The church has always lived between the times. We remember the time when Christ was born, died, and was raised, and we anticipate his return and the fulfillment of his Kingdom. In the meantime we live by faith in the truth of our memory and the certainty of our hope.

Likewise, every individual life is a meantime existence. We remember and learn from our past, and we anticipate some future expectation, the ultimate of which is life eternal. The meantime is the present, suspended between memory and hope. And to a large degree, realization of future hope is a matter of sensitivity to the demands and opportunities of the present moment.

Jesus often used parables to communicate the experience of that reality he called the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom which is also a meantime kind of existence. It lo…