THE BACKSIDE OF GLORY

Exodus 33: 12-23
2 Corinthians 4: 5-6
John 14: 8-11

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

October 19, 2008

Human beings are hungry for holiness; we live with a deep-seated longing to be connected with something, someone larger, greater than ourselves – we yearn to experience divinity, the ground of being, God, however we might name it. St. Augustine said, “[O God], our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” – and he was so right; it’s as if there were a hole in our hearts, a God-shaped hole. We do our best to fill it with whatever we find at hand -- things, experiences, sex, power, money, stuff -- but underneath all our busy-ness is this desire to be in relationship with the energy, the One in whom we truly live, and move and have our being. “It is my soul’s desire to see the face of God” goes the song… and surely this is the fundamental of our church-going; oh, so many reasons, for sure, to show up on a Sunday morning, but underneath all the activity and people, or maybe within them, there’s that hunger … for joy, reassurance, ecstasy (though we’re just getting used to that thought in the United Church), for comfort, empowerment … we want to see the face of God.

But hard to talk about, though, isn’t it? Language seems so inadequate, awkward, difficult, never quite saying what we mean. But that’s really the nature of the beast, of the conversation. We’re talking “God” here… the mystery… did you know, by the way, that if you pushed back into the roots of that word, mystery, it means “hand over mouth” -- the gesture of being without words, silenced in awe, speechless. Any time I run into someone who has a tight definition of God, who has pinned down the mystery, then I worry – I shouldn’t, really, because God is already long gone, far beyond the borders of any box that any human can construct. Again, listening to St. Augustine -- “Before experiencing God you thought you could talk about God; when you begin to experience God you realize that what you are experiencing you cannot put into words.” Sometimes silence really is all we can offer; waiting, hoping, trusting that the God-shaped hole in our hearts will be filled by the Holy One; perhaps subtly, sometimes elusively, a glimpse, a word. Here’s how R.S. Thomas describes it – a Welsh poet, and an Anglican priest:

I pray and incur

silence. Some take that silence

for refusal.

I feel the power

that, invisible, catches me

by the sleeve, nudging….

I know its ways with me;

how it enters my life,

is present rather

before I perceive it, sunlight quivering

on a bare wall.

Is it consciousness trying

to get through?

Am I under

regard?

It takes me seconds

to focus, by which time

it has shifted its gaze….

It has the universe

to be abroad in.

There is nothing I can do

but fill myself with my own

silence, hoping it will approach

like a wild creature to drink….

Have you felt that way… as if you were under regard? Sunlight quivering on a bare wall… just there on the edge of the known, a gift, a promise; holiness touching you?

Our Judeo-Christian tradition relies more on story-telling than on philosophizing in an attempt to describe this encounter with holiness; stories become paradigmatic, suggestive of how we might ourselves enter into such an experience. Take, just for instance, the story we heard today about Moses and his demand to see God’s glory. A bit of background is helpful…

The Israelite people, freed from slavery in Egypt, find themselves wandering in the wilderness; they grumble; God gives them water and manna. Moses goes up Mt. Sinai, to receive the commandments, and in his prolonged absence, the Israelites decide to have a wild party, complete with golden calf. Moses returns, gets totally upset, breaks the tablets on which the commandments are etched, and threatens big time trouble; but finally, goes back to God to plead for mercy, another chance for this stiff-necked rebellious people. But he needs some reassurance; he need to be connected with God, to be certain of God’s presence.

Now, sometimes I am envious of the intimacy that Moses experiences; I wish I could have such one-on-one conversations, with clear signs and outcomes. (Though I sometimes wonder if in fact Moses’ experience in the immediate moment was as clear as it seems to be later in time.) Nevertheless, the story invites our participation… not to be caught up in literal details, but to learn, to discover how such encounters might be possible for us.

Perhaps the first thing to note is that Moses had to tromp off to Mount Sinai to have conversation with God, or, if he was feeling tired, he could head to the Tent of Meeting. Which is to say, that he, Moses, needed to make some effort to get things rolling. It requires intentionality, determination, a willingness to carve out some space, some time – making room for God. It means hanging out at the water hole, waiting in anticipation for the wild creature to arrive; it means coming to church, our tent of meeting; or maybe going for a long walk on the Seawall; or maybe just sitting still at home, and marking the moment for prayer, surrounded by stillness and quiet. It means you have to work at. As the poet Denise Levertov says:

Sometimes the mountain

is hidden from me

in veils

of cloud, sometimes

I am hidden from the mountain

in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,

when I forget or refuse to go

down to the shore or a few yards

up the road, on a clear day

to reconfirm

that witnessing presence.

We can’t control the encounter; grace comes as it will. But we can prepare, and be ready. I mean, Vancouver has a thousand and one gyms… we know what we need to do to keep our bodies fit and healthy; buff, even. Why would we ever assume that keeping our spirits in similar health wouldn’t require an equal effort, a regular workout? Inattention, apathy and fatigue… they will always be with us. But when we take ourselves down to the shore, a few yards up the road… up our own Mt. Sinai, or to the Tent of Meeting…. that’s when we might well encounter that witnessing presence.

