about over the coming weeks. Along with the letter there is a pledge form you can fill out – there are suggested amounts and suggested areas to contribute, but please contribute what you can and what feels right (fill in what you need to, leave blank what you need to). If you have any questions about this, please feel free to speak to me or to one of the Wardens (Orphtee, Tellece, and Peace) and we will be happy to help

My wife and I have already submitted our pledge form toward the ongoing ministry of St. Stephen’s and toward the special ask to give a bit more above that for paying off the rectory loan and building up a fund to take care of property needs as they arise. We hope that you will all join us according to what God has given you.

Once we are prepared, and have enough oil for ourselves, then we will find that God can give us more than enough to share for others as we wait together for him.

Having enough faith will give us something we are eager to share with others.

Having enough money will give us something to share with those who need it more than us.

Having enough service will create opportunities for others to help out as well.

And as the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having ENOUGH of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” To him be the glory now and forever. Amen.