What Jesus talks about, more than anything else in the gospels, is the Kingdom of God.

Nevertheless, most people haven’t the foggiest idea of what that talk is all about. They didn’t back in Pilate’s time and we still don’t today.

Judging from how Christianity has conducted itself over the last two thousand years, even those who claim to be a part of the kingdom act as though we haven’t got a clue.

We have built empires, created intricate hierarchial systems, generated volumes of doctrine, even waged war...all in the name of a kingdom that, if Jesus is to be trusted, is antithetical to empires, systems, doctrine and, most certainly, war.

One day some Pharisees asked Jesus just where this kingdom could be found. What Jesus said to them has been troubling most of us ever since.

"Look around!" said Jesus. "It is right before your eyes, you just haven’t paid attention."

Much of Christianity has dealt with what happens to us when we die.

Much of what Christ dealt with was what happens to us when we really live.

Sometimes I think that Jesus must have been the most frustrated man who ever lived. Over and over again, he tells the stories and performs the actions that point to the kingdom and over and over again no one seems to get it. Pilate doesn’t get it. The Pharisees don’t get it. Even the disciples seem to be confused. That frustrating pattern certainly hasn’t changed with us.