Rich and poor
25/04/13 04:43
For centuries, priests have taken a vow of poverty. Essentially, the idea is that the pursuit of worldly wealth stands in conflict with service to God’s intentions for people. Trust in God grows, in part, out of the realization that we are dependent upon God. If all of creation comes from God, it logically follows that it all belongs to God. Claiming a portion of the world’s bounty for one’s self is at best a temporary illusion. As has been said over and over again, “you can’t take it with you.”
The Christian Church was begun in the midst of a culture with radically uneven distribution of wealth. The Roman Empire existed to preserve and expand capital. The wealth produced by outlying lands was brought into Rome in a spectacular display. Our people knew about this practice precisely because we had a season of our common life when consolidating wealth was the focus of our attention. Under the reign of King Solomon, Israel saw a great consolidation of wealth in Jerusalem. Read the stories of the construction of the 1st temple contained in Kings and Chronicles. There are lists of dimensions, building materials, and reference after reference to the gold that was used in the construction. There are stories about arms trading, speculation in expensive horses and other business dealings that were undertaken by the monarchy. By the time of Jesus’ birth, however, Jerusalem and all of Israel and Judea had fallen on much harder times. The people knew the taste of military defeat, understood the legacy of exile, and were bracing for a violent blow from Rome that occurred in the first century after the death and resurrection of Christ.
In recent years, however, we have used our contemplation of wealth and poverty mostly in regards to the persons who are engaged in Christian ministry. Salaries and pay packages for ministers and priests can be topics of hot discussion. They vary widely depending on denomination and the characteristics of individual congregations. There is some speculation among church leaders that sounds a bit like merit pay (the best ministers earn the highest compensation) but most serious church members understand that such is rarely the case. The largest indicator of minister salary is the size of the congregation (bigger church = bigger pay; smaller church = smaller pay). Even that formula isn’t an exact pattern, however. Some small congregations have wealth that has been saved from previous generations. Some large congregations have taken on very high operating expenses through elaborate buildings and other high-maintenance items. Some congregations give large portions of their annual operating budgets in mission work and gifts to other institutions. Other congregations retain nearly all of their income for their own projects. There is no hard and fast rule. There is a wide variation in clergy salaries. A pastor serving one of the congregations of the Dakota Association receives a little over $14,000 per year in salary and housing. The base salary for the rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City is $475,000. The total compensation package with pension, health care and the cost of living rent-free in a $5.5 million SoHo town house are added, is estimated at about $1.3 million per year. There are some who argue that that particular ministerial position stands outside of a pledge of poverty. There are probably a few members of that congregation who question the pay package. Sadly there are more people who talk about the pay of the rector of Trinity Church than who focus their attention on the pay of reservation pastors. If we paid more attention, we would be looking harder for solutions to pay packages that force clergy to supplement their income from other sources.
But the wealth or poverty of pastors is only part of the story. There is also a huge variation in the wealth and poverty of congregations. Not wanting to pick on Trinity, but knowing that it is among the wealthiest congregations in the nation, it can be used as an example of a wealthy religious institution. The parish holds 14 acres in downtown Manhattan, including 5.5 million square feet of commercial real estate. The parish earned $158 million in real estate revenue in 2011, and reported an annual operating budget for the parish of $38 million. The budget for the church’s music program in 2011 was $2.5 million. The historic church building takes about $6 million a year in maintenance expenses. Those are big numbers.
They are also completely irrelevant numbers to a congregation like Cherry Creek on the Cheyenne Reservation. The church has title to some reservation property and it is hard to put a value on the land because there is some question as to whether or not it could be sold. Part of the holdings might revert to the tribe if the land was no longer used for a church. The church building is a doublewide trailer that is worth considerably less than $100,000. No one would label the congregation as wealthy.
Somewhere in between those two extremes lies the congregation I serve, with a balance sheet showing just over a million dollars in assets, an annual operating budget of $309,000 per year and a separate trust that manages less than a half million dollars in assets. And yet within our congregation, there are many different perspectives on wealth and poverty. There are good and faithful members who believe that the church has too many assets and that we are capable of expanding mission and outreach. They feel that managing investments is not the proper work of the church and that we should not be in the business of preserving capital. There are other members, also good and faithful, who believe that our reserves are too small relative to our operations and that we not only need to preserve capital, but grow it so that we will have larger assets and holdings in the future. These tensions are not expressed in anger or conflict within the church, but they are nonetheless real. I know enough about the discussions to know that I have no envy for the wealth of a church like Trinity in New York City. They must spend huge amounts of time talking about money and much less time talking about ministry.
