Digging into a document: A Q&A with Fr. Jarrod Lies

Editor’s Note: The Diocese of Wichita’s Office of Evangelization, Discipleship, and Stewardship has released the  “Discipleship Lived in Stewardship” document, which can be viewed here. To better understand the document, its principles, history, and context, the Catholic Advance sat down with its principal author, Vicar for Evangelization, Discipleship, and Stewardship Fr. Jarrod Lies.

“Discipleship Lived In Stewardship” seems to be taking our diocese in some new directions.

“Discipleship Lived in Stewardship” summarizes the basic expectations and understanding of the Stewardship Way of Life in the Diocese of Wichita. It captures the mechanism of United Catholic Stewardship in bullet points, with each bullet acting as a kernel that pops into a full popcorn of understanding.

Many people will not immediately see why this document includes some of its parts, because it speaks to elements that have gotten less recent attention. For example, United Catholic Stewardship is a phrase that the common layperson probably hasn’t heard, yet UCS is the formal title given to the Stewardship Way of Life underneath its operational aspect. The way in which a parish relates to the diocese, the way in which the diocese relates to the universal Church, the way in which the parish relates to individual parishioners – that entire mechanism is called United Catholic Stewardship. 

So whenever we look at this document, it’s not really new except in format. Its content is as old as stewardship itself in the Diocese of Wichita.

Breaking the content down into popcorn-sized pieces can help.

We want we this to be an attractive understanding of how (for each individual Catholic) “I am part of this universal, particular, and local Church.” The universal Church is the Roman Catholic Church. Our particular Church is the Diocese of Wichita. The local church is a person’s parish. 

So, whenever you see this invitation in the context of “You fit; you belong; you are known, you are needed,” it actually sees through the eyes of universal, particular, local, and then my role in a parish family, which even affects how people function inside their own households.

The document feels very familial. I assume that that’s intentional, but also inescapable.

Right, right. Every word in this document was selected with great intentionality, You can see what I call the hermeneutical key to understanding the relationship between evangelization, discipleship, and stewardship: evangelization invites relationship, discipleship forms communion, and stewardship embodies solidarity. It is my hope that the diocesan parishioners memorize that. 

What is evangelization? It’s the attitude by which I invite relationship. It’s not the attitude of argumentation. It’s invitation, which really makes people belong before you argue. 

For discipleship, the attitude is formation: “Who am I in my relationship to God as a child of a Father who loves me with an infinite love, as a brother or sister in the Person of Jesus Christ, as the Temple of the Holy Spirit?” “How am I formed in the Trinitarian life and my relations there?” “How does that affect my baptismal family, the way in which I’m formed – not only my biological family, but also as disciples with one another in both the parish as well as the universal Church?” Discipleship forms communion in the sense that it brings us into communion with God and neighbor. 

Then, stewardship itself is the way in which we care for our brothers and sisters. It’s the discipleship expressed in loving concern: “How do I live that out in my home, neighborhood, and parish? How do I play a role in that proclamation?” That then ultimately leads back to evangelization because if I am embodying solidarity, solidarity done well is actually its own act of hospitality, which is a whole other initiation of relationship, and so you start back all over again.

Even if we’re drawing out or emphasizing concepts that have always been present, is it fitting to say the faithful in our diocese are – if not progressing from milk to meat to use St. Paul’s analogy – we are still going from soft food to something more substantial?

I think we are going through a process of maturation in the Diocese of Wichita on several different levels. First, stewardship is losing its hyper-focus on the connection to Catholic education in a parochial school system. We have to dislodge this immediate idea: “I’m a steward because I send my kids to Catholic schools.” That’s unhealthy. That’s not why we are stewards. We are stewards because it embodies solidarity in which I care for the people of God as fellow disciples, but it is not limited to them. A disciple cares for all people because of the solidarity we have with our human family. 

