As delivered this morning at BBC Radio Bristol. I also got involved in a brief discussion about reasons to be cheerful (to beat the January blues) because they had my list of 200 I published a couple of years back. Linked here and here. But the thought:
Well.
Was Barack Obama a good president or bad? The 44th president of the
United States made his farewell speech last night.
Statistics
suggest that over the last eight years the Obama administration has
made amazing progress towards eradicating poverty. Good news. But the
outgoing president has said that he is frustrated by his lack of
ability to control guns. Bad news.
Jesus
set out his own agenda by quoting the great prophet Isaiah:
Good
news for the poor
Freedom
for the prisoners
Sight
for the blind
Release
for the oppressed
As
a manifesto it's a great check-list to use when assessing someone's
ministry or leadership.
It's
not good news for the poor if your dwelling is rat-infested.
It's
not freedom for the prisoner if no-one understands the shackles of
drug-dependency.
And
even if great leadership eradicates 90% of poverty, the 10% still
hurt and still need to be heard. If I am hungry I will find it hard
to accept that a food programme is making a remarkable difference.
And
this is the reality of politics, by which I simply mean 'organising
people', today. It is an endless task. There will always be people
who need help. And always those who cast doubt on the motives of the
aid-bringer.
Which
may be why Jesus responded to the impressed locals by saying, 'A
prophet is never welcome in his own town.' And it made them so mad
they wanted to throw him off a cliff. Really.
And
that may be why Barack Obama is thought of much more highly around
the world than he is in his own country. Nevertheless, in this far
off corner of a far off land, we should thank him for his service.
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