Mark 5:21-43 Dear Partner in Preaching, Mark doesn’t begin these two inter-connected stories by saying, “The kingdom of God is like…”, but he might have. Indeed, compared with his Synoptic cousins, Mark doesn’t share all that many of Jesus’ parables (and most of the few he does we’ve already touched on), and yet weaving together of these two stories feels rather parabolic, as it offers one picture of Jesus’ ministry and God’s reign that we preachers might “throw alongside” (the literal meaning of παραβολή) the picture of our life in the world. Central to this parable is the vulnerability of the characters and,...