When Deficit Spending Makes Sense

GLEANINGS (from the Daily Office) – When Deficit Spending Makes Sense – Year One, Proper 5, Friday, June 12, 2015, 2 Corinthians 12:11-21

“I will gladly spend and be spent for your souls.”

In the wake of the 2008 crash, I preached something is gravely wrong with us. Since when can you spend your way out of debt? That’s what we were thinking. Granted I am no economist but I am fairy certain you can grow your way out of debt or you can inflate your way out of debt but you can’t spend your way out of debt. Spending is what created the problem. How can it be the solution? Unless, of course, it creates growth or inflation. Thus far? Crickets.

Obviously I am no great fan of deficit spending. Philosophically, the Apostle Paul might just part ways with me. In Philippians 2:7 Paul tell us Jesus emptied himself for others. He says we should be of the same mind. Earlier in this letter Paul commends the church in Macedonia for giving beyond their means. And here he says he is willing to spend and be spent. He finds “souls” are worth it.

And therein lies the difference. I object to deficit spending for $500 hammers, or a TSA that cannot screen effectively 95% of the time, or a Depart of Education that does seem to enhance the local school district’s ability to educate. But Paul is teaching us that souls are worth it. Jesus thought so. So he thinks so.

Paul is describing a church or least his churchmanship for the sake of others. Anglican Bishop Todd Hunter started a diocese called “The Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others” (C4SO) What if we spent less on buildings, traditional and contemporary, less on instruments, organs and bands, less on everything and then exhaust our resources on souls, just people and relationships? I am thinking the next generation might just find us a bit more attractive, maybe even aromatic.

–Frodo: “I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”–