More than mere miracle stories

"...If we remain at the level of the sheer miracle, we can become preoccupied with questions like: why is this useful ability not more widely available? how might it have happened? did it really happen? is it a legendary story designed to echo the feats of Elijah and Elisha? All questions have their place. But the sacredness of this text lies less in what history it might purport to tell and more in what it celebrates. It celebrates that the human yearning for new life, set out in dreams and visions for the climax of history, can find its fulfilment in being connected to Jesus. It celebrates that the reality of women in community, the suffering and deprivation, the promise of emerging womanhood and all which that entails, belongs firmly within the embrace of the gospel. It does not need male mediation. Sometimes that is its greatest threat. It is still probably a male story and still reflects dominant cultural assumptions about appropriate behaviour (5:33). But it is a moment of light and hope and, like the celebration of Gentile and Jew which it completes with 5:1-20, it celebrates inclusion of women and men and has something healing to say to both."
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost5.html

This subverted image of Kingship

This subverted image of kingship, given us in the account of the crucifixion, belongs at the heart of Christian faith and community - and at the heart of God. In that sense it represents the kingdom, the kingship of God. Jesus’ ministry interprets his death and his death interprets his ministry. So this is not a passivity which surrenders, a kind of discipline which learns to find fulfilment in being a doormat through some brave self-persuasion that such behaviour is noble or blessed. It is the transforming compassion which gets on the donkey and rides into Jerusalem. It is an engaged spirituality which lives not from abject obedience to a heavenly king, but in common initiatives of creativity and hope which constitute the being of God.
It is so good to celebrate the feast of Christ the king in the context of the passion. Obsession with power so easily 'rescues' Jesus (and God) from all of this and makes the resurrection the point of return to power from the embarrassment or the stunt of incarnation. The military Jesus makes an appearance quite soon and people forget kingship is a broken metaphor which has legitimacy only in its subversion. Our task is no less today to proclaim the kingdom of God, a kingship not of this world - but here and now.
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkChristtheKing.htm

The harvest is ripe

The tragedy is that many people are afraid of losing or endangering God and so seek to protect God from adventures, to resist attempts at radical inclusion that might, they fear, compromise God's purity and holiness. Protecting God is a variant of not trusting God. Matthew wants his hearers to share God's adventure of inclusiveness. God is bigger than our religious industry. Sometimes we find God is pulling in great profits in areas which we had deemed beyond God's interests. It is a fascinating thing to have God compared to the entrepreneurial multimillionaire. "God's mercy never ends" is a way of saying grace has capital, love is rich. We need to encourage people to stop putting God under the mattress. As we begin to trust allowing God to move through us, our lives change as individuals and our communities have a better chance of change. There are rich pickings, so to speak, and the harvest is ripe.

-William Loaderhttp://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtPentecost22.htm