Richard Rohr, OFM

And those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction.
—Isaiah 29:24

Jesus clearly says the kingdom of heaven is among us (Luke 17:21) or “at hand” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17). One wonders why we made it into a reward system for later, or as someone called it, “a divine evacuation plan” from this world. Maybe it was easier to obey laws and practice rituals for later reward than to actually be transformed now.

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
—Matthew 7:21

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines.
—Isaiah 25:6

No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. —Luke 10:22

Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.
—Matthew 8:8

The American Declaration of Independence says we have an “unalienable right” to the pursuit of happiness. God created us to be happy and joyful “in this world and the next,” and Jesus says the same several times in John 14-17. The only difference between the two is that any happiness that is demanded from life never becomes happiness because it is too narcissistically and self-consciously pursued.

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
—Matthew 24:42

“Come, Lord Jesus,” the Advent mantra, means that all of Christian history has to live out of a kind of deliberate emptiness, a kind of chosen non-fulfillment. Perfect fullness is always to come, and we do not need to demand it now. This keeps the field of life wide open and especially open to grace and to a future created by God rather than ourselves.