Sermon: "A Glimpse of Glory"

Luke 9.28-36Luke 9.28-36

I wonder where you go to find glory, to experience glory? a Swaledale summer sunset, a romantic dinner for two perhaps, Sunderland returning to the Premiership, a personal best in the Great North Run, a Welsh six nation victory, tearful thanksgiving for a mother who has died, the birth of a great grandchild, an act of kindness perhaps, a morning sunrise?

When I worked in Newcastle I was quite heavily involved in Newcastle City Centre Chaplaincy. The former vicar of St Andrew’s, Newcastle was the City Centre Chaplain and an avid Newcastle United supporter. Unlike his fellow fans, however, he was the only one who took his loyalty to the point of wearing the team scarf to Sunday worship. He would replace his liturgical stole for his black and white scarf as he processed down the aisle in Newcastle Cathedral, much to the annoyance of the Dean.

I asked him once “What’s your favourite part of Cathedral worship?” thinking he must like the cathedral music?” He said he loved it when the cathedral was full of incense, when the cathedral was full of fragrant smoke. I asked him why he liked it so much. “Well, it’s the glory?” he said. “You feel like you’re surrounded by God.” I asked whether he ever felt that sensation any other time during the week. He said sometimes, standing on the terraces watching Newcastle United, he felt that glory in the excitement of the action and the song and sheer physical mass of the crowd around him. Then I asked him, “What does all this tell you about God?” And he replied, “It tells me God is always about to surround me like a cloud of smoke.” To my friend that was his experience of glory.

God is always about to surround me like a cloud of smoke. I’ve never forgotten that. I’m not sure whether John Wesley and his eighteenth century Holiness Movement would agree but that’s about the best definition of holiness I’ve ever heard. God is always about to surround me like a cloud of smoke, so that I can see nothing, taste nothing, smell nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing but God. That’s glory. That’s glory, when you’re so overwhelmed by the sight and sound and presence of God that you can feel yourself being changed from the inside out. Changed from Glory into Glory, till in heaven we take our place as we shall sing later, at least the Wesley brothers got that right! That’s what’s going on when Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a mountain. He wanted to share his glory with them, his friends. So here is my sermon question to you this morning. What does this wonderful story that we have heard so many times and illustrated this morning, tell us about glory?

For the disciples, glory is something they could see and hear, touch - and if glory is like cathedral incense then smell as well. Glory is something they experienced outside of themselves. Glory isn’t something they can do, something they can manufacture or achieve, it is not a possession. Glory is something that belongs to God and is shown in Jesus. It’s as if the gospel-writer Luke is so keen to make this point he doesn’t care how ridiculous he makes the disciples look. They’re present at one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the world and Luke says they were “weighed down with sleep.” Luke is making the point that the transfiguration is not something the disciples could bring about by their own efforts. It came about in spite of their pathetic failures. Their sleepy humanity couldn’t prevent the revelation of Jesus’ dazzling divinity. Luke’s point is that Jesus’ glory is not something that can be contained or commodified or controlled.

Lovely, impetuous Peter makes a mindless suggestion to build three little huts, as if to say, “Jesus, I see you’re having your old mates over, how ’bout we make you three guys comfortable so you can put your feet up and have a proper chat, or maybe get a few beers in and watch a netflix film…” Peter wanted to contain God’s glory in these temporary shelters. And the thing is as we plan for our future ministry and mission in the town we can’t contain Jesus’ glory in a building, and we can’t control Jesus’ appearing or who he appears to, or when. But here is the good news. Here at Jesus’s moment of glory, he wants Peter, James and John there. And this is how it works for us. God wants us to be part of his glory. That’s the truth at the heart of our salvation. We can never understand it or make sense of it. But we must never forget it, because it’s the bit of good news that leads to all the others. We sinful and foolish people are part of God’s glory. God’s glory is beyond us. That’s what the faltering and feeble reactions of the disciples up a mountain are telling us.

