The glory of God, as the
bible talks about it, is not a fact “about” God that we can use or not as we
see fit. It is not an “attribute of God”
as a philosopher of religion might say, trying to describe what God is like. Strange to say, the bible is not interested
in describing God. Rather, the bible is
about the glory of God, and that is something that transforms the ones to whom it
is revealed. It awakens a response of
the whole person, the whole community—a response of praise, of thanksgiving, of
awe and joy and worship, of obedience and love. The glory of God shows us how
much glory of our own we have to give.
That’s why we sing in church,
“Glory to God in the highest.” Glory is
not just something we can receive, it is something we can give. So the
essential question that the bible puts to us as human beings is, “to whom will
you give your glory?” Will you return it
to the giver, to the one who is truly glorious?
Or will you give it to something lesser?
Will you follow the fallen angels and the ruler of this world, who try
to keep the glory of God for themselves?
When we talk about Jesus, about
what makes him the Messiah, the Son of the Father, Christ the Lord, we very
often say that he, unique among human beings, was without sin. But the Gospel of John offers us a different
vocabulary for thinking about Jesus, and it is all about glory. John announces this in the prologue at the
very beginning of his story, when he says, “the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the
only Son from the Father.” And after the
wedding in Cana of Galilee, where Jesus changes water into wine, John adds that
this was “the first of his signs,” that “manifested his glory; and his
disciples believed in him.”
And if we also believe in
him, it is not because we believe this or that thing about him. We believe in him
because of his glory, that brings the presence of God to us. When we say, before the reading of the gospel
at every celebration of the Eucharist, “Glory to you, Lord Christ,” we are not
praising a book, or even the words in the book, but the presence we sense in
the words. We are saying that, listening
to these words of Jesus, we are beholding life and truth. We are on the way that leads to the fullness
of presence, that we have a foretaste of in our sacramental celebration, where together
we ascend into heaven, and unite with the chorus of angels singing “Holy, holy,
holy Lord, God of Power and Might.
Heaven and Earth are full of your Glory.”
Today we come to that part
of the gospel of John where Jesus is ready to complete his work, by giving over
everything that a human being can receive of the glory of God. This he will do on the cross. But before he does, he prays that the Father will
receive his gift, and give him an even greater one, the glory of the Father
himself. And this God will do, by
raising him from the dead, and exalting him to heaven. We are now 43rd days from Easter. It has taken us six weeks to get to this
point, where we can understand just how far Christ’s resurrection takes us. Because when Jesus prays to share the glory
of God the Father, it is not for his sake, but for ours. From now on, those who know the name of Jesus
Christ, who keep his word, and believe that the Father sent him, will be the
glory of God in the world. And they will
do this, says Jesus, when they are one, as the Son and the Father are one.
I spent last Wednesday and
Thursday in the company of our Bishop, and the priests and deacons of our
Episcopal Diocese of Northern California. And I am happy to be able to report to you
that the desire to be one, as the Son and the Father are One, is alive and well
in this diocese. It was manifest in the
friendship and collegiality among the clergy, and between the clergy and the
bishop. The perspective I got was of a
church that has ridden out the storms of conflict over biblical authority and human
sexuality, and now desires something more than an end to hostilities—more unity,
greater interrelatedness, a deeper sense of purpose, to glorify Christ for the
sake of the world the Father sent him to save.
In his informal report on
Wednesday evening about what he’s been up to and thinking about, the Bishop
told us about a church-wide conference that he attended in April in Memphis, called
Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace. It is part of a growing sense in the
church that we need to speak out in response to our nation’s epidemic of self-inflicted
violence. And Bishop Beisner brought back
from Memphis an invitation to send youth from every part of our diocese to join
a pilgrimage taking place next summer in North Carolina, along the route of the
Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights movement.
And if we decide we want to, and this first pilgrimage is a success, there
will be an opportunity to join another, in the summer of 2016, which is going to
Auschwitz. The purpose of these
pilgrimages will be to engage our whole diocese in supporting and learning from
these young people as they become formed as ministers of reconciliation.
In a meeting of the clergy
of the Russian River Deanery, the geographical subsection of our diocese that
stretches from Sonoma and Petaluma in the south, to Fort Bragg and Willits in
the north, we rediscovered our strong mutual interest in working together to
support initiatives we cannot carry out on our own. Among other potential arenas of collaboration
we talked about supporting the Latino ministry currently centered at St. Paul’s,
Healdsburg, and expanding it to other parts of the deanery. I came away from that meeting with an
invitation to preside at a girl’s traditional Quinceañera service in Healdsburg
on August 9, where I will lead the Eucharist in Spanish for the first time in
my life.
These are only two of the
exciting possibilities that I heard about at the clergy conference, but they
are enough to give you the gist of whole event.
And all this came along at a moment when I, personally, am quite
tired. It has been a long run from Ash
Wednesday, and I’m ready for some summer vacation. But when I think about these opportunities, even
along with all the good work that we are already doing here at St. John’s, I
get energized. I think that is because
this week showed me something about the church I’ve never quite understood
before. In the church we love the world,
and our impulse to seek unity across barriers of race, religion, language,
class, and even species, is how we give our glory to what God has made. But it’s hard to know if we are going about it
the right way. Some of the projects that
we talked about at the clergy conference may never get out of the starting
gate. They may never fulfill the
potential we can imagine for them now.
But the real work of the church
is not to improve society. It is to bring
the world our witness to its glory, as we have seen it in Christ. We can only do this united, in an attitude of
worship. Our unity in prayer is our
basis of hope for reconciliation, and healing, and peace, which is what we have
to offer to the world. When we are together
in this way, we can dare to try almost anything, and it may succeed beyond our
wildest dreams, or it may fail miserably.
We may even, as First Peter says, be reviled and suffer, but still we
are blessed, because we know that our brothers and sisters in all the world are
undergoing the same kinds of suffering.
Besides, being a smash hit and admired by everyone wasn’t what we set
out to do anyway. So there’s no reason
to be anxious about any of it, because our only real purpose was to be united
in giving Glory to God.
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