The Glory of God

The Glory of God

John 12:20-33[1]

From the days when our culture re-discovered the worth and value of the individual, we have had a hard time viewing reality apart from our own point of view. We perceive most of our reality from that perspective. I’m not passing judgment on that mindset. It’s simply the way we have learned to function in our culture. There are benefits and weaknesses to any way of looking at human life. Focusing on the individual can lead people to great achievements that benefit everyone. But it can also lead us into the pitfall of filtering everything through the lens of “What does this mean for me?”

We do this with our faith as much as the rest of our lives. We hear the lofty promises of Scripture about the kingdom of God and eternal life that can be hard for us to wrap our heads around, and we simplify them into a rather mundane system by which “I” get to go to heaven when I die. We take everything that God has done from creation to salvation, and we turn it into the notion that God is somehow “peddling” tickets to eternity. The grand scope of God’s amazing grace and unfailing love become a simple “transaction”: God making salvation available through Jesus, and we come up to the “counter” and “do” our part in order to complete the deal. It’s a perspective that makes what God is doing in our world incredibly trivial, but it’s the perspective that has dominated the thinking of believers for centuries.

In contrast with that way of thinking, I believe our Gospel lesson for today points us to a much bigger vision of what God is doing in our world. There is a great deal of irony in this section of John’s Gospel. After Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead in John 11, the Jewish leaders became increasingly worried about how their “whole world” was turning to him, meaning the Jewish world. And into that setting walk two “Greeks” seeking Jesus. The irony is that while they were wringing their hands about their power over the Jewish people, there was a much bigger world that was turning to Jesus!

In response to the appearance of these Greeks, Jesus declares that “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23). Prior to this point in John’s Gospel, there is an emphasis on the fact that Jesus’ “hour had not yet come.” Something about the appearance of these “Greeks” leads Jesus to determine that his “hour” had indeed come. This theme in John’s Gospel signifies that Jesus has a sense that his mission and ministry are heading toward a conclusion. That conclusion is defined here, as elsewhere in the Gospel, as being “lifted up.” In John’s Gospel, that refers not only to Jesus’ being “lifted up” on a cross, but also to his being “lifted up” by being raised to life again, and his being “lifted up” by ascending to the glory he had with the Father from the beginning.

Since his “hour” has come, Jesus expresses a very understandable concern—his soul is “troubled” and he wonders whether to ask the Father to save him. Although the scene is similar to Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, here Jesus expresses his resolve to glorify the Father in all that he does, even by his death. And Jesus is answered by a “voice from heaven:” “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again” (Jn. 12:27). The focus of Jesus’ ministry in John’s Gospel has been glorifying the Father. The implication here seems to be that as Jesus glorifies the Father, the Father will glorify Jesus through his death, resurrection, and ascension.

The whole point of what Jesus does in his life and in his death is to glorify God. And in response, God promises to glorify Jesus. In truth, this is purpose and goal of the God’s whole project in the Bible from the beginning of creation to the fulfillment of salvation. In one respect, it’s not primarily about us at all; rather, it’s about the glory of God, which is revealed as his grace, mercy, and love are fulfilled throughout all creation. But, of course, this takes place as Jesus is “lifted up” in order to draw “all people” into that grace, mercy, and love. The glory of God is fully revealed when all people and all creation are set free to live in the love of God.

God’s whole saving endeavor is about more than just the fate of individuals. It’s about the fate of the whole creation! We will see the glory of God fulfilled when the whole world of humanity is restored to share the love that binds together the Father, Son, and Spirit. We will see the glory of God fulfilled when the whole realm of nature is healed so that all life can thrive together. We will see the glory of God fulfilled when the whole created cosmos comes together to accomplish the purpose for which God made it in the first place: to serve as a beautiful demonstration of the grace and mercy and love of God.[2]

The framework of what God is doing in this world is much bigger than the destiny of any one individual. In a very real sense, this framework is defined by the Lord’s prayer: that God’s name would be honored throughout the whole creation, that God’s grace and mercy and love would reign over all things, and that God’s “will” that all people share the bond of love that unites Father, Son, and Spirit would be fulfilled. The glory of God is not just some ethereal presence that happens in a dream. It’s a very real purpose that involves the restoration and renewal of all things and all people. When that happens, then God’s glory will be fulfilled.

