Jesus preached the Kingdom of God, the New Age, the Final Age, the reign of justice on this earth, new life, the resurrection, and eternal life; heaven is already here, except that it’s also still coming. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes the problem was not that his hearers didn’t understand him. They understood, but almost universally, they resisted that message. Much as they yearned for God’s Kingdom to be already here, like my friend who keeps asking for another ten years to get his life in order, they preferred to push things into the future. Having God become concrete in their lives was far too threatening. Gerhard Lohfink, the renowned Biblical scholar, aptly articulates both the resistance that Jesus’ hearers had to this part of his message and the reason for that resistance: “Jesus’ hearers prefer to push everything off into the future, and the story comes to no good end. The reign of God announced by Jesus is not accepted. The ‘today’ offered by God is denied. And that, that alone, is why ‘already’ becomes ‘not yet’. It is not only in Nazareth that the ‘today’ of the Gospel was not accepted. Later also, in the course of the church’s history, it has again and again been denied or rendered toothless. The reason was the same as in Nazareth: apparently, it goes against the human grain for God to become concrete in our lives. Then, people’s desires and favorite notions are in danger, as are their ideas about time. It can’t be today because that would mean that our lives have to change today already. Therefore, it can lie, hygienically and snugly packed, at rest, inconsequential.” It’s very threatening to have God become “concrete” in our lives, as opposed to God simply being a reality that will one day become very real. Because if God is “concrete” already now that means that our worlds have to change now and we have to stop pushing things into the indefinite future. This isn’t so much a fault in faith as it is a procrastination, a stalling, wanting a little more time before we get serious. We’re like the guests in the Gospel parable today invited to the wedding banquet. We, too, want to go to the feast and intend to go to the feast, but first, we need to attend to our marriages, our businesses, and our ambitions. We can get serious later. There’s time. We fully intend to take Jesus seriously; all we want is a little more time before doing that. What’s wrong with that?