Start with glory: June 15

Year C, Trinity Sunday                                                                 Psalm 8 & Romans 5:1-5                                                                                              

There is a theological concept I have always found abhorrent.  There are traces of it in the early church—but was really established by John Calvin who lived in the 16^th century and played a large part in the Protestant Reformation.  I will admit that John Calvin had a lot of great points, but the concept of total depravity was not one of them. In essence, it means that all humans are innately sinful and despite our best efforts always will be.  He went on to say that we could still be saved, but our nature was in and of itself evil.  This theological belief has had a profound effect on many branches of Christianity and you will still see the concept lurking in many Christian churches today---some associated with denominations and some that are not.  It’s usually in the fine print, but it’s there.

Normally, I am not a fan of the concept of total depravity, but this week I started wondering, if maybe Calvin was on to something.  This week has been a barrage of bad news.  We have the conflict in the Middle East that has now expanded to include Iran.  We have ICE raids in elementary schools and politicians who care more about reaching a quota of deportations than the humans that are being deported.  Then we have the United States military in one of our nation’s cities with threats of more to come.  Just yesterday two government officials were gunned down in their own homes in what is being described as “targeted attacks.” Meanwhile our leaders (and I am talking about both parties right now) point fingers at one another with no apparent desire to find a solution, just to prove who has the most power.  I am so incredibly weary of it all.  I suspect we all are.

When I get weary of reading the news and listening to our politicians, l love to dive into the apostle Paul.  He would have been a horrible politician. He would not have even made it as pastor because he was always way too honest and probably/definitely a little too stubborn. I kind of love that about him because it makes me trust him and his words.  He was in no way trying to win friends and influence people.  However, that also makes some of his words harder to digest. 

In his letter to the Romans he wrote, “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us…”  Now if I saw that on a meme or a greeting card today, I would roll my eyes and move on.  I would think, clearly this guy has not witnessed a lot of suffering or he would know that suffering doesn’t always lead to hope.  Paul knew suffering.  He wrote some of his letters from prison cells. A few weeks ago we heard of his experiences being beaten, whipped and chained. More than that, he worshipped a God who knew suffering. 

Before Paul got to suffering and the chain reaction that would lead to hope, he started with glory. He said, “we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” I talk about suffering a lot.  I have also preached my fair share of sermons about hope.  I don’t know that I have ever spent much time thinking or preaching about glory. 

I believe that the easiest place to recognize glory is in creation and the world around us.  We see that in our Psalm for today.  “O Lord, how exalted is your Name in all the world…When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses…”  That is how the psalmist saw glory thousands of years ago. When it’s a clear night and you aren’t surrounded by light pollution or smog…or smoke from wildfires, it’s hard to look at the sky and not admire the vastness and beauty of it all. There is a reason that so many find God in nature. God’s glory surrounds us. Sometimes it’s smaller. I was sitting in my yard writing this sermon the other night and I saw the first lightning bugs of the season and there is something about lightning bugs that makes me giddy at the subtle beauty of our world.  However, that is about where my consideration of glory ends---out there, above here. 

Yet the psalm goes on to say, “What is man that you should be mindful of him? The son of man that you should seek him out? You have made him but little lower than the angels; you adorn him with glory and honor…”  In all our talk of the glory of creation and the beauty and majesty of the world we live in, we forget that we are part of this majestic and glorious creation.  We were God’s last act of creation, the pinnacle of the creation story, made in the image of God, only a little lower than the angels. 

The creator chose us to be God’s presence in this glorious but messy world.  That is why I have a problem with the idea of total depravity even in the midst of a world that feels depraved at times, I know that at our core, we are God’s creation and we are adorned with glory and honor. At the end of the creation story, the author of Genesis says, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”  It is our inability to see that in ourselves and in one another that hurts us and leads us to try to destroy one another.   

I often struggle with the idea that suffering can lead to endurance, which leads to character which ends in hope.  Because I have seen suffering that breaks people instead of strengthens them.  I have also seen suffering where the breaks and the fractures bring new forms of strength, endurance, character and hope. I think it helps to know this text—to know that we can learn and grow from suffering, but also not to beat ourselves up when the suffering leaves us a little weaker.  It’s ok to have some weaknesses.

Perhaps in my desperate desire for hope, I tried to skip glory.  Paul wrote, “we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”  Boast is an awkward word choice.  Another way to translate that phrase is to say that we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. We are not rejoicing in our own glory.  We are rejoicing in our hope of sharing God’s glory.  Because no matter how much smoke and ash cloud the night sky, God’s glory is still there.

Hope is hard work.  It’s not something that just comes to us. It’s something that we have to fight for. That fight can be exhausting.  What if we could harness God’s glory, like fireflies in the jar---so that we never forget that our world is good. We are good…just below the angels.

In many ways, I think that is what we try to do in worship—harness and share glory.  You can hear it in Parker and Cathy’s playing.  You can hear it in the voices of those who sing, not just the beautiful voices of the choir, but all around you.  These voices have been through it. They have waged battles.  They have suffered. Still they sing.  Still this community gathers and that to me is one of the greatest glories that I have witnessed, it’s the community of faith that continues to worship a God who they cannot see and often cannot understand.  Still we pray words that feel hard to say at times, but we say them because prayer shapes how and what we believe. Sometimes prayer is aspirational.  What I see in this community is people who have not given into despair.  I see glory and I hope you can too.