A BABY BOOMER PERSPECTIVE

A REFLECTION FOR THE 8TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

How well do we take care of what we have?  It all starts when we’re children, and we’re given things.  Toys, dolls, all kinds of interesting things are lavished upon us from an early age.  How we treat them is a sure sign of how we will treat our possessions as we get older.

Today’s Gospel is about a lord who had a steward, whom he accuses of wasting his goods.  A steward, you see, is a person we pay to look after our goods.  Most of us don’t employ a steward, and we look after our own goods.  In fact, it is we who are the stewards of the many possessions we have.  Do we keep our gardening tools clean and well oiled?  Do we wipe down the stove after we’ve cooked? Do we make our bed in the morning? These are all signs of whether we’re a good steward of our goods.

As one of the so-called baby boomer generation, I share with many here the interesting perspective of being able to compare the generation that came before me with the one that follows.  In terms of stewardship, the “Great Generation” as a whole treasured their possessions.  I’ve noticed they are extremely careful to maintain them and keep them as perfect as the day they purchased them.  I once admired a shiny pair of very smart-looking shoes on the father of a friend of mine. It turns out he had bought them just after World War II. This generation came out of the Great Depression.  They didn’t have much, and so what they did have, they made last.

Meanwhile, the new generation of Milennials have a totally different attitude to their goods, as parents learn very early in their lives.  When someone buys a pair of jeans that already has holes in it, you kind of know they’re not made to last.  Our brave new world is so full of material things that we have created a whole new breed of material girls and boys who have so many clothes and toys they don’t know the value of them.  It’s the law of inflation at work, only in the closet and the toybox.

All good things come from above, from the good Lord who made us.  All we have is on loan from him, and we are his stewards.  How well do we take care of our things?  Our home, our family, our church, our soul, our values?  How well have we trained the next generation to care for these things?  The trend this past hundred years has not been a good one, and make no mistake, the responsibility rests with us to pass down the values we received.  It’s called being a good steward.