Cabanet Resuffle

I wonder, what would have happened if God had used the same rules as today's media applies when making judgments as to an individual's suitability for public office. Would Jesus have called the same 12 to his inner cabinet? Would ambassadors Moses, or Jonah ever have been put on the short list or Paul appointed special envoy to the Gentiles?

I have heard and read the political commentaries on Mandelson's appointment and have yet to make my own judgement but I am also questioning whether my reading of the gospel is too simple? Jesus words were and continue to be counter cultural in terms of prodigals return, love for enemies, forgive 70 times 7 and so on.

The whole if the tenure of Yahweh's dealing with his people was through his underling Hased, loving kindness.

There is a sense in which the judgment values that we us to define another fails to be used when considering our own action. I have no flag to fly for Mandelson nor a real understanding of Brown's reason behind such an appointment, I simply wonder why it is that the theology we present from pulpit is not applied to our political ponderings.

United Methodist Bishop William Willimon writes “One of our duties as pastors is to renarrate people's lives in the light of the story of Jesus. This rescripting shows us how our ordinary lives are caught up in the great drama of salvation. We have become victims of narratives inadequate for the truthful living of our lives--narratives derived from psychology, economics, sociology and other secular means of defining ourselves and what happens to us. But through teaching us a new way of seeing and naming, through new words, pastors can create new worlds for us. Through words we enable people to fit their lives into the plot of God's story, and thus to turn those lives into pilgrimages.” Elsewhere he quotes Brueggemann as saying to preachers: “You preachers are world-makers. In your words, you make a new world. And if you won’t let God use you to render a new world, then all you can do is to service the old one and that’s no fun. ” (In Copenhaver, Robinson, Willimon Good News in Exile p.113 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998))