All Change?
“Change!” the politicians declare, as they solicit our votes with promises of what they will do. Many people’s response these days seems to be “Promises, promises ...”, as disillusionment grows. Politicians put at least as much energy into rubbishing their rivals, and aren’t they only interested in getting elected? So, should we believe them? Can politicians really bring about change?
This begs a few questions. In the first place, what do we mean by change? Strictly, just moving from one state of affairs to another, however minor the difference, is change. Politicians though deal in grander ideas as they seek to capture our attention. And they can bring about real change that affects people’s lives, for example: a national health service, free children’s education, university tuition fees, a 50% highest rate of income tax, and motorway construction so we can drive more quickly to our destination.
Note that the examples are not seen by everyone as a blessing. A new motorway is hardly welcome to a householder if it is at the bottom of their garden; parents with children at university worry about the debt their children will be saddled with from tuition fees and student loans; a family sending their children to private school may object that their taxes pay for state schools they don’t benefit from; not all treatments are available on the NHS; and many high earners object to the new 50% rate of income tax. One person’s change for the better is often another’s change for the worse. If only we could agree on what to change to, and whether change is needed at all.
What politicians usually forget is that while they can bring about change that affects people and the way we live, all of it is external, outside us. Yes, over time life generally gets better for most, but our world is still beset by problems that defy solution: crime, poverty, famine, economic slump. And despite our air and water being cleaner than it was a generation ago, our environment seems more threatened than ever.
What few politicians have realised is that they can’t change people from within, and this has confounded every grand attempt to build a more caring, sharing, fairer society, by all political parties. Laws passed to enforce “good” behaviour – for example anti-discrimination – may secure outward compliance, but fall short of changing hearts and minds. Can politicians change a leopard’s spots any more than the leopard can? They often seem to think so.
Later in May from the vote-fest comes a festival that will pass largely unnoticed as it is does not this year coincide with the Spring Bank Holiday, but celebrates real change. Pentecost is not about the external change that politicians promise, but how people change within when they encounter God and his power in their lives. When God poured the Holy Spirit out on Peter and the other disciples it started a change within them so marked that others saw it and wanted to be part of it. Lives changed by living in Christ bear fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Until our lives are lived in these, all the changes politicians make are so much window-dressing. “What can I get out of it?” becomes “What is the best for those most in need?”
As we celebrate Pentecost, let’s ask our God to fill us with the Holy Spirit and change our lives, and use us to make real change in the world around us.
Added: 29th April 2010 || Submitted by: Revd Rob Fox.
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