All Things Great and Small: Lessons from the Monarch

It’s stewardship season again! As you may have noticed, one of the images on our stewardship materials this year is a Monarch Butterfly. That butterfly is more than just a beautiful image. I’ve been struck by the power of the Monarch Butterfly as a symbol for stewardship, and this blog post will invite you to reflect on the beauty and meaning of the butterfly for us and for stewardship.

Our stewardship theme this year is “All Things Great and Small.” In the grand scheme of life, a butterfly is certainly more on the small side than the great side. At least, at first glance. It’s tiny—smaller than a bird, a human, a mountain, etc.—and quite delicate. On the other hand, this is the Monarch butterfly. Its name proclaims a greatness that isn’t obvious from its size and place in the world. If you’re like me, seeing a Monarch Butterfly is an experience with great awe and wonder relative to the small size and short lifespan of the Monarch Butterfly. It has an outsized impact on us when we see one.

Likewise, butterflies carry a deep spiritual significance in many different cultures. Their lives begin as modest caterpillars and they undergo a miraculous transformation—called metamorphosis—to become beautiful and graceful butterflies. This spectacular life journey makes butterflies a symbol of transformation in many different cultures, and their beauty draws us into the beauty and vitality of the Earth and God’s creation as well. There’s also something powerful about the smallness and delicate nature of butterflies. Butterflies feel precious, delicate, and fleeting just like delight, awe, and joy can feel precious, delicate, and fleeting in our lives.

One Monarch butterfly is indeed a small thing, but that butterfly is also part of something great! Monarch butterflies go on an epic journey every year as a population from the northern and central US into Mexico. When they arrive in Mexico, they make up massive swarms that are simply breathtaking to see. 

The most interesting thing about this annual migration journey is that it takes multiple generations of Monarch Butterfly to complete it. No one butterfly completes the entire trip in their lifetime. Which is amazing! The continued survival of their species, their community, depends on this trip, and it takes all of them across multiple generations to make it happen. At this point, I can only imagine the hope in the future of the community that it must take to be a Monarch Butterfly. All the while that these butterflies are carrying out this multigenerational and communal journey, they’re also making the world a better place. They’re pollinating plants that sustain the web of life and produce beautiful wildflowers.

I hope you come away from all of that, like me, impressed with Monarch Butterflies and beginning to sense the powerful symbolism of what they are individually and as a whole. Perhaps you’re beginning to see how this can help us look at stewardship in a new and deeper way.

Like an individual Monarch butterfly, our own individual gifts of time, talent, and treasure are great in and of themselves. These gifts may be small and we may be small, but, like the Monarch butterfly, we are given names that imply we are greater than our size and status suggest too. Scripture calls us made in God’s own image, members of a royal priesthood, and made one with Jesus Christ the King of Kings. We’re called a temple of the Holy Spirit, children of God, the light of the world, and God’s own handiwork. We reaffirm and enter fully into these names and realities through our baptism, and so we have our baptism to remind us that no person and no gift is too small or insignificant because we have been made great in the eyes of God. Stewardship, and giving, is a way to live out the grace, love, and honor bestowed on us in our baptism.

Like the sense of awe and wonder I get from seeing butterflies, it also fills me with awe and wonder to see so many people give of their labor and life to support the life of this parish and our service to the community. The awe is disproportionate to the perceived size of these gifts. These gifts are spiritually powerful. As I mentioned, butterflies symbolize transformation and metamorphosis. Our gifts of time, talent, and treasure—the products of our lives and work—are transformed into young people learning about the love of Jesus Christ, into beautiful music, into the worship of God, and into hungry and hurting people being fed and healed, and so much more. That our gifts can be transformed like this is the stuff of pure and miraculous awe and joy. They’re ordinary things made holy—like the bread and wine in the Eucharist—through God’s grace.

Our gifts are also part of something greater than ourselves, greater than the sum of its parts. The Monarch Butterfly, as a pollinator, shows us that our giving supports the flourishing of others. Stewardship is about nurturing life, beauty, and healing in the wider ecosystem where we find ourselves in Montgomery, the Greater Cincinnati Area, the state of Ohio, the United States, and the world. Stewardship is one way that we take our place in the ecosystem of people working for love, reconciliation, justice, care, and sharing the love and good news of Jesus Christ.

Stewardship is a lot like the Monarch Butterfly’s epic multi-generational migration journey to Mexico. These gifts are part of our multigenerational migration journey toward the Kingdom of God. The gifts that were given before to St. Barnabas and the larger church have endured to support our part of the journey today, and the gifts we give now will endure so that others can continue the journey ahead. It’s unlikely that our gift will finally be the last dollar, the last volunteer hour, or the last skill needed to finally usher in the Kingdom of God. However, our giving, despite the work that is left to be done, is a sign of hope that God can and will use us and our gifts to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine from generation to generation. Like Monarch butterflies swarming in Mexico, our gifts swarm together to make up a parish and a future of service, prayer, welcome, and worship greater than we could make on our own. 

All photos taken by Ryan Hagerty

As you prayerfully discern your pledge for 2026, I hope you’ll remember the Monarch Butterfly. All things great and small glorify the Lord, and all gifts great and small do too. Like the Monarch butterfly, our individual gifts are precious in God’s sight no matter their size, and together we make up something beautiful, life-giving, and greater than the sum of its parts that will last across generations into the bright and hopeful future.