In our humanness, we are often plagued by what seems to be an inherited procrastination. We keep pushing things off into a yet-to-be-seen future. These are usually things that we know we must change in our own lives, but we choose to fool ourselves by saying, “I know I need to do this, but I’m not ready yet. I want more time. Sometime in the future, I’ll do this.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that this is a near-universal sentiment, and for good reason. The tension we experience between our desire to grow up and our perennial procrastination and infinite stalling in doing that reflects, in fact, a tension that lies at the heart of Jesus’ message, a tension between God’s promises as being already here and God’s promises as still coming. Everything Jesus promised is already here, and everything Jesus promised is still coming. We’re already living the new, resurrected life, even as we’re still waiting for it. What lies inside this paradox? Everything Jesus came to bring us (the Reign of God, the Kingdom of God, the New Age, the Final Age, the reign of justice on this earth, new life, the resurrection, eternal life, heaven) is already here, except that it’s also still coming. When Jesus says that he has come to bring us new life, he is not talking simply about our future our lives in heaven; he is also talking about our lives here, already now. The new life is already here, he assures us. Heaven has already begun. Why is there a failure to accept this and change? Having God become concrete in our lives is far too threatening. We’re like the guests in the Gospel parable 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; we just want a little more time before we do that. But let us not forget the Lord’s own words in Matthew’s Gospel: “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” The time to change is now.