The Bible tells me that I do best to receive moral instruction (prophesy) from folks who can make valid predictions.  Well… it’s a bit more specific than that.  I tells me to reject the moral intruction of those who assert "God told me" thing which God most definitely did not.  I think Modernism was all about taking moral instruction from science, which seeks to read God’s mind.  Anyhow….

 It seems to me that "kingdom of heaven" is two things… first the polity of an ethnic diaspora — the Jew end of thing.  Second the apolitical ethics of conscience and fraternity… the new covenant end of things.

 I’m not too familiar with Greek tenses — and I wonder if Jesus vernacular translated effectively into Greek, and how tense might be understood in that vernacular.  But tense is all important in my understanding of "the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting"  When YHWH introduces himself as the God of the patriarchs, Jesus insists that those patriarchs are in current communion with God.  Jesus tells us that the dead know thirst.  Anyhow… is he speaking of this kingdom as some parousia — like when Abraham emerges from the grave — or as some understanding of an unseen but asserted present circumstance?  Or is he using the weird Greek tense that implies an active process with an anticipated outcome?  Or is his use of tense all over the map depending on the context of the quote and who is doing the quoting?

I’m inclined to think that Jesus spoke of circumstances which were present, yet not evident, but soon would be.  And they aren’t something out of Ezekiel or the Apocalyse.  They are institutions which preserve the identity of a people, and make effective the will of the Creator toward His creation, outside the realm of political conquest.  It’s no more Saul and his hundreds and David with his thousands slain.  It’s the little jewish grandmother getting the candles lit before Friday’s sun sets.  It’s the bread broken and chalice shared among those who voluntarily gather to remember that God took the initiative.  It’s a kingdom built upon what doesn’t seem to amount to anything, but comes to be seen as everything.

Psalm 16

My life story sought always Your glory

Yet tales of You, O Lord, my God, need ought,

Take ought from mine. Gurus have adoring

crowds as they expound on their made up rot.

Miseries outnumbering deities

Await those who hear only what they please.

I, for one, will not their vile whims appease.

The Lord alone hears men upon their knees,

No ostentatious favors to bestow.

Sound judgment, pleasant lot, and stable stance,

Joyfully fearless of the fire below,

My story won’t fade nor foul with time’s advance

My insignificant devotion, Yours,

Signifies all that prospers and endures.

A puff away from 3 packs a day