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[1]  ©2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 3/21/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 209-222.

Changed for Good

Changed For Good

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11[1]

Many talk about the Christian faith as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. That kind of approach may lie behind the fact that we “Christians” don’t look very different from anybody else. From how we spend our money to what we do with our free time to whether or not we stay married. The statistics don’t really show much difference between those of us who identify as Christians and those who don’t. Part of the problem is that most of us are afraid of real change, change that makes a difference in the way we live. In order to make that kind of change, we have to be willing to take a hard look at ourselves. If don’t like what we see when we look that closely, we don’t look and we don’t change.

Part of the problem is that changing the way we live can be incredibly difficult.[2] We’ve all been programmed with the way we’re supposed to live our lives. We’re supposed to do well in school. And afterwards we’re supposed to get a good job. And get married, settle down, and have children. And raise our children. And be successful enough that by the time our children are having their children, we’re ready to enjoy retirement. But as most of you know, that “script” for the way life is supposed to go doesn’t always work out. And yet, it’s incredibly difficult to change the mindset that our lives are supposed to follow one of these “scripts.” And so it’s incredibly difficult to change the way we live.

I’m not excluding myself from this challenge.  Here I am—I’m up here doing my best to relate the teachings of the Bible week after week. Sometimes I have an insight into my own life that makes me think that all these years I’ve been preaching and teaching I’ve just plain missed it myself. It’s very humbling when we see our own shortcomings. Many of us don’t much like to feel humbled. We don’t like the discomfort of feeling like we’ve missed the point. It can be unpleasant to really expose our lives to the light of God’s truth. When we do, we see the flaws and weaknesses that remain inside.

Our scripture lessons for today are about two people who encountered God, and that encounter left them changed for good. Both Isaiah and Peter encountered God in a way that left them feeling exposed. And they responded to that encounter in the way that people typically respond to an encounter with God in the Bible: with fear! When Isaiah experienced the glory of the LORD’s presence while serving in the temple, he cried out, “Woe is me! I am lost!” (Isa. 6:5). When Simon Peter realizes that in Jesus he has encountered the presence of God, he responds in his typically blunt way: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Lk. 5:8). We find this pattern reflected throughout the Scriptures—whenever anyone experiences the presence of God, their first response is one of fear!

I think what these encounters from Scripture shows us about ourselves is that we’re not really very comfortable getting that close to God. One contemporary prophet says that we’re comfortable fishing with Jesus of Nazareth who teaches us wisdom about life, and even occasionally points out our social injustices. But when the Risen Lord rocks our “dead and dying world” with yet another demonstration of God’s saving power, we’d rather not be around for that.[3] And yet, whenever and wherever we truly experience the presence of God, we must expect the foundations of our lives to be shaken!

The truth about us all is that we prefer to keep God at arm’s length. We like our religion good and shallow. We’re very happy with God as long as we don’t really have to undergo any real change. We want to do all the “religious” things we’re supposed to do, as long as it doesn’t really affect the way we live our lives. We want a God who is “domesticated” enough that we can stand before his presence without having to endure any kind of “fear and trembling.” But that is not the God we encounter in the Bible.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that the point of Epiphany is about celebrating the good news that in Jesus the promise of Christmas has been fulfilled that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (Isaiah 40:5). What that means is that in Jesus we encounter God’s presence, God’s power, God’s redeeming grace and love in such a way that it transforms us completely. The glory of God is finally revealed “over all the earth” not in some religious setting but with God’s being present with us so as to enable us all to experience God’s grace and mercy and love.