I think I prefer my churches, and the pastors, on the less wealthy side of the coin. Wealth can be a significant problem. It tempts us to think that we “earned” it or that it somehow belongs to us. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As the song says, “We give thee but thine own, whate’r the gift may be. All that we have is thine alone: a trust, O God, from thee.”
The Christian Church was begun in the midst of a culture with radically uneven distribution of wealth. The Roman Empire existed to preserve and expand capital. The wealth produced by outlying lands was brought into Rome in a spectacular display. Our people knew about this practice precisely because we had a season of our common life when consolidating wealth was the focus of our attention. Under the reign of King Solomon, Israel saw a great consolidation of wealth in Jerusalem. Read the stories of the construction of the 1st temple contained in Kings and Chronicles. There are lists of dimensions, building materials, and reference after reference to the gold that was used in the construction. There are stories about arms trading, speculation in expensive horses and other business dealings that were undertaken by the monarchy. By the time of Jesus’ birth, however, Jerusalem and all of Israel and Judea had fallen on much harder times. The people knew the taste of military defeat, understood the legacy of exile, and were bracing for a violent blow from Rome that occurred in the first century after the death and resurrection of Christ.
In recent years, however, we have used our contemplation of wealth and poverty mostly in regards to the persons who are engaged in Christian ministry. Salaries and pay packages for ministers and priests can be topics of hot discussion. They vary widely depending on denomination and the characteristics of individual congregations. There is some speculation among church leaders that sounds a bit like merit pay (the best ministers earn the highest compensation) but most serious church members understand that such is rarely the case. The largest indicator of minister salary is the size of the congregation (bigger church = bigger pay; smaller church = smaller pay). Even that formula isn’t an exact pattern, however. Some small congregations have wealth that has been saved from previous generations. Some large congregations have taken on very high operating expenses through elaborate buildings and other high-maintenance items. Some congregations give large portions of their annual operating budgets in mission work and gifts to other institutions. Other congregations retain nearly all of their income for their own projects. There is no hard and fast rule. There is a wide variation in clergy salaries. A pastor serving one of the congregations of the Dakota Association receives a little over $14,000 per year in salary and housing. The base salary for the rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City is $475,000. The total compensation package with pension, health care and the cost of living rent-free in a $5.5 million SoHo town house are added, is estimated at about $1.3 million per year. There are some who argue that that particular ministerial position stands outside of a pledge of poverty. There are probably a few members of that congregation who question the pay package. Sadly there are more people who talk about the pay of the rector of Trinity Church than who focus their attention on the pay of reservation pastors. If we paid more attention, we would be looking harder for solutions to pay packages that force clergy to supplement their income from other sources.
Somewhere in between those two extremes lies the congregation I serve, with a balance sheet showing just over a million dollars in assets, an annual operating budget of $309,000 per year and a separate trust that manages less than a half million dollars in assets. And yet within our congregation, there are many different perspectives on wealth and poverty. There are good and faithful members who believe that the church has too many assets and that we are capable of expanding mission and outreach. They feel that managing investments is not the proper work of the church and that we should not be in the business of preserving capital. There are other members, also good and faithful, who believe that our reserves are too small relative to our operations and that we not only need to preserve capital, but grow it so that we will have larger assets and holdings in the future. These tensions are not expressed in anger or conflict within the church, but they are nonetheless real. I know enough about the discussions to know that I have no envy for the wealth of a church like Trinity in New York City. They must spend huge amounts of time talking about money and much less time talking about ministry.
I think I prefer my churches, and the pastors, on the less wealthy side of the coin. Wealth can be a significant problem. It tempts us to think that we “earned” it or that it somehow belongs to us. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As the song says, “We give thee but thine own, whate’r the gift may be. All that we have is thine alone: a trust, O God, from thee.”