And then at the end of the story we discover the disciples kept silent and told no one of any of the things they’d seen. We’ve already learned that God’s glory can’t be brought about by us, can’t be contained or kept by us, can’t be held or embodied by us. Now we discover that God’s glory can’t fully be communicated by us either. The disciples have seen something they can’t find a way to put into words. That makes complete sense when you think about it – if Jesus’ transfiguration could have been adequately communicated in words then it probably would never have needed to happen. This is a vision that goes beyond words, and a reminder to those of us who like to use words and ideas and concepts that God is finally beyond description. Any communication of God is, in the end, brought about not by us but by God. If you find it hard to share your faith, it may be not so much that your faith is lacking. It may be that you’ve seen glory and ever after you find it hard to put that experience into words.

That’s what we learn about glory as experienced by the disciples, these three guys on a mountain. Glory is the wonder that God is dazzling, even when we are yawning. Glory is the wonder that God is a cloud surrounding us, even when we are trying hard to contain or control or commodify him. Glory is the wonder that is always beyond us, and we can never finally make a feature of our personality or our possession or our embodiment or our knowledge.

Have your eyes seen the glory? Sure, our imagination often shrinks to what sleep, and technology, and our desire for control and our fear of the unknown allows us to see. But God still reveals his glory. And this story tells us this morning where.

God reveals his glory in setting people free. Remember the song “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” That’s what the Old Testament, the story of Israel, of Moses and Elijah, is fundamentally about. Have you seen God setting people free? Have you seen forgiveness free a person, maybe you, from guilt? Have you seen a friendship, maybe yours, free a person from despair? Have you seen careful, kind hands free a person, maybe you, from sickness? Have you seen a word of faith, maybe from you, free a person from fear? Have you seen a teacher of wisdom and understanding free a person, maybe you, from the cloud of not knowing? Have you seen an act of courage or gestures of faithful endurance, free a person, maybe you, from a prison of their own or others’ making? That’s where to look for glory.

As I have preached many times, and in my own personal and family experience God reveals his glory in suffering. That’s what the cross is fundamentally about. Have you seen God’s glory in moments of your own suffering? Have you seen God’s glory in another person’s pain? Are you putting your own suffering in the presence of God, for him to transfigure? Are you putting yourself in the presence of another person’s suffering expecting to see transfiguration the way the first disciples did? That’s where to find glory.

And guess what! God reveals his glory in the church – the ordinary, clumsy, small-minded church. Have you seen God in the prose or the poetry of the life of the church? Have you dwelt in worship, in small habits of positive generosity or fellowship, in striking risks of mercy or kindness, in stumbling attempts at hospitality or holiness? Have you looked for God’s hand among a people sharing a common life over months, years, maybe decades, of mission projects and Sunday school classes and finance committees and tearful funerals? That’s where your tired, weary eyes might just see glory. And that’s the challenge for our whole society as we slowly emerge from the pandemic to see glory in the inspirational work of medical teams, in the simple kindness of neighbours and volunteers, their generosity, unselfishness, true care and tangible love.

But there’s one more question. Jesus was transfigured when he went away to pray. Do you go away to pray? And, when you do so, are you asking or expecting or wanting or yearning for God to transfigure you? Because the biggest surprise of all might be that you – tired, weary, terrified, clumsy, inarticulate as you are – might one day really let yourself be the location of God’s profound conversation, of God’s great debate between law and prophecy, freedom and obedience, wonder and ordinariness, suffering and salvation. Let your heart and mind and body to be taken up in that holy argument. Let your whole life become a prayer. Wait for your face and clothes to dazzle and brighten. And then let others see the face of God in you. Let others come close to you and, when they do, let them say, “I feel like God is about to surround me like a cloud of smoke.”

And this is my prayer - that the Holy Spirit may gradually and patiently transfigure you so that others may see the glory of God in you.

Amen