The glory of God that fills the whole earth with grace and mercy and love is a glory that will not leave us where we are, but instead radically changes us all. It convicts us where we need convicting; it cleanses us, and it commissions us all, just as it did the prophet Isaiah and Simon Peter the fisherman. Yes, we celebrate the glory of God in the process of filling the whole earth with God’s grace and love even as we speak. But we must also remember when we come face-to-face with this kind of experience of God, it will leave us trembling as we are being changed for good.

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[1] © 2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/10/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 6: “What the ego hates more than anything else in the world is change ... . Instead, we do more and more of what does not work ...”

[3] Will Willimon, “Get Out Of Here,” The Christian Century (January 27, 2004): 21.

Full of Glory

Full of Glory

Isaiah 6:1-8[1]

The temptation to narrow our focus to the confines of our own self-interest is one that I think we all have to face. I find that ironic, especially in this age when we have access to a broad range of information on an unprecedented scale. Our seemingly unlimited reach doesn’t necessarily result in our being more connected with the human family in all its diversity. Instead, we tend to limit our horizons to those who look like us, who talk like us, and who think like us. And the end result is that as our view of life becomes small, so our experience of life becomes small.

Our lesson from Isaiah for today takes us out of that narrow, limited view of the world and places us in the presence of the God who not only inhabits “the whole earth” (Isa. 6:3), but who is also at work among the whole human family in ways we may not even be able to imagine. The vision of our “holy, holy, holy” God whose “glory” fills the whole earth necessarily broadens our perspective on life. We cannot remain in the confines of our own self-interest when we catch a glimpse of this vision. And when the call comes, “Who will go for us?,” a broader vision of what God is doing in our world will compel us to answer, “Here am I; send me!” (Isa. 6:8).

On this Trinity Sunday, it’s important to remind ourselves that the Christian view of God as three-in-one places our understanding of who God is and what God is doing in the world in the broadest possible perspective. Trinity says that God is the one who created all things and all people, and that he made them very good. Trinity says that God entered into our struggle in the person of Jesus in order to heal our brokenness. And Trinity says that as the Spirit is always among us, working to make all things new, this is God’s doing. As a result, it only makes sense to affirm that “the whole earth is full of God’s glory” (Isa. 6:3).

This may be no big deal to you. You may take all that for granted because you’ve spent your whole life in the church. But there are many people in this world who do not have this view of God. Some think our world sort of “happened” on its own, which means that any “God” we might believe in is merely a spectator. Some may affirm that God truly created all things, but the notion that such a God would actually enter our experience to do something about it is completely foreign. Then there are those who think that God may have done some wonderful things in the past, but that was a long time ago. In other words, whatever God may be out there is basically irrelevant to real life.

As we’ve seen, Scripture articulates a far-reaching perspective of who God is and what God is doing by speaking of God’s “glory.” I realize that “glory” is a word that we don’t much use in our everyday conversations. I would say that “glory” is a word that we say only in church, and then it really doesn’t mean much to us. But in the Bible, the notion of “glory” is a wonderful image of our three-in-one God. In some contexts, the word glory seems to refer to the “beauty” of God. In others, it has the notion of God’s “majesty.” And I think that everywhere the word glory occurs, it has the implication of God’s “mystery.”

I think the best way to illustrate this is with nature. This, of course, is not original to me. That creation bears witness to God is a timeless insight. Think about a breathtaking mountain vista with its seemingly immovable firmness and crisp clarity. Imagine a vibrant sunset that re-defines the spectrum of colors from red to purple and stretches across the vast expanse of the sky. Recall a spectacular seascape that gives only a hint of the power that moves such incalculable volumes of water down to the murky depths of the oceans. Visualize the amazing beauty of a nebula in space, massive and stretching its colors over unimaginable distances.  These and many other images bear witness to God’s “glory.”

