"...It is a kind of secular theology in the sense that the argument is not from the great biblical tradition, citing the epics or the law. Instead it stands in the tradition of sages who employ the everyday to do theology, also rooted in biblical tradition. We should not imagine that Jesus played the one off against the other. Clearly his theology is informed by the great tradition, but it is also grounded in perceptions about human life and human relationships. The tradition has a way of being hijacked by the articulate and educated, and then employed in ways which reflect their agenda. That agenda is usually about holding onto power and privilege and creates a theology of God in those terms: the most powerful and therefore the most privileged. That easily becomes the basis for hierarchical control.
Instead, Jesus democratises the basis for doing theology, locating it in the human relations which we all know and experience, and where we all have some basic insight and understanding, whether we can articulate it in abstract or not. Do we know what it is like to love and be loved? Then we are well on the way to a sound theology. What is more, it is a sound basis for critical theology where you can then see through ‘father’ and ‘king’ or ‘kingdom’ to the qualities they are meant to represent and which they often stifle. God is not a ‘father’ and a ‘king’. God is not a male. God is not a claimer of privilege. God is like the mum or dad who really cares (and confronts us with reality), who is holy and makes you feel holy. So prayer is an activity of intimacy and awe and thus a model for all relationships; it is the language of the kingdom. It brings the gift of the Spirit."
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkPentecost10.htm
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