He will Come Again in Glory: Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

We have come to the Sunday after Ascension. Jesus has been taken into Heaven. Not in rays of gold but covered in a cloud. It reminds us we always see God through the cloud of our own unknowing, and anything we say, even the deepest and wisest words, will always be partial. In that spirit, I’d like to raise what I see as the three themes in today’s readings:

1.    The first is our expectations: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

2.    The second is suffering: But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

3.    Which leads to the third theme of Glory: I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.”

The first one is easy: What we expect is not always what we get. Jesus came not to restore the Israel that was past, but to lead us in a whole new understanding of what it means to minister in the world.

The second, suffering, is harder, but fortunately, I was provided with a very personal example. Last Tuesday, as I was getting up from a wonderful morning meditation, my back spasmed without any warning. One moment I was sitting in comfort and ease, the next I was overwhelmed by pain so intense I could barely move. My lower back felt like molten metal and my legs were too rubbery to hold me without assistance. It was like a mugger emerging from the shadows, or the hand of God striking St. Paul blind. Although I took the requisite medications, they did little good.

In a heartbeat my mood turned from gratitude into pure vitriol. What was once open interior space constricted into pain, a physical discontent so great it became my environment. Pain made it impossible to think or read. I wanted to lash out, anything to make it go away, but there was no one to blame. I couldn’t even blame myself. So I did the only thing I could. I let Jay know I could not be depended on to be reasonable and I shut up. I worked with my pain in meditation and prayer.

And here’s what I learned: pain begets pain. Our world is what it is because there’s too much pain. Suffering is everywhere. Our economy encourages us to be envious. Always wanting more is suffering. The prison culture is suffering. The border is suffering. COVID-19 has killed close to 100,000 Americans. Our president, who doesn’t believe in suffering, refuses to mourn.

Sometimes, as my back said so eloquently, you don’t get a choice. The real question is what am I going to do with all the negative emotions my pain awakened in me? It’s not a matter of attitude. It’s a matter of choice. I can choose bitterness and blame, or I can choose compassion. As Christians we are asked to follow the example of Jesus who suffered, died, was buried and rose from the dead, letting us know that if suffering is inevitable, it does not have the last word. 

I may suffer today. I will not suffer forever, but if I act out my negative emotions, they will linger a very long time.

At the very least suffering teaches us to practice love when we don’t feel like it. If I can feel solidarity with those who suffer, with animals who suffer, a planet who suffers, something inside me will shift. A backache reminds me to love my body. Love the world’s body. It comes to take me from the heights of spiritual bliss right into the grit and grind of everyday experience. It makes me less afraid of other’s suffering. 

The third theme is Glory. He will come again in glory. What is glory? If Jesus came to show us how to practice spirituality in the grit and grind of everyday experience, the theology which grew up around him is frustratingly abstract. Sin, salvation, revelation, glory. What do these words mean?

The dictionary definitions of glory also define the problem.

1 high renown or honor won by notable achievements: to fight and die for the glory of one's nation.  In this one, glory falls upon me like a golden cloak.

2 magnificence or great beauty: the train has been restored to all its former glory. • (often glories) a thing that is beautiful or distinctive; a special cause for pride, respect, or delight: the glories of Paris. • the splendor and bliss of heaven: with the saints in glory. Again, glory comes from without and adheres to an object for our admiration.

3 praise, worship, and thanksgiving offered to a deity. Again, glory is something we do.

The first three definitions emphasize glory as attainment. Not until we get to the fourth definition does the orientation shift.

4 a luminous ring or halo, especially as depicted around the head of Jesus Christ or a saint. This one shows glory as inherent. And when that glory is realized, it lights up everything.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead

And his kingdom will have no end.

Let me share two concrete examples of what glory might look and feel like. One afternoon in 1959, Trappist monk Thomas Merton was “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut. In the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being human, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

You are the light of the world, says Jesus.

L.R. Knost, Gentle Parenting teacher

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”

To come again in glory begins with us discovering the light of Christ within. To understand this light, we need also meet the shadows it cast. In the Bible, the shadow side of Jesus’ light was the greed, hatred and ignorance which opposed his truth. These things are as much a part of us as generosity, love and wisdom. This is a paradoxical road. God asks that we walk it with humor and openness, loving not our pious, religious and helpful selves, but the one that fights with our spouse and passes judgment on people we don’t know. In the vernacular, this is known as getting over myself. The less I worry about myself, the freer I am to love others. The less I hold on, the more blessing I am able to give away.

The Kingdom of God is nothing more and nothing less than reality itself. As Christians we are called to be contagious, not with Coronavirus, but with Love.