Of course, the first thing that comes to my mind in this is the beauty of it all. When the Bible speaks about God’s “glory,” it presents God as the author of beauty—all beauty. But perhaps in the same breath, when you speak of the beauty of creation, you also immediately perceive the amazing power that is behind it all. From this perspective, the Bible ascribes “glory” to God as the source and highest embodiment of the power behind all that exists. And behind the breathtaking beauty and the awe-inspiring power there is a “something more.” It is the mystery behind and through all mystery, and we perceive that this presence is what we affirm as God’s “glory.”

I hope this gives new meaning to the affirmation “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost” we sing every Sunday. When we do so, we are affirming that God’s beauty, power and mystery are all around us, all the time. At the same time, we are recognizing that our lives in this world are a part of something much larger than can be contained in our limited horizons. That means we cannot help but say “Here am I, send me!” when we hear the call to join God’s work of sustaining the beauty and life all around us. It means we will look for ways to join in the work of establishing God’s kingdom of justice, peace, and freedom, as well as God’s work of “making all things new.” And as we do so, we will recognize we and all those around us are always “full of God’s glory.”

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[1] © 2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 5/27/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Trembling

Isa. 6:1-8; Lk. 5:1-11[1]

Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about the season of Epiphany as a time to celebrate the good news that Jesus came to fulfill the dream and the hope of the ages. It is a time to rejoice in the Gospel message, that Jesus brings to us all God’s life, God’s freedom, God’s joy, God’s justice, God’s peace, God’s love.[2] It is a time to remind ourselves joyfully that God’s new world is in the process of “emerging” all around us, that God’s glory is even now filling the whole earth!

And yet I think we have to pause to recognize that joyful celebration is not the typical way in which we human beings respond to the presence of God working among us to reveal the light of his glory, transforming us all into the people we were created to be. I would say that Isaiah’s response in our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures today is more typical of the way we tend to respond to a powerful encounter with God—“Woe is me! I am lost!” (Isa. 6:5). We find this pattern reflected throughout the Scriptures—whenever anyone experiences the presence of God, their first response is one of fear and trembling![3]

Simon Peter demonstrates this common tendency with his typically bluntness when he responds to the experience of God in Jesus of Nazareth by saying, “Get away from me, Lord!” (Luke 5:8).[4] I think what Simon Peter shows us about ourselves is that we’re really not very comfortable with God getting that close to us. Some of you may object that in point of fact there have been many saints throughout the ages who have developed disciplined practices to cultivate a deeper experience of God’s presence. And yet, I would insist that when God really breaks into our world in the ways depicted in our Scripture lessons today, our typical reaction is one of fear and trembling.

The truth about us all is that we prefer to keep God at arm’s length. We like our religion good and shallow—we’re very happy with God as long as we don’t really have to undergo any significant change. We want to do all the “religious” things we’re supposed to do, as long as it doesn’t really affect the way we live our lives. We want a God who is domesticated” enough that we can stand before the presence without having to endure any kind of “fear and trembling.”[5] One one contemporary prophet says we’re much more comfortable fishing with Jesus of Nazareth who teaches us wisdom about life, and even occasionally points out our social injustices, than we are with the Risen Lord who “rocks the hell out of my dead and dying world” with yet another demonstration of God’s new creation.[6] As Paul Tillich so eloquently reminds us, whenever and wherever we truly experience the presence of God, we must expect the foundations to be shaken![7]

Our response to God is truly bewildering—we celebrate the good news of God’s presence transforming all things and all people, and yet we shrink back from having to undergo too much change ourselves. How do we explain this puzzle? I think part of the answer may lie in the fact that we tend to assume it’s all those other people out there who need to be changed by the presence of God. We celebrate the gospel of Epiphany that God is in the process of filling the whole earth and setting right everything that is broken in part because we tend to exclude ourselves from what needs to be changed. But the truth is that we are all a part of this broken world that needs so desperately to be transformed by God’s presence.

The good news of Epiphany is one that is double-edged. The glory of God that fills the whole earth with God’s freedom, and God’s joy, and God’s love is a glory that will not leave us where we are, but instead radically changes us all. It convicts us, it cleanses us, and it commissions us all, just as it did the prophet Isaiah and Simon Peter the fisherman. Yes, let’s celebrate the glory of God in the process of filling the whole earth even as we speak. But we must also remember that it is a glory that is so powerful that our experience of it will leave us trembling as we are being radically changed.

