Political Quotes

“To my good friend and colleague, as we transition to comments about the economy, are you familiar with the very first time that Jesus stood in his home synagogue in Nazareth to preach? He read from the scroll a passage from, I believe, Isaiah 61:1-2. This is recorded in Luke Chapter 4. And it is a well-known passage. I rely upon it to understand what was the ministry of Jesus centrally about. He says: This is fulfilled in your hearing today, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. I don't think it is possible to read the Gospels and to read the Torah and to understand righteousness without hearing over and over and over in the course of the Old and New Testaments a call to respect those at the margins of life, a call to be generous and openhearted and kind to those who suffer and struggle, to be attentive to and present to those who are imprisoned, who are widows, who are orphans, to allow the gleaning of a field, which means to make sure that out of an abundance of our productivity on our farms, we make sure we feed those who hunger here at home and abroad. You cannot miss the central message, which is, as you have said: kindness to those on the margins, attentiveness to those in need, good news to the poor.…”