February 10, 2013
Where is the Glory?
- Exodus 34:29-35
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
Glory is a funny word. When I was reading the Luke passage I wasn’t even sure what part of speech it was. It didn’t seem like a noun to me, and I kind of thought it was an adjective – but my English teacher daughter told me that in our bible passages for today, glory is a noun, not an adjective that describes something. The word glory is found in the bible hundreds of times. And it’s used in today’s gospel passage and it is implied in today’s Exodus passage.
When Chapter 34 of Exodus begins, Moses has spent forty days on Mount Sinai with God and has received the Ten Commandments for the second time. While he was up there he asked to see God’s glory and God obliged – wedging Moses into the cleft of a rock and passing by so that Moses could see God’s back. It was more than any human being had been allowed before. That’s because God had said that no one could look at God and live.
Before this sighting by Moses, God had protected people from the full impact of his majesty, his greatness, his power – his presence. And God protected Moses too – Moses only got to see God’s back, not God’s face. God had made a practice of shielding people by hiding inside an envelope of light that was the only thing most people could see. Sometimes it looked to them like a pillar of cloud or fire and sometimes it looked like a volcano. The light was the sure sign of God’s presence on earth and for lack of a better word people began to call it glory. When they were worshipping together and the tent where they met filled up with light, they said it was the glory of the Lord. God’s image was hidden inside the light. They could not see God. They could only see God’s glory.
But Moses got to see more. Moses saw God’s back and it was such a strong dose of glory that some of it rubbed off on him. When he came down the mountain the skin of his face was shining and people were afraid of him. They wouldn’t come near him until he persuaded his brother Aaron and some of the other leaders to approach him and hear what he had to say. When the Israelites saw that no one dropped dead they came near him too and Moses delivered the commandments to them for the second time.
When Moses finished speaking to them he put a veil on his face so he wouldn’t keep scaring them. But whenever he went to speak to God and came back and told the people what God said, he removed the veil so everyone could see his shining face. They might not be able to see God directly, but they could see God’s glory reflected in Moses. God had given them someone they could look at and listen to, someone who walked around in his own personal spotlight.
The same thing happened to Jesus a thousand years later. His mountain was in Israel, not Egypt, but it was clearly the same glory that enveloped him. As three of his disciples watched him pray, his face changed. It got whiter and brighter until his whole body was as blinding as a lightning bolt that wouldn’t go out. It just stayed on him, crackling with power, while Moses and Elijah appeared inside the glory with him. They spoke of his departure Luke says. The spoke of his death inside that blazing circle, and even that did not make the light go out.
The church’s word for what happened to Moses and Jesus is transfiguration – another word we rarely use outside of church vocabulary. While people who knew them both very well watched, they were changed into beings of light, as if their skin had become transparent for a moment and what had been inside them all along shone through for everyone to see. It was not anything either of them did. They did not change. They were changed. They were changed by the God whose glory transfigures everyone it touches. It is light that cannot be captured or controlled, any more than God can be. It can only be experienced, in ourselves or in another. It can only be believed.
An increasing interest in Celtic theology has drawn people’s attention to those experiences and places which seem to almost encourage the holy to touch the ordinary. The term “thin places” is used by many people to identify those times during which the ordinary world and the mystic or divine world seem separated by only a thin veil. Teri has preached about “thin places.” Transfiguration, transformation, metamorphosis, are words that are also used to describe what happens in “thin places” as we seek to feel or experience the sacred.
Part of my sabbatical time will be spent visiting “thin places” in Ireland, Scotland and England. I am going to be visiting monasteries, sacred celtic shrines, and old churches. I won’t be going up any mountains, but I will be hiking along the water in England, ferrying to the Aran Islands and visiting the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland – places where the glory of God’s creation is so abundant. As much of my sabbatical as possible is being spent near water. Water soothes my soul. And being around places of water is where I feel the presence of God most abundantly.