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[1] © 2010 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/7/10 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, 124.

[3] Cf. Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith130-31. The classic statement on this is that the experience of God is a mysterium tremendum et fascinans (a mystery that is terrifying and fascinating at the same time; cf. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy ).

[4] Cf. Fred Craddock, Luke 69: “Simon Peter gets a glimpse of the power and knowledge of Christ and falls before him in the profound grip of his own sinfulness.”

[5] Darrell Jodock, “Called to Change,” The Christian Century (January 25, 1995): 81. He adds, “A God this high and lofty cannot be domesticated into an American God or a capitalist God or a God who protects the ‘good guys’ from the bad. The holy God brings us up short, jars us into self-recognition, and beckons us to a radical reorientation.”

[6] Will Willimon, “Get Out Of Here,” The Christian Century (January 27, 2004): 21.

[7] Paul Tillich, “The Experience of the Holy,” in The Shaking of the Foundations, 89 ; by contrast, he observes (p. 91) that people tend to want false prophets who will satisfy their longing “to be flattered in regard to their desires and virtues, their religious feeling and social activity, their will to power and utopian hopes, their knowledge and love, their family and race, their class and nation.”

Here and Now

Here and Now

Luke 4:16-21[1]

I think there is a great deal of confusion out there about what Jesus was up to in his ministry. If you conducted a poll of people who identify themselves as Christians, I think a majority would say that Jesus came to die on the cross and rise from the grave so that “my” sins could be forgiven and so that “I” can spend eternity in heaven with God. It is a faith that is focused narrowly on the salvation of individuals; the overarching concern is “my” eternal destiny. But if you read the Gospels at all, you find that this idea of what Jesus was up to doesn’t really fit with what the Gospels say Jesus was up to. The Gospels are all on the same page in identifying the focus of Jesus’ “mission” as fulfilling the “Kingdom of God.”

In fact, the Gospels all pretty much at one time or other summarize Jesus’ “gospel” as “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” You probably know that already. What you may not know is that there was a great debate among NT scholars of the 20^th century over just what Jesus’ meant when he said “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Scholars debated up one side and down the other whether Jesus meant to say that “it’s here” or “it’s near.”

You can understand the problem—if Jesus was saying “the Kingdom of God is near,” I would think the typical response would be something like, “Well that’s nice but wake me when it’s here.” And if Jesus was saying “the Kingdom of God is here,” you might be tempted to look at him as if he had lost his mind. As a matter of fact, many did! It’s still hard for us to believe that God’s Kingdom is real in our lives here and now.

Most of the people in the synagogue at Nazareth would understand what Jesus was talking about when he said to them, “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). They knew what the reading from the prophet Isaiah was talking about—the restoration of justice, peace and freedom to the people of Israel, and through them to all the nations of the earth![2] It was the dream that had inspired them through good times and bad, through exile and return, through renewal and rebuilding against all odds. And while they were “still standing” despite the worst that history could throw at them, I doubt that many of the Jewish people would have thought that their life under the boot of the Roman Legions constituted the “restoration of justice, peace, and freedom”! And yet, Jesus’ message to the people of Nazareth was fairly straightforward. In effect, Jesus said that the dream they had been dreaming and hoping would come true for centuries is here; it’s real right now.

I think the people of Nazareth understood what he was saying—that’s why they tried to kill him! The Scripture Jesus was referring to, Isaiah 61, calls this restoration of life “the year of the Lord’s favor.” This was a well-known concept to the Jewish people of Jesus’ day—it was called the “Year of Jubilee.” It was a provision in the economic system of the Torah that was intended to be a recurring reminder of the dream of justice, peace and freedom that inspired them. Although there is no evidence they ever actually observed the Jubilee, they knew very well what it was—it was to be “the time in which God’s … compassionate justice is restored.”[3] It was to be a time of healing, of releasing those who had sold themselves into slavery, of returning debtors to their confiscated property. Every 50 years, the slate was to be wiped clean and everybody was to get a fresh start.