If this is graduating to a higher level of maturity, it’s because of the most recent histories in its development. That began with Fr. John Lanzrath who helped form the definition of stewardship, which is a level of maturity. Then Fr. Ken VanHaverbeke furthered development by saying that stewardship is about being a family of families. Then it moved to Fr. John Jirak, who so aptly articulated the relationship of stewardship to discipleship and then to evangelization as to really champion that interconnectedness. 

That bring us where we are right now, which I hope is to see stewardship in its full embodiment. No matter where you are in the world, no matter where you practice as a Catholic, it’s not about the services you receive because you play a game called stewardship. It’s not about filling in boxes or a bureaucracy of paperwork, which is what it can sometimes feel like. 

Actions such as these are, rather, tools of deep discernment to help us better recognize who we are in the sight of God, and to help us know how best to give ourselves in love of neighbor. It’s discernment, not bureaucracy, and so it’s purifying our motivation for stewardship as disciples who desire to invite relationship and evangelism in an evangelizing attitude. This document perhaps represents a greater separation from what has been for too long a hyper-connectedness between stewardship and Catholic education.

You have been in this vicariate for about a year, right? 

Yes.

Has the experience brought along any new insights or considerations?

What I hope to do now for the diocese is to capture the historic wisdom of the Stewardship Way of Life in writing, so that we can advance forward rather than revisit conversations that have been had for 40 years.

I will be producing many texts over the next two or three years to capture all this wisdom – not for it to be static, but to move the dialogue forward. It seems people are asking many questions that were answered years before, but haven’t had a way to know how that question has been answered in the past. We do not keep reinventing the wheel, so to speak. It’s not that the dialogue becomes easier, but now resources – compendiums exist – to help with asking new questions without rehashing old answers. I just published the book Becoming a Stewardship Parish. Now I am preparing Becoming a Stewardship Parishioner. I will put out a book on stewardship of treasure as well as republish “The Grateful Response of a Christian Disciple” first published 10 years ago. Capturing this wisdom in writing will help align language and concepts at a higher level. Sharing ideas also means sharing the accompanying culture.

So, to that point of view, during this vicariate, one of my greatest joys has been all the deep thinking and synthesizing. Right here on my shelf are all those unique historical documents – from 1984 and until now – that I have processed and have used as background for all of my writings. Stewardship, as it was practiced in 1984, is as relevant as it’s practiced today. We simply have new tools and new realities in which we are able to practice it.

Are we seeking to avoiding tunnel vision on Catholic schools because a school is only one ministry among many for parishes that have them?

Stewardship is no greater an expectation for people with kids in parochial schools than for people who are in adult education, youth who are sent into PSR, stewards who are lectors, or single persons who go to Sunday Mass. Stewardship is not here because of any one subset of ministries within a parish. I am adamant about that. Stewardship is literally the way in which we embody solidarity, stewarding our gifts at the service of others, and also a general care – carrying one another’s burdens – so it purifies our attitude if it is not contextualized to a certain ministry or a benefit.

So for instance, if a family only tithes and consistently attends Sunday Mass while the kids are attending Catholic schools, but then drops those practices after their kids grow up, it not only suggests a transactional mindset, it also makes me wonder if people believe they can pull one over on God. Maybe it’s possible to fool Father, but not God.

Anyone who believes stewardship comes to an end has an immature view of it, because stewardship is intrinsic to our discipleship. You can’t be a disciple and not be a steward. As the Epistle of St. James says, “You show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” We cannot be disciples if we are not also in some way offering ourselves in genuine care for our brothers and sisters.

The Gift Unveiled event was held in late August at St. Anne in Wichita and included a conversation between you and Bishop Carl Kemme. Are there any parts of that conversation that you want to highlight here?

The bishop certainly is calling us to a new movement because we are a stewardship diocese with healthy structures of parish life that can become stronger. We have been giving time, talent, and treasure, and we are living that at a higher level than many other dioceses – roughly 50% participation at Sunday Mass, higher levels of financial giving, much higher levels of parishioner involvement within parishes’ different ministries and missions.

