As it so happened, the Sunday immediately following the election was a Sunday I was preaching on stewardship.
Meaning, I was talking dollars and cents, and what lies ahead on that front for my little congregation. Poolesville Presbyterian is a church in a company town. Meaning, it's a town with one major employer, upon which the edifice of the entire economy rests.
That "company town" isn't Poolesville itself, which is a good-hearted little Mayberry-esque place in the heart of an exurban agricultural reserve. The company town is the entire region, and the heart of the regional economy is the Federal government. The ten-fold growth in the population of Poolesville since 1960? That's an artifact of the post-WW2 growth of the Federal government. There's still growth. As I pulled into town today for my office hours, I saw they'd finally broken ground on a new development, one that's been in the works for years. New homes, starting in the low $800s! Because we've been fat and happy here, for quite a while.
Folks who work for the Fed are everywhere, as are contractors and subcons and the various businesses that have sprung up to support and sustain the government. Every plumber, grocer, electrician and general contractor in the area derives their business from that income. As does every restaurant, every private school, and the tax base for the regional governments.
When I asked those gathered, "on what employer does the entire regional economy rely," there was a nodding Quaker-esque consensus. Every single soul knew the answer to that question.
This was my sermon illustration, when talking about the future financial health of our church on the Sunday after the election.
Meaning, while I wasn't bellowing, (I am Presbyterian, after all) it was a five-alarm-fire air-raid-klaxon Nostromo-self-destruct-activated sort of sermon. I didn't need to shout. Not being fools or idiots, we know what that means.
The fat part of the probability distribution curve points to hardship in the region. If these next four years track the way this administration wants them to track, we're not talking 2006 downturn hardship. We're talking Flint, Michigan levels of hardship.
There'll be a mad scramble to make it work. Then bankruptcies. Then worthless and unsellable homes left to rot by owners who can no longer afford their Mariana-trench-underwater mortgages. Banks, collapsing. Local government coffers gutted. Strip malls and businesses and office towers looking like sets from The Last of Us, only without quite so many zombies.
Fun times.
As a church that cares for those who are food insecure, it means more hungry and anxious people...at the same time many of us suddenly find our livelihoods torn out from under us. This is a probable future for my flock, and for every other congregation in the region. It is easy to talk of stewardship when you are fat and happy. But the seven fat years, as in the dream Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh, may well be over.
The heart of the sermon was this: our obligation to those who hunger isn't diminished, simply because the cost of discipleship will soon be proportionally far higher. Our duty to be a beacon of hope and grace can't be furloughed, or put on leave, or let go. We must do as we are able, and we must interpret our ability through the lenses of our actual need. Our "daily bread," so to speak.
If we are disciples, no matter what happens, in good times or ill, our commitment to the Way remains the same.
Fear not, little flock.
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