Jesus said to the people of Nazareth—with a straight face—that his reading of the scripture from Isa. 61 was the beginning of the fulfillment of that dream. God’s compassionate justice, God’s peace, God’s freedom was to be extended to all people everywhere. The “Year of Jubilee” was to be applied to everyone—the whole human race getting the chance to have the slate wiped clean and to have a fresh start. Jesus said that was what he had come to do—to fulfill the dream and the hope of restoring all things in the Kingdom of God.[4] And they found it all just too much to take.

I think that one of the reasons why the Christian faith shifted to hoping for the salvation of “my soul” is because we are like the people of Nazareth—we like the sound of his voice, and his words are pleasing, but what he preaches is just too good to be true. The restoration of all things is a pretty big thing to hope for! And to claim that it’s already going on here and now! It’s just too much for a body to take. I wonder if at least part of the problem is that we have trouble with the word “fulfilled.” We tend to think of “fulfillment” in terms of getting the whole thing right now. But if we think of “fulfillment” in terms of the first glimmer of the light of a new day, or a taste of what is to come, or the beginning of a process, then perhaps we can embrace the hope of Jesus’ words, “today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Good News of Jesus’ ministry is that everything he did was a beginning in the process of restoring all things.[5] It’s the good news of Epiphany—that God’s life, God’s freedom, God’s joy, God’s justice, God’s peace, God’s love are here. [6] What Jesus came to do was nothing short bringing all that to all of us—right here and right now. What that means is that God’s new world is in the process of “emerging” all around us. The good news of Epiphany is that God’s glory—which consists of God’s “boundless freedom, exuberant joy, and inexhaustible love”—is even now filling the whole earth.[7] God’s glory is already shining among us here and now!

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[1] © 2010 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/24/10 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 224, says that Isaiah 61 describes “the concrete form” that “the liberating work of God” would take. As Brevard Childs, Isaiah, 326 points out, this may begin with the restoration of the nation, but it extends to a “covenant relationship with the nations”

[3] Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 205; cf. also Brevard Childs, Isaiah, 325.

[4] Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 188: “God … [is] even now active to restore all that [has] fallen and heal all that [has] become broken.”

[5] Fred Craddock, Luke, 62, points out that Jesus’ first word in his adult ministry according to Luke’s Gospel is “today.”

[6] Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, 117-18: Jesus fulfills the “glory of God” in humanity by drawing them into the love he shares with the Creator and by imparting to them the freedom he enjoys.

[7] Moltmann, God in Creation, 124.

A World Emerging

A World Emerging

Ps. 36; 1 Cor 12:1-11[1]

Sometimes being a Presbyterian who used to be a Baptist can be a pain in the neck. But there are also benefits to having worked in more than one Christian denomination. It does give me a unique perspective on institutional churches—all of them. One of the lessons I’ve learned is that churches of all stripes face similar problems. Denominations from the Methodists to the Baptists to the Presbyterians to the “Christians” all fight some of the same battles. This may come as a shock to you, because I’ve learned that whatever the brand of church, “we” are always the ones who do “it” best. It’s built into the very way in which we describe ourselves. For example, we Presbyterians recognize that other groups are quicker to respond to disasters. But the way we describe what we do is that we’re the ones who stay until the job is done. You get the implication—“we” do “it” best.

This tendency shows up in an interesting way in the fads that come and go—“contemporary” music, for example. The very language implies that it is better than the alternative—after all, nobody wants to be “outdated”! I find this to be true as well with the latest effort to find new ways to do church: the “emerging church.” You may or may not have heard about it. It’s been a movement for at least the last ten years. All over the world, there are groups that identify with the “Emerging Church.” Of course, actually defining what it means to be “emergent” is much harder. Its worship can be very “up to date” or it can be positively ancient. The message can range from straight Bible teaching to “pop psychology” and everything in between. About the only thing they all have in common seems to be their desire to change the structures in which church has operated. If you’re willing to be innovative enough to meet in a coffee shop, or to combine visual arts with the spoken word, or simply to color outside the lines of any and all institutional churches, you can be part of the emerging church.

