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Great Expectations Jan Vickers Great Expectations Jan Vickers. March 2009. The Big Year. Introduction This essay has been influenced by an article called Great Expectations published in The Guardian on 20th January 2009 written by Derek Draper1. I will be looking at the great expectations being put upon Barack Obama at the beginning of his presidency of the US and our tendency to look to leaders, both political and spiritual, to fulfil our longings. I will comment on how they will inevitably fail and disappoint us and conclude that the only sure place to put our hope is in God alone. I will also look at what our approach to leaders should be and how God uses them even in their imperfections. The Expectations on Political Leaders On Tuesday 20th January 2009 Barack Obama became the 44th President of the USA. There were over 2 million people in the crowd in Washington itself and an estimated 1.5 billion in the TV audience, all wanting to note this moment in history when finally after a past of slavery and segregation the first black president was sworn in. Emotions ran high as “the capital was engulfed in a frenzied and irresistible party spirit...”2 as “...some wept, some fainted and some were paralyzed with fear. “3 In President Obama’s inaugural speech he reflected on the areas of life where he desired to bring about change :the economy, money markets, foreign policy, human rights, race and religious intolerance, science and the environment, defence, government, values and the Third World.4 President Obama “brought with him to his presidency the most massive burden of expectation of possibly any world leader in modern times.”5 To his credit he attempted to bring a sense of reality to proceedings by outlining the difficulties as well as the hopes and dreams of the current world situation. Maybe even the fluffing of his lines as he was sworn in was a symbol that he was ‘just a man’ and not the messiah that the people were hoping for. In Britain too we have had our own examples of great expectations being put on our politicians. When Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister in 1979 there was huge expectation on her. Yet her famous speech to the Conservative Party Conference in 1980 “the lady is not for turning”, meant to invoke a sense of stability and resoluteness of purpose, soon developed into a perception of The Iron Lady as intransigent and unyielding. When she was eventually ousted from office by her own cabinet in 1990 the country was desperate for a change.6 7 1 Draper, Derek. Great Expectations. The Guardian Newspaper, 20.01.09. 2 Leonard, Tom. From Freezing Dawn to Chilly Dusk they watched history being made. The Daily Telegraph, 21.01.09. 3 Applebaum, Anne. Remaking America. The Daily Telegraph, 21.01.09. 4 Harinden, Toby. New Leader Promises a new era. The Daily Telegraph, 21.01.09. 5 Heffer, Simon. The words of a serious man ready to face up to hard reality. The Daily Telegraph. 21.01.09. 6 www.bbc.co.uk/history. Historic Figures. Margaret Thatcher. 7 www.biographyonline.net/politicians/uk/margaret-thatcher. In 1997 along came Tony Blair, a landslide victory for the youngest Prime Minister in 200 years. Brain Whelan describes the approach of ‘just call me Tony’ as “the bright, young, charismatic messianic figure the country longed for” – a man who appeared to understand the people and would deliver what they hoped for. “His specific praises were modest in scope, but his rhetoric was dizzying. He promised nothing less than a country reborn, sweeping away the ‘sleaze’ and drift of the Major years. And he deployed all of his charm and charisma on TV chat shows showing himself to be a natural in front of the cameras.”8 If the ‘lady was not for turning’ then here was a man who appeared to be telling papers what they wanted to hear, one minute being anti-euro, another minute a Europhile. This led to a pleading to be trusted but resulted eventually in “things [getting] so bad that even when Blair was saying something obvious, he was disbelieved.”9 These two examples show politicians who were greeted rapturously by the population with hopes of great transformation of society for good and yet eventually they were perceived critically. Will President Obama, currently taking up office, be able to deliver the expectations that the people have put upon him? Or will the result be disappointment, disillusionment and cynicism? Derek Draper says that by idealising Obama so much we are “engineering our own inevitable disappointment. Instead of enjoying what he achieves, we will end up comparing his time in office not with what went before, or even what might have reasonably been expected but with our own impossible fantasies.”10 Our Longings for Perfection Picking up on those last words “impossible fantasies” indicates we are subconsciously searching for the “all-attentive parent we felt we could rely upon completely”11, or a perfect employer, romantic partner, a national leader, or a church pastor who could put everything right for us and the world. Donald Winnicott, a psychoanalyst, coined the phrase “good enough father or mother”12 which is the best any of us can hope to either have had as a child ourselves or become for our own children. Having a ‘good enough’ politician, employer, husband, wife, friend, or church leader should be ‘good enough’, providing us with room to grow and develop for ourselves. Following this idea, ‘good enough’ is actually better than perfect. And yet we still have this longing for perfection both within us and in the world around us, looking for someone to fulfil those needs for utter goodness and love. Perhaps the fact that our authority figures are only ‘good enough’ gives us the space to exercise free will in our search for God. The Bible story is a narrative of man’s loss of that perfect love and life, the search in man’s heart for a world of order driven by love and the desire of the Father to restore that to his children. That longing is for the outer decaying man to be renewed in the inner man, for the momentary light affliction to be replaced with an eternal weight of glory and the earthly tent to be changed into a home in eternity13, a longing to be clothed in immortality.14 Even creation itself is groaning, bringing 8 Wheelon, Brian. The Tony Blair Story. www/news.bbc.co.uk. 9 Mar, Andrew. How Blair put the media into a spin. May 2007. BBC News Chanel. www/news.bbc.co.uk. 10 Draper, Derek. Great Expectations. The Guardian Newspaper, 20.01.09. 11 Draper, Derek. Great Expectations. The Guardian Newspaper, 20.01.09. 12 www.changingminds.org. Donald Winnicott. 13 2 Cor 4:16 14 2 Cor 5:8 it from slavery to corruption – the failure of human solutions, the basic falleness of the world – into freedom.15 Where can we put our hope? So if our longing is for perfection and even the best of our human leaders are neither perfect in themselves nor able to deliver perfection, should we be putting our hope in them? The Bible would say that is not where our primary trust should be placed but rather in God alone. “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”16 Trusting in man will not defeat the enemies we come up against or lead us into true freedom. “Oh give us help against the adversary for deliverance by man is vain. Through God we shall do valiantly and it is He who will tread down our adversaries.”17 Many nations look to the strength of their military but Isaiah 31:1 speaks of “woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses and chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord.”18 It also shows the weakness of military strength in comparison to the strength of God: “No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.”19 It is in trusting in God rather than our leaders’ weapons, skills, possessions, earning power, professions, personality and might that we will see victory. “Some boast in chariots and some in horses but we will boast in the name of the Lord our God.”20 “Through You we push back our enemies; through Your name we trample our foes. I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but You give us victory over our enemies; You have put our adversaries to shame.”21 The outward appearance, the charismatic personality and physical attractiveness do not guarantee that a leader can be trusted. When Samuel was looking to anoint a leader from among the sons of Jesse he saw Eliab but the Lord said to Samuel “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”22 Nor can those be trusted that are not humble and have no integrity.
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