Transfiguration Sunday provides an opportunity to remember those times when we are aware that only a tissue thin veil stands between us and God. It is a day for us to try to remember when we have felt or seen the glory of God. Have you had a time or an experience when you felt like you were in the presence of God? It probably didn’t make your face light up, but somehow you knew you were in the presence of something holy. Experiences of glory, or God’s magnificent presence, can be sensed in beautiful music, or in prayer, or in glorious, happy moments like when a baby is born and a new family begins. Places that may come to mind are snowy woods, or the silence of the desert. Maybe it is on top of a mountain somewhere or working in your garden where you touch the rich, deep soil that produces vegetables and flowers. I have sensed the glory of God just sitting out on the deck in our backyard and gazing up at the stars. In such places and moments we can feel a connection to God, creation and other people.
But Christianity is not just about mountain top or special experiences of God’s presence or God’s glory. God’s presence can also be subtle and can come in smaller and more daily ways. That is why I am also going to be studying Celtic Spirituality in Ireland as part of my sabbatical. And that is why you will have the chance to study it as well while I am gone. Celtic Spirituality, Celtic Christianity, is a way of living, just like our faith is a way of living. But the Celts have been more intentional in looking for the sacred, looking for the presence of God, in the ordinary. While we have a tendency to divide up life into the sacred vs. the profane, and have a very elevated view of the holy over the ordinary, Celtic spirituality reminds us that there is no division between the sacred and the secular – all of life is sacred and lived in the presence of God. In other words, all of life is a “thin place.” In the Celtic world there is the understanding that there is a transcendent reality pervading all things in the world… a divine presence filling everything… In God we live and move and have our being. So I will remember Transfiguration Sunday and hope you will too as we grow in our faith this spring – as we learn to be conscious of the presence of God in each moment of our ordinary day. This will bring significance and meaning to the lives we live each day.
But we don’t need sabbaticals or classes or mountain top experiences to know that God is with us. Even in the valleys God is present. If we had kept reading in Luke, Chapter 9, we would find that the very next thing Jesus did after he came down from that mountain was heal a little boy who was having seizures. In others words, Jesus and the disciples came down that mountain right into the problems of real life. And seeing Jesus heal that little boy made the disciples realize that God is also down in the valley and doesn’t live on the mountain tops most of the time.
We know the valleys of life don’t we? We know what it is like down at the bottom of the mountain. We know what it is like to experience illness and death and growing old. We know what it means to have trauma in your marriage or with those you love. We know what it means to have one of your friends die much too early and much too painfully. We know what it is like at the bottom of the mountain. And that is when we need to look for the glory, the presence of God. We need to look for the God who speaks to us in the valleys and gives us words of hope and strength for those times. Because God is with us on the mountaintops and also in the valleys.
And God is with us in the plains – in the ordinariness of life. Most of our time is not spent on mountain tops or even in valleys – most of our time is spent living plain, ordinary days. And God’s glory is in the plain ordinariness of life as well. Such as driving to work, eating breakfast, pouring the Cheerios, making coffee, eating a sandwich, listening to the TV, listening to a friend. God is sitting with us at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper, feeding the dog or going for a walk. You know, life. Just plain old ordinary life.
At certain breakthrough moments in time the glory of God is certifiably visible. Maybe even a veil is necessary or the brightness might make our eyes water. That glory draws near to us and we can actually see it for ourselves so that we never forget it. But seeing it may not be the most important thing, because as people of faith we are often asked to believe in things we cannot see. So maybe when we’re in the dark valleys of life God’s glory seems far away. Or as we live our day to day lives we may be too caught up in the ordinary to notice.
But you know, I believe that we live in a world where glory is possible and where light may break through at any moment. I’m certainly going to be looking for it when I am in the United Kingdom in May. But even when we cannot see the light, we can believe in it and we can look for it and then take the time to experience it. Because then we can know that God’s glory is pulsing just beneath the surface of things, with the power to transfigure both the ordinary and the darkest of our days. So keep your eyes open, stay awake, stay alert, and open your heart and mind to the glory and presence of God. Because you never know when a face may begin to shine, or a hand will reach out to you, or your baby will smile at you for the first time, or your loved ones suffering will be over, or the man you married 30 years ago will continue to get up every morning and make you coffee – you just never know when you will see the glory of God. Amen.
Resources:
A great deal of this sermon – especially the beginning and the end – is taken almost verbatim from Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon entitled, “Glory Doors” from her book Bread of Angels.
Sacred Living – Practical Inspirations from Celtic spirituality for the contemporary spiritual journey by Grace Clunie
Sermons from Seattle by Edward Markquart, “Mountains, Valleys and Plains,”