What Would You Do For Money?

Would you sell drugs, cheat on your taxes, steal from your business, or take your children’s college fund? I’m hoping that most of us would not, although desperation makes people do desperate things.

As I ponder what I see in our national and international political world these days, I’m struck by what feels like both a power grab (people assuming powers they don’t have) and a money grab (forfeiting the welfare of the whole for a possible tax cut for some.) Wasting money, I believe, is a sin. But there is tremendous disagreement in the meaning of “waste.”

Is it wasteful . . .

• to offer school lunch programs that benefit needy children?
• to fund Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) that help poor families?
• to reject a 25% tariff on potash from Canada that midwest farmers depend on to fertilize their crops?
• to increase grant funding that supports veterans in need of counseling and other healthcare?

In business, we consider our Return on Investment (ROI), and I’ve heard recently that some of the government programs have been cut over the last three months because there was not a strong ROI. The problem with running the government “like a business” though is not to make more money..

In Church World, leaders are missing the point of ministry if we ask, “What will our congregation get out of this preschool/food bank/affordable housing venture?” If I ever hear anyone say one more time that something was a failure because “we didn’t get any new members out of that” I will probably lose another chunk of time out of my life.

Just as the Church of Jesus Christ doesn’t exist to target people for the sake of getting new members, more pledges, bigger buildings – the government doesn’t exist to make money off of poor people, or gain a profit from The Kennedy Center or make the national postal service lucrative.

Are we okay with hurting people for the sake of our personal investment portfolio? When we agree with the notion of 1) cutting programs for people at the margins or 2) cutting programs that make life more beautiful through the arts and nature to pay for tax cuts to those who already have so much, it feels like Judas betraying Jesus for the sake of 30 stupid pieces of silver.

Postscript One of my favorite Holy Week ideas for when I was a parish pastor: Invite people (tell them before Holy Week) that – on Maundy Thursday – they can offer 30 pieces of silver (quarters, nickels, dollars) to drop into the empty baptismal bowl on their way to receive Holy Communion. The sound of each person’s 30 pieces of silver on the way to the Supper is powerful. The offering is then given to people who have been betrayed in your community: queer young people, immigrants promised asylum, people experiencing domestic violence, etc.