The Kingdom in our midst

Today's Gospel is just two short paragraphs, but what a message! In the first paragraph, the Pharisees want a timeframe for the coming of God's Kingdom. Jesus has to break it to them (and to us): it's not a matter of "when" or "where."

Also not a matter of "here" or "there" will be the coming of the Son of Man--that coming that we might think of as the culmination of history, but could arguably be interpreted as the Resurrection itself. It happened in a specific "place" and "time," but transcended time and space and is still the reality in which "we live and more and have our being."

In other words, Jesus seems to be telling us not to think of the Kingdom of God as the pot of gold at the end of a theological rainbow: it is the atmosphere itself, shimmering with the presence of God!