But now we need to recognize the outward movement of the Church in evangelization, and so stewardship, which often cares for the family of God within a parish, needs to make sure that we’re always living the commission of every Mass, which is “Go, you are sent,” (in Latin “ite, missa est”). 

The bishop and I talked about how there is no authentic stewardship unless it is lived within a genuine, invited relationship. Stewardship is actually the completion of the arc, or a circle. You begin with evangelization, and if that is inviting relationship, it means you create a condition of hospitality in which people feel received and understood, such that they can actually can begin to engage in relationship.

Once they feel like they belong within that relationship – that they can start having the freedom to ask questions of the person of Jesus Christ – that then drives them to discipleship to make the claim their own: “I have known him, and now I receive baptism, confirmation, or a new light inside my faith.”

Then in communion with both God and neighbor, I live as a steward because I offer myself and my gifts to those very people who have called me into this relationship because I care for them. You know, you spend time with the very people who you’re in relationship with, and that relationship often looks like a shared meal, a shared teaching, or a shared sacrament. Whenever you are actually offering stewardship as a true solidarity – meaning a context by which people are cared for in a community in which they’re known and accepted – it’s as the document says: “You fit. You belong. You are known. You are needed.”

If people know this, it actually creates the conditions that invite more relationship. That’s an attractive community. I want to belong to a people who know me and who want me there. I want to belong to a place where my gifts can be received, and my limitations can be helped. That, in itself, creates the invitation to relationship, which is very the very nature of evangelization. So the cyclical nature of the three is very important to know: stewardship leads back to evangelization.

It’s very evocative of the body of Christ, where it makes no sense if you’ve got nothing but eyes, mouths, or ears. We all need the rest of our bodies, and it sure can hurt even to just stub your pinky toe. 

We should consider the images on this document, too. 

Of course. 

We see Fr. Kapaun’s crucifix. The stories about Fr. Kapaun in the prison camp, and really in his entire priesthood, show how he embodied evangelization, discipleship, and stewardship. I once wrestled with the question of how a priest could survive without being able to offer the Mass, such as Fr. Kapaun had to do in prison. It’s not like the prison guards were giving him bread and wine so he could celebrate Mass. They were communists trying to brainwash the prisoners, and Fr. Kapaun was trying to preach the gospel and encourage people. The great reason why so many men survived in that particular camp was because of the hope they received through Fr. Kapaun.

I was thinking of him as a priest who could not celebrate the Mass until I realized this: he was the Eucharist offered for his people! He was the bread, blessed and broken. He became Christ to those people. He wasn’t celebrating the Mass for them; he became the Mass for them. He spoke the name of Jesus Christ. He created a space for people to be received without feeling like they were being coerced in any way. Jewish men in that camp loved Fr. Kapaun.

Including the man who carved that crucifix.

Very much so. And Fr. Kapaun created an invitation to relationship. He formed disciples within that. How? He boiled water in a broken tin can. He brought people food. He picked lice off people. He did it in every possible way he could think of. Fr. Kapaun was this great bastion of what we have become as the Diocese of Wichita. 

And as a young priest, he did that in the fields that are depicted in the picture to the right. I want a prairie fire in the Diocese of Wichita. I want to see the fields of our hearts burning, which connects us to the stewardship poster that we have right now: “Love for love.”

This great gift that we have of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ that is pierced and aflame says, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing.” We are the fire; our hearts are the wheat, and that wheat needs to be sacrificed, to be burnt so that new growth can come forward. Our hearts need to be broken like the Eucharist is broken. Our hearts need to be set aflame with the desire to preach and teach and invite and to share and to work for one another. 

All of that is this great gift we have in Kansas, of knowing what it means to receive seed and watch it grow, and to harvest, and what it means to burn a field and start all over again, which is the pattern of Christian life.

