I recently returned from international travel. As my body adjusts back to central time I have been waking early in the morning, long before my alarm clock. While I am certain the particular timing (4am!) will not last forever, this bonus time in my day has helped me re-establish my morning prayer routine. Sitting in my little prayer space with my cup of coffee and my sweet dog Lilly on my lap, I have a chance to chat with the Lord before the daily schedule knocks on my door. It has been lovely.

From this place of sweetness I can relate to John’s stomach turning sour after consuming the word, in today’s reading from Revelations. The very closeness and security of my moments of conversation with God create a contrast to all that roils my stomach in the world (and sometimes even in myself)—injustice, violence, selfishness, arrogance. This has lately been the subject of that morning conversation. I hold in one hand the kingdom vision of how things should be, and in the other hand the truth of how things are now.

From this vantage I can empathize with Jesus absolutely losing it in the Temple. Yes God’s promise is richness and delight, my inheritance, my counselor, more precious than gold and sweeter than honey. But these very images from today’s Psalm119 bring painfully to mind the words of another Psalm 13. “How long, O Lord” will your face be hidden? “How long, O Lord” will you forget me/us? I want to ask how long will humanity be allowed to torment one another, and creation itself before the fullness of God’s kingdom sets things right.

As we head towards the end of the liturgical year with this coming Sunday’s Solemnity of Christ the King, I am keenly aware that these tensions are not new. Advent will draw me even more deeply into this “already and not-yet” nature of the Kingdom. Trite but true is that I have only a very small part to play in work that is not my own, and certainly not on my timetable. It helps to think of Jesus feeling this same strain as he looked at the beloved Temple, seeing the difference between what should be, and what really is.