The second thing that Moses teaches us is that we need to let it all hang out — we need to speak to the Holy One as if to a friend, to yell, cry, demand… to speak what is truly happening in our lives, our souls. This is that gospel challenge – you must seek in order to find; ask, in order to receive; knock on the door, long and hard, in order to walk through into new territory. “Show me your glory!” demands Moses. He’s not afraid to put it out there. Unlike myself… who was taught to be polite even in my praying. There were times, as a child, for instance, when I wanted to kill my brother; you know how it is. But that’s never what I said at evening prayer… it was always along the lines of “Thank you God for my brother, and please give me patience.” Not very honest; not very helpful; it never led to seeing the glory, let me tell you. I think that’s what confession is all about, at its best… an honest acknowledgement before God of our hurt, our ache, the hunger, the places of brokenness, the frustration, the doubts and questions, lifting it all up, and then crying out, show me your glory, God.

And that’s exactly what happens in this story; Moses sees… well, not quite the full glory… don’t let anyone tell you the Bible doesn’t have a sense of humour…. Moses gets a glimpse of God’s backside; the translation reads “God’s back,” but the Hebrew is much more earthy; full on backside is what we’re talking about here. No one can see the face of God and live; so for Moses’ own sake, God stuffs him into a cleft in the rock; then covers his face with a holy hand… no peaking allowed; and then, finally, when God is almost gone from sight, Moses gets to stick his head up for a quick peak at God disappearing into the distance. But isn’t that just the truth of it all… however are we to comprehend the fullness of God, this ground of being; this holy energy, creator of stars and time? A vastness wraps itself around our consciousness, and glimpses is all we can absorb.

This story of Moses’ encounter circles around a God who is on the move; in motion; a God who claims “Yahweh” as its name… “I am who I am; I am what I am; I will cause to be what I will cause to be”. That’s not the kind of God you can box in, pin down. God more as verb than noun; God in process. What we are able to notice are the after-effects, the signs of where God has been active, passing by. It’s more like glimpsing the “when and where” of God rather than the “who.” If that’s the case, then perhaps our task is to become good interpreters of the marks of holiness which remain; we need to become trackers of “God sign”. Then, perhaps, we can understand the Bible as a map, a guide book written by good trackers; or maybe as a journal, describing the encounters, giving us suggestions and pointers we might find helpful on our own journeys.

But what we have still are only glimpses, the backside of glory. And we’re still left with the challenge of describing what just happened. Listen to another poet, Steve Lautermilch, struggle with this challenge:

I could say you are flame, but you are not flame,

though you race over my limbs

like fire in grass.

I could say you are cloud or vapor or mist,

but unlike those you do not thin or fade,

but stay.

I might call you the water that builds unawares in my eyes;

the first light of dawn that ignites the trees;

but then there is the night

when I see differently and you are even more powerful.

You are more steady than any feeling,

and no though that enters my mind has the dark, rich odor

of forest where you run clear like a stream in my heart.

I can taste you in these words as they form on my tongue.

Yet you are the catch in my voice when I cannot find words

and the quiet spreads through my body,

intimate and warm,

and needs no other language.

Like water to fish, air to bird’s wings,

so you to me.

But who are you really?

That’s a killer of an ending, isn’t it?! You start with opposites yoked together… flame followed by mist, which turns into tears in the eyes, which glisten in the dawn light, igniting into flame which slips into the dark night, which hovers over the rich dark odor of the forest where God runs clear like a stream in your heart. But then the final question… who are you really, God? How to read the signs? Show us your glory.

Answering that floating question, “Who are you really?” takes us into a deeper story, one that brings more focus. Jews would look to Torah, the gift that Moses receives after his experience of God’s backside, a renewal of God’s promises embodied in the ten commandments – and that’s what follows in the next chapter of Exodus. As Christians, we turn to the story of Jesus. Do you recall the beginning of today’s Gospel reading – where the disciple Philip raises a “show me the glory” question; oh, it’s phrased differently, but when Philip turns to Jesus and says, “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied,” we pretty much know what he means.

And so does Jesus, who replies, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Now that may not be a regular everyday way to say it, but it sure sounds like getting a good look at glory; the Spirit of God shining bright and clear in Jesus. “Who are you really?” you ask the flame, the witnessing presence, the creature at the waterhole, and you discover that it comes to you as if it is one and the same as the Spirit of Jesus, the Christ. Full of love, invitation and demand, forgiveness, compassion; challenging us to begin a whole new way of living. Mind you, there’s still ambiguity; just listen to Paul as he tries to describe the connection between Jesus and glory to some of the folk in Corinth: “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” What’s it like to have “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” way down in the depths of my heart? Once again, we’re bumping into the challenge of finding the right words, the images and metaphors to describe the encounter, but in the story of Jesus, in his words, works and person, we come to understand who God is; we come into a life-giving relationship with the Holy One.

And what we receive… well, it’s interesting to see how it’s described in Moses’ story: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and show mercy on to whom I will show mercy.” Grace and mercy … sometimes I find myself walking the seawall, and quietly repeating to the rhythm of my steps, “Thank you, thank you, thank you; forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.” Like an endless mantra in my heart…deep gratitude for the love that surrounds me, joined with a recognition of my inattention, apathy and fatigue, and so much else. How did John describe it… oh yes; And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth… From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” Yes, that’s so true. Thanks be to God.