The President Who Gave Away His Salary

When José Mujica became president of Uruguay in 2010, the world expected the usual trappings of power — motorcades, mansions, designer suits. Instead, Mujica donated roughly ninety percent of his presidential salary to housing programs for the poor. He continued living on his small chrysanthemum farm outside Montevideo, driving a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, and standing in line at the local hospital like any other citizen.

Reporters called him "the world's poorest president." Mujica saw it differently. "I'm not poor," he told them. "Poor people are those who only work to maintain an expensive lifestyle." His government expanded healthcare for rural communities, invested in public education, and built programs designed to reach the citizens no one else was reaching — the homeless, the elderly, the forgotten.

Psalm 72 paints a portrait of exactly this kind of ruler — one who "delivers the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help." The psalmist dreams of a king for whom the blood of the poor is precious in his sight, a leader whose justice falls like rain on a mown field — gentle, life-giving, soaking into every parched corner.

Every earthly kingdom falls short. But this psalm points beyond any president or prime minister to the One whose reign truly makes righteousness flourish and peace abound. The King who didn't just give away a salary but gave away His very life for the least of these.