Thoughts on Stewardship

It's November, which here at Shepherd of the Valley is "Stewardship Season." This is not an overly helpful way to think about stewardship, of course, like we only think about living faithfully as God's children for a few weeks a year, and leave the rest of the year up to our own devices. In preparation for "Consecration Sunday" (the Sunday when everyone is supposed to turn in their Estimate of Giving cards for the next year) I have been doing some extra reading about stewardship. I'll offer some book reviews and suggestions in coming days.
One of the most helpful reminders I've read lately though, amidst all our talk of "proportional giving," is that stewardship is not just about money and not just about a percentage. EVERYTHING is God's, EVERYTHING: our lives, every minute of every day, our money, our earning-capacity, all of our stuff. All is on loan from God, and all is to be used in God-pleasing ways. It's not like we can decide, "Right, I'll give 10% to my church, that's God's share, now I can do whatever the heck I want with what's left, because it's MINE." WRONG. It's God's.

With that in mind, here are some frustrating statistics about how wealth is being redistributed from the poor to the rich in the United States; yes, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. (I read these stats and the link on a favorite seminary professor's blog):

“In 1982, when the Forbes 400 had just 13 billionaires, the highest paid CEO made $108 million and the average full-time worker made $34,199, adjusted for inflation in $2006. Last year, the highest paid hedge fund manager hauled in $1.7 billion, the highest paid CEO made $647 million, and the average worker made $34,861, with vanishing health and pension coverage.”

As people of faith, what do we say and do about this? If God judges a society based on how it treats the "least of these" - the poor, the sojourner (alien), the widow, the orphan - what can we say about our society? And what should we do?