Monday Meditation
measuring the health of a nation
One of the more difficult tasks for a church council/session/vestry is to put together the annual budget. In the congregations I served, a deficit budget was unacceptable. Annually the goal of a “balanced budget” created vigorous challenges - both financial and moral. Hard decisions were made that affected the people and mission of the church. The hardest arguments occurred over where to “cut” the budget to fit the expected income. On a few occasion, those decisions resulted in members leaving the church because disagreement over the amount of money allocated to “mission.” In my experience it was never easy. I didn’t always agree with the final budget. The struggle usually involved determining who would be hurt by the budget and who would be helped. How would the budget enable the church to fulfill its purpose? The hardest and most important question: will this budget be pleasing to God and the mission God has called us to fulfill?
Reasonable people understand the nation’s leaders have similar challenges - both financial and moral. We are in that struggle right now. People’s lives are at stake in the decisions being made. Which means the epicenter of the struggle is familiar: who will benefit the most from the budget, and who will be hurt the most from the budget. Where to begin? What moral compass do leaders use to guide them? “Saving money, cutting waste” is the standard I’ve heard from the Musk/Trump/Johnson trio. “Unnecessary Waste” appears to include federal workers - human beings - with experience and skills, saving lives from hunger, disease and debilitating poverty. Orwell would recognize the use of the word “waste” to describe such workers.
Nothing about this process is easy. Reasonable people differ about precise allocations of money. There has to be some measure by which leaders make difficult decisions. Many years ago in 1968, when I was young and the nation was in violent turmoil over poverty, race and war, I heard Presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey proclaim that the health of a nation is best measured by how it treats the poor, the children and the most vulnerable: widows, orphans, elderly, disabled and sick. I was too young to vote, yet Humphrey became a lasting hero figure for me, and remained so even though he was soundly defeated in the electoral college by Richard Nixon.
Later, I realized the measure of the nation’s health that Humphrey used was in fact the biblical notion of health, echoing the Hebrew prophets Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Micah. Amos especially railed against the abuse of the poor and oppressed by the national leaders. So, as always, leaders must produce a budget that is both moral and financially sound.
When the accrual of wealth is the measure of national health, to the neglect of the poor and most vulnerable, scripture teaches that the nation is not healthy and will crumble under its own hubris. Budgets that are purposely designed to benefit only the wealthy and as a consequence, hurt the vulnerable are an abomination.
In honor of Hubert Humprehy’s state, Minnesota, this is the Great Gray Owl that I saw a couple of weeks ago while visiting the state. One of the tallest owls in the world, the Great Gray Owl is a supreme hunter who can crack through serious ice and snow to grab a vole.