Parables

Beginning a new series in our church community in a couple weeks. The focus is on the parables of Jesus and how they "reveal" God and the Kingdom to us. The longer I follow Christ the more I realize that the Kingdom is "here and now," as well as "future/not yet." My struggle is reflective of the Church's struggle in general - we turn the Kingdom into some future only reality (get saved and go to heaven someday). We focus so much on life after death that we forget about life before death - which is where we are right now. Jesus' parables revealed God and His Kingdom in the present in such a way that we ought to be changed/transformed. We cannot stay the same. If we do, we have missed the Kingdom entirely.