This address was written by Sanford Coon, Executive Director of the New Mexico Conference Foundation, Inc.
A WESLEYAN PERSPECTIVE ON STEWARDSHIP
For John Wesley, the clearest characterization of human beings in relationship to God is that of
steward. The steward is distinct from the debtor who is at liberty to use, however the debtor
chooses, that which belongs to the owner until it is returned. And the steward is also different
from the servant who simply maintains the property of the owner. Rather, the steward uses what
is in the steward’s charge as the owner pleases. God entrusts the steward with the goods and has
provided through the Word the particular directions about their use. Wesley’s expansive
understanding of what has been entrusted to each human being includes our souls, bodies,
worldly goods and several talents that encompass our strength, health, learning, knowledge,
influence, and time. These divine gifts are provided by God’s grace, prevenient for all to
employ. Wesley asserts that upon our deaths we shall be held accountable for the fashion in
which we have been stewards of each of them.
Among the worldly goods which the person of faith must employ is money, which Wesley
unabashedly contends was not sufficiently considered by the clergy. He claims that clergy,
“those whom God hath chosen out of the world,” generally do not consider the importance of the
subject which is required for the use of “this excellent talent.” Neither do they understand how
to employ it to the greatest advantage. The introduction of money into the world is one
admirable instance of the wise and gracious providence of God. In scriptural terms Wesley
confirms that it is not money, but rather the love of money which is the root of evil. Money,
rather, is an excellent gift of God, answering the noblest ends. “In the hands of [God’s] children
it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked. It gives to the traveler and
the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of an husband to the widow,
and of a father to the fatherless; we may be a defense for the oppressed, a means of health to the
sick, of ease to them that are in pain. It may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame; yea, a
lifter up of the gates of death."
This is the foundation that Wesley establishes for his remarkable and distinctive linking of
economic and social principles set forth in his sermon, “The Use of Money.” All instructions
that are necessary for faithful management of riches are reduced to three plain rules, the exact
observance of which determines whether or not we are faithful stewards.
Wesley begins with Gain all you can. Within that rule is the requirement that you must never
gain by hurting your body, your mind, or that of your neighbor. There is a strong social
conscience that your gain must bring no harm to another or to any other of God’s gifts. He
instructs that you are to gain by honest industry: If you understand your particular calling as you
ought, you will have no time that hangs upon your hands. Gain all you can by common sense, by
using in your business all the understanding which God has given.
Second, Wesley challenges the faithful to Save all you can. By that he does not mean
accumulating or hoarding wealth or riches. Quite the contrary. It is the urgent and essential
frugality or parsimony that necessitates that none be “thrown away” in idle expenses. None is to
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be expended merely to gratify the desire of the flesh (delicacies or excesses of food and drink),
the desire of the eye (ornaments of raiment or home), or the pride of life (that which embellishes
position). You are to take care of self, family and business with the essential and the plain. Your
children should be cared for fully but with excess in nothing. No one can, however, be said to
save anything if it is simply “laid up.”
The first and second rules lead to the third, Give all you can. After providing for self, family
and others who pertain to your household, if there is a surplus, then do good to them that are of
the household of faith. If there is still an overplus, do good to all others. In so doing, give all
you can, or more definitively, all you have. All that is laid out in this manner is really given to
God, while that which is withheld is robbed from God. Wesley urges that one is not to calculate
a proportion such as a tenth, but rather to give all that is God’s.
Wesley had grave concern and pronounced stern warning upon those of nobility who
accumulated wealth or even desired to be rich. During his later years he feared that his own
Methodists no longer honored the simple formula that had been so fundamental to them when
they first joined together. Wesley pointedly inquired: “Have you the same vehement desire as
you formerly had of ‘going on unto perfection’?” Clearly for Wesley, failure to honor these rules
of stewardship endangers one’s faith and thereby endangers all dimensions of one’s love of God
and the character of faithful living with its attributes such as patience, humility, meekness, and
zeal for works of mercy and of piety. Riches feed and increase self-will, contempt, resentment,
revenge, and anger. “Gold hath steeled your hearts!” he bluntly admonished his Methodists. He
felt their very souls were in danger.
Wesley believed that any accumulation of wealth is a hindrance to holiness. Further, it is a clear
abuse of the poor who were God’s special people. Wesley insisted Methodists were called to
serve the poor, particularly through their giving, and it was through the poor that the faithful
would genuinely encounter Christ.
As each United Methodist comes to these guidelines over two centuries after Wesley’s span of
ministry in a culture that is distant geographically, socially and religiously, how are the rules for
faithful stewardship to be understood? Are they simply naïve, impractical, antiquated and no
longer applicable to the life of faith? “Unless one deny every pleasure which does not prepare
for taking pleasure in God, that person cannot be a disciple of Christ nor enter into the kingdom
of heaven.” Certainly Wesley would insist that the modern Methodist cannot evade the clarity of
scripture on matters regarding possessions and wealth.
Prayerful analysis of our contemporary experience requires that we intentionally review the
values which we demonstrate. In our reasoning we deliberate about the management of the
diverse riches God has given us. We participate in a culture that is both dominated by rampant
consumerism and alienated from those whose very lives are dependent upon the faithful giving of
others. Wesley has given the tools for generations of followers to scrutinize the priorities which
they set for the management of their riches and to discern the appropriate missional engagements
which will manifest the love of God in transformational ways.
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To review the rules of John Wesley regarding stewardship and to embrace them in contemporary
settings requires courage and discipline. It was exactly those evidences of Christian character
that Wesley sought to call forth in his contemporaries.
“Be a good steward of the manifold gifts of God, that when you are called to give an account of
your stewardship God may say, ‘well done, good and faithful servant: enter thou into the joy of
thy Lord.’”
WESLEY’S SERMONS ON STEWARDSHIP
AND THE MANAGEMENT OF RICHES
Selected Listing
The Use of Money, Sermon 50
The Good Steward, Sermon 51
The Danger of Increasing Riches, Sermon 131
On Riches, Sermon 108
The Danger of Riches, Sermon 87
Seek First the Kingdom, Sermon 134
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