SCRIPTURE: 2 Corinthians
TEXT: THEME: INTRODUCTION At Fuller Seminary, one of my professors believed that God’s motivation for doing all that God does is glory; to attribute renown, honor, high achievement, magnificence, great beauty to God’s self. He argued that we wouldn’t know how great God’s love for us was without the creation of evil. Sort of like the argument that we can’t know what ‘Good’ is without ‘Evil’. This would make God a glory egomaniac in my mind. This was one of the theological theories from seminary that I set aside. From today’s reading I would say Our relationship with God reveals God’s glory. Adam and Eve reveal God as Creator and steward of the earth. The relationship that Abraham and Sara have with God reveals a God of promise, future, hope and commitment to work with us. Our doubts and wrong actions don’t disqualify us from God’s love or promises. The relationship of Moses and the X-slaves with God, reveals God’s glory in being more powerful than any earthy ruler, as deliverer and liberator of the enslaved and transformer of lives in the wilderness. Then in the relationship of Jesus with the Disciples, reveals God’s love being more powerful than any force that is out there even death. God is not the great judge out to get us, but rather a loving parent, friend, helper, co- creator, steward, nurturer and Savior. With these relationships we can see Degrees of Glory, to further degrees of glory. Each relationship reveals something else about God. What this means is that some former version of glory needs to be set aside for another degree of God’s glory to be lived by us. This brings us to Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth. SCRIPTURE As Paul discusses the church, with its variety of members and abilities, he also begins a hint of leaving perishable ways of living aside, for the imperishable ways of living. Shifting our focus off from the cross and onto the resurrection helps us to make this transition. To live not as people who have achieved salvation, but to live as people in relationship with God and with a new reality, not motivated by the fear of dying but of being loved by God and loving others. Paul takes this concept a little further in the letter to the Corinthians as he talks about glory. The church in Corinth is relatively new and yet its members have brought with them an assortment of glory into the church. What they have experienced and know about God should give them a boldness in living for God, but in order to do that, they have to be willing to let go of some of the Glories of the past. Paul reminds them of the story of Moses. Meeting God face to face and receiving the 10 commandments. As Moses leaves the presence of God, his face glows with the brilliant of the sun. So much so, it was impossible for people to look upon him. So, he Macgyvered a veil to cover his face. But after the glow had faded, he continued to wear veil, pretending to have the glow of being in God’s presence continue. God had moved on to something else, but he wanted to baste in a past glory. In one sense, Moses misrepresented God and kept the people of God stuck in one degree of glory longer than they had to be. Paul describes this as Moses ‘keeping the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside.’ (13) We are not to use cunning or trickery when it comes to being prophets of God’s truth. Our job is to be faithful witnesses of God. Even if we don’t agree with God, or if we don’t understand what God is doing. We don’t get to say what we want, or what people want to hear. Our job is to speak the word of God. It is easy enough for us to get stuck; stuck on the 10 commandments, and stuck on dietary foods, stuck on sacrifices for salvation, stuck on how we have come to believe, unwilling to let go of Mr. Okada’s Sunday school lessons for what the Bible is saying today. Can we put aside our focus on the cross for salvation, to focus on God’s loving mercy found in the resurrection? APPLICATION When our actions, aligned with God’s ways, we have a bold Hope. We want God to be the same through the ages, but what if it our understanding of God changes through the ages. Those relationships with God, with those understandings are of one kind of glory while when we learn something new or understand things from a different perspective are of another glory. It is not that we are abandoning the faith but building upon our spiritual heritage. In recent history we have changed our views on slavery, the ordination of women, white supremacy, same sex marriage, homosexuality, the ordination of LGBTQ? We are not protecting our salvation on the cross, we are living into the resurrection. How do we set aside one glory for the mercy God is bringing today? The church is changing. The Pandemic has accelerated the change that was already taking place. At yesterday’s Leadership Event, put on by our Hawaii Conference, it created a forum for us to talk about the church, the pandemic and the future. Going back to the glory days of the church is not an option. God has moved from there in much the same way, the worship of God moved from a mountain to a tent, from a tent to the temple, from the temple to the church. And today from the church into a coffee house, bar, an upper room, pizza parlor, laundromat, food pantry, choir, bible study, and small group. Today God is moving the church to where the people are. if we can’t see the end of one glory, we won’t be willing to move on to another. We don’t know what the future of the church will be like. Some churches in our Conference are bemoaning the fact that although they have been having in person service, their congregants prefer staying at home and watching the service in their pajamas, on their couch or at another time. We could be critical of such people, or just be glad that they are worshiping with us. To set aside the glory of how the church once was and to accept that this is the new church that is being formed and to move into what do we do to be loving in this setting and foster our people into a loving community of faith. CONCLUSION This week as I tried to stop weeds from replicating themselves by not allowing their genetic programing to drop into the soil and resurrect as a plant, I listened to the most recent pod cast from Krista Tippet’s on Being as I weeded. She interviewed Gal Beckerman. He is a senior editor for books at the Atlantic. He said that before the internet, the way people would create a change in society, would be to engage them in conversation. Often times by forming petition and in explaining what the petition was about, engaging them in a conversation and ending with a signature. This also was done through letter writing, which reminded me of Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. It may very well have been several letters written to the churches in that area. Engaging this church community in this conversation of what it means to be the church, as the people of God. This format later moved to a person on a bull horn. Laying the groundwork for a change in a society against common morays that continued an inequality for a segment of the population and serving the interest of a few. These ideas were embedded for years before they began to get traction Beckerman said, “People can’t move into a new reality if they can’t imagine it.” When we stop imagining, we stop. We get stuck, but as we let our imaginations think “what if…” then it gives our faith room to set aside a past glory for a new glory that God is unfolding for our future.
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