Colourful Dreamer

  Gate Pa – Year B – 26 th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Season of Creation 4 26 h September 2021 Readings: Hebrew Scripture:      Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9: 20-22 Psalm:                          124 Epistle:                         James 5: 13-20 Gospel:                        Mark 9: 38-50 What I want to say: In this Season of Creation to explore the need to imagination our relationship with and place in creation – our common home; and courage to live that out. Esther offers an example of what reimagining your place looks like, the risks and the rewards – a story still celebrated by Jews today at Purim. Esther also offer...

I worte this 6 years ago. I still stand by what I said. We need to stop reading scripture from a conservative standpoint and allow it's radical voice to change us. Last week we heard a passage from Proverbs 31:10-31   that many of us read as extolling very traditional roles for women. And it is not unknown for women in particular to not want to read it.   There is in fact no getting away from fact that those traditional roles are an important part of that reading. But I also suggested that it is more than that. The women described in this reading were not mousey submissive chattels. They were strong women who ran their households with imagination, and flair, and generosity. It is I think an invitation for men to choose their wives carefully, and to not just look for what their society deemed to be important, and for women to be more than they were traditionally described. And so some read it as championing traditional roles, and others as championing woman taking more sig...