What I find amusing about those who get so wrapped up in the “Emerging Church” is the fact that they call themselves “emerging.” From my perspective the church has been in the process of “emerging” for a lot longer than just the past ten years. Let me hasten to add that if the church is to be “reformed and always reforming according to the word of God,” there’s nothing inherently wrong with innovation. My problem with is the language they use. For these folks to call their particular innovation in how they do church “emerging” seems to me to imply that the rest of us have missed the boat. If we’re not “emerging” does that mean we’re “regressing”? Or maybe just “stuck in a rut”?

In my understanding of Scripture, I would have to say that the church has been in the process of “emerging” ever since the day of Pentecost! Through all the ebb and flow of history, the church has been constantly and consistently “emerging.” There may have been times when we did a better job of “bearing witness to God’s reign” than others, but to call one particular expression of the Christian faith “the Emerging Church” misses the message of Epiphany—that God is in the process of creating a world that has been “emerging” since the time of Creation, and the Church is a very important part of that new creation.[2]

Epiphany is the season when we celebrate God’s glory revealed to all people. It is the time of year when we celebrate joyfully the good news that the new life we have in Jesus the Christ through the Spirit of God is itself one of the signs of the new world that is emerging. We look forward to the time when God will dwell with all people in such a way as to enable them all to experience all the freedom and joy and love that define God’s very being.[3] Epiphany is the time when we pray fervently, “Let your glory be over all the earth.”

But we should not think that this is something different from God’s original work of creation. The Bible presents all of God’s work as one great, beautiful tapestry.[4] Beginning with the Creation, through all the mighty works of redemption, and continuing to the present day, God has been in the process of producing a wonderful world. As the Psalmist so eloquently puts it in our lesson for today, the skies, the mountains, and the oceans serve as tangible reminders that God’s work is beautiful beyond imagining and God’s determination to finish this beautiful world is unshakable. It is a work in progress—it is in a very real sense always “emerging.” From the very beginning of Creation, what has been “emerging” is a world where all people and all of nature itself are filled with God’s love, God’s freedom, God’s joy, and God’s life.[5]

In a very real sense, this is what the Spirit has been up to in the church—the gifts, the ministries, and the “workings” that the Spirit pours out on and through us (1 Cor. 12:1-11) are all signs of God’s new world that is always emerging all around us. Through all the ebb and flow of history, the church has been and will continue to be “emerging.” It cannot help but continue to emerge because it is a part of God’s new world that has been “emerging.” And it will continue to be “emerging” until the day when God’s glory—God’s love, God’s freedom, God’s joy, God’s very life—fills the whole earth.

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[1] © 2010 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/17/10 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX

[2] This theme runs throughout Scripture. See especially Brevard Childs, Isaiah, 299 where he talks about the importance to the second section of Isaiah of the idea of the “inbreaking of a new age of salvation.”

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, 184; Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 222.

[4] Cf. Gerhard Von Rad, Old Testament Theology II:240 where he summarizes the unity of creation and redemption in the Hebrew Scriptures by saying that in the second section of Isaiah “creation is the first of [Yahweh’s] miraculous historical acts and a remarkable witness to his will to save.” Cf. similarly, Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, 14, where he says that only a God who is Creator and Lord of History “can be imagined powerful enough to bring about the new miraculous deliverance” promised by 2^nd Isaiah.

[5] Cf. Moltmann, Trinity, 124, 178.

Over All the Earth

Over All the Earth

Isa. 43:1-7; Ps 29; Lk. 3:21-22[1]

If you’ve been around me any length of time, you’ve noticed that I open my sermons with the prayer, “Make us to know your ways.” I spent some time last year during Lent looking at what it means for us all to pray that prayer. You may have also noticed that I use another prayer in conjunction with my sermons. Like the opening prayer, the closing prayer I use is taken from the Psalms: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth” (Ps. 57:5, 11). I use that prayer for a very specific reason, one that is closely related to the celebration of Epiphany.

Now, I realize the season of Epiphany is probably one of the most overlooked observances in the Christian calendar, so I’m aware that just by mentioning the word “Epiphany” I risk losing you for the rest of the sermon. But “Epiphany” is an important concept in our faith, even though our use of the word usually means a realization that dawns on us fairly dramatically, or a disclosure that is potentially embarrassing. Neither of those ideas really gets at the meaning of Epiphany for our faith. The essence of our observance of Epiphany is the idea that in Jesus God’s intention to make all things new had its “big debut.”

Epiphany is about the unveiling of what Advent promises: that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk. 3:6); that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (Isaiah 40:5). Of course, that probably makes it about as clear as mud! To say that Epiphany is the season when we celebrate God’s glory revealed to all people runs a double risk of losing your attention. Talking about the “glory of God” with most people these days at best evokes a yawn and at worst a blank stare! So what in the world does it mean to celebrate God’s glory revealed over all the earth?

Let’s start with our lesson from the Psalms for today. Psalm 29 calls the “heavenly beings” to ascribe to God “glory and strength” (Ps. 29:1). I think this may point us toward our first clue. The idea that God’s glory is revealed over all the earth suggests that there will come a time when all people everywhere acknowledge God—as creator and sustainer, as redeemer and liberator, as the one who gives us all new life through God’s abiding presence.[2] It’s the vision that seems to have motivated St. Paul, who looked forward to the day when every tongue would confess “Jesus is Lord” to the glory of God (Phil. 2:10-11).

But that also points us to what I think may be our second clue as to what it means to celebrate God’s glory revealed over all the earth. There is a definite sense in which God’s glory is revealed when people experience and are transformed by God’s great redeeming works. Our lesson from Isaiah for today points us in this direction. The prophet Isaiah had warned the Jewish people that their arrogance and injustice would be their downfall. Into the devastation that engulfed the Jewish exiles in Babylon, the prophet of Isaiah 40-55 took up where his predecessor left off, and promised in the name of the Lord that after exile would come restoration. In our lesson for today, the prophet describes God’s redemptive work in terms of gathering the scattered Jewish people as a sign that their sins had been forgiven and they had been restored. In one verse, the prophet talks about God gathering “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory” (Isa. 43:7). Now in one sense, the point of that is that God would gather and restore the chosen Jewish people. But in another sense, in the context of the book of Isaiah as a whole, it points toward the restoration of all humanity,[3] for there are none who are not “called by God’s name” and “created for God’s glory”!

So the second dimension to celebrating God’s glory revealed over all the earth is the Good news that God intends to gather the “people created for God’s glory,” to renew and restore and liberate all people and all creation. It is the good news that in Jesus God has begun to fulfill what was God’s intention from the very beginning—that all people and indeed all creation might be filled with God’s love, God’s freedom, God’s joy, God’s life.[4]

The glory of God is finally revealed “over all the earth” not in some religious setting but in God’s dwelling with all people in such a way as to enable them all to experience all the freedom and joy and love that define God’s very being.[5] The good news of Epiphany is that in Jesus God has already turned loose that “glory,” that power of liberation, that new life. We may only see glimmers of it now, but for the now the glimmers are enough. One day we will all walk, run, skip, and dance into the full light of God’s new day. Until then, we continue to look forward to it and bear witness to it in joyful faith, praying, “Let your glory be over all the earth.”

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[1] © 2010 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/10/10 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2]Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 197, for this description of the “economic Trinity,” or God’s character as revealed by God’s works.

[3] Cf. Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, 326: he says that this promise is focused on Israel, but it extends to a “covenant relationship with the nations.” Cf. further ibid., 332, 335. Cf. also Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology II:243: “Second Isaiