Mark 10.42-45

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Signs of God's providential righting of the moral balance are not a steady-state feature of the quotidian [i.e., daily existence]. Rather...signs of God's providential preservation of a moral order break out in the quotidian like a small rash: patchy, intrusive, and unpredictable. God's providential action in creation is often eruptive...These occasions are but patches on the broader spaces of the quotidian stained by violence...

Because God is love God's influence in the world is the influence and "force" of weakness and powerlessness. The "weapon" of God is the weakness and powerlessness of the cross. God is always found in the position of weakness and powerlessness, in the position of the. Jesus declared that he is found--incarnated--in our midst "as the one who serves" (Luke 22.27). Finally, because God is love there is no "lording over" in the Kingdom, only the powerlessness of servanthood and self-giving.The implication of all this is that. Not in any way we humans normally understand "being in charge."God's reign among us--our enjoyment of the Kingdom--is fragile and fleeting. As David Kelsey writes, God's Reign in our daily lives--the quotidian--comes and goes against a backdrop of darkness, decay and violence. David Kelsey:Because of the way love operates--dying for rather than killing, serving rather than ruling, giving rather than taking--love cannot create a "steady state" in the moral order. Love will not be consistently "in charge" of an evil world because love will not use violence to forcibly keep dissenting others in line.Thus our experience of love--the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven--is experienced as "patchy, intrusive, and unpredictable." The Kingdom of God is not ato be defended by arms and high walls. The Kingdom of God is an--