Pulling together is part of stewardship

Friday, May. 08, 2015

By John Kaloudis

Director of 

Diocesan Development Drive

Are we doing our part? Often when we think of stewardship, we focus on the rich person, the person with lots of money, the millionaire. We expect those individuals to carry the load for everyone else. 

However, we are all called to faithful stewardship: the millionaire, the middle-class family and the poor widow.

To illustrate this point, let me repeat the story of a man who was harvesting logs for a saw mill. After a rain, the truck carrying the logs to the mill got stuck in a muddy ditch. After several tries the driver realized he needed help to free the truck. He walked down the road to a farm house. He found the farmer and explained the situation. The farmer declared, “I have a mule that can do the job.” 

Returning to the truck, they hitched the mule, Blue, to it. When all was ready the farmer yelled, “Pull, Blue, pull.” After several attempts the truck remained stuck. Then the farmer yelled again, “Pull, Blue!” but this time he added, “Pull, Mack!” and “Pull, Clyde!” 

Ol’ Blue dug his hooves into the road, strained mightily and soon the truck was out of the mud. 

The truck driver was confused. “Why did you call out the names of two other mules besides Blue?” 

Smiling, the farmer said, “Well, Blue is blind, but I knew that when he thought he was pulling alone he could not do the job, but when he thought Mack and Clyde were pulling with him, he was encouraged to pull all the more. So now your truck is out of the ditch.”

The message in the story relates to stewardship. No one of us can meet all the needs of the diocese, but when we are pulling together we can accomplish whatever needs to be done. Each person, regardless of income, is called to be a faithful steward.