That’s why the symbol down at the bottom of the “Discipleship Lived in Stewardship” document is a symbol of our vicariate: roots underground and beneath a stalk of wheat. The roots are discipleship formed in the person, grounded in the person of Jesus Christ. The grains of wheat are the fruits of stewardship, the solidarity that is given as gifts given to other people. The stalk is what makes it visible, the evangelization that says, “We are here in the person of Jesus Christ. We are not merely here for Christ alone, but also as a gift for others.” 

There are the different symbols alongside the sub-headings within the document:

• “You fit” has your personal identity inside the larger Church. 

• “You belong” shows several grains because you belong to your parish community. 

• “You are known” shows the grain cupped in a hand – known by your pastor and fellow parishioners. 

• “You are needed” is kind of a play on words because bread is kneaded, but you are needed in the parish. The parish forms you, but it needs (kneads) you. Then we become the very bread that becomes the body of Jesus Christ.

The Church isn’t about selling widgets. The time horizons are eternal, and this is about –

Life, well-lived. There’s an early document in St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Wichita that was called “Living Life as God Intended It” that was about how parishes can start stewardship. I hope we can find some way to preserve that phraseology in the Diocese of Wichita, because it’s not merely stewardship (in isolation). Evangelization, discipleship, and stewardship is living life as God intends, and it applies directly to our diocesan mission and vision that all God’s children will respond to Christ’s call to become fully alive as missionary disciples – all God’s children. The point of our very vision is our mission to go forth faithfully and preach the gospel, evangelizing in today’s culture. This is life as God intended, and it’s the vision of the bishop, which is what he spoke about on stage at A Gift Unveiled.

Earlier, when I said we weren’t selling widgets, I meant that from a practical, worldly perspective, someone could say “Wichita already has a good formula. Why mess with it when you have a good thing going?” These developments and an intentional push for evangelization certainly seem to suggest a divine origin. 

I would tie it back to this year’s stewardship theme: “Return love for love.” Love begets love. The human person has an infinite desire that can only be filled by the infinite God, and whenever you are truly in love with God and neighbor, there’s no end to your growth in caring for those persons. We can let the flames of love die – which, sadly, can happen. We can squelch them not only through our own negligence, but also through giving into mediocrity; we can allow the flames of love to simply fizzle out. But whenever we actually are engaged in this understanding of “You fit; you belong; you are known; you are needed,” when we are really there with that, we start to realize that we want to return love for love. And as our awareness grows, the more we can recognize the greatness of God’s giftedness to us. Then, too, more we want to respond, because love in itself, even in the human heart, is infinite.

Are there other themes or aspects of this subject we haven’t covered that you want to mention?

“Discipleship Lived in Stewardship” is the largest printing of a stewardship document in the history of the Diocese of Wichita. When people see this, they should recognize they are looking at pre-popped popcorn. These kernels aren’t explanations, but the dust jacket of an entire way of life as God intends.

Do you have any practical advice to readers who are chewing on the popcorn and realize that they have gifts they are called to share with the Church and world? 

Number one, recognize the power of the Spirit that is captured within these words. These words are a divine invitation to recognize our childhood in God the Father. Once we recognize we are God’s children, we recognize how blessed we are. 

Number two, a steward says yes. Whenever people ask for help, whenever a pastor asks for more involvement, whenever a fellow parishioner asks for you to step forward, or attend a retreat, you may feel reluctant, but you should be willing to say yes because a fellow disciple has asked you. The steward recognizes that the Blessed Virgin Mary says yes to her invitation. We should not want to decline, because the invitation is an honor: “Someone saw something in me that calls them to pay attention to my dignity.”

Third, they’re calling for me to give the very gift of self, which is the cure for depression and anxiety. The opposite of isolation is relationship. When we say yes, even if it takes us beyond our comfort zones, we’re actually being honored. We return that honor by sharing the dignity that others have and sharing my gifts with them. That attitude really has to be played out in our hearts. 

The last word really has to be the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She said yes to the impossible. She said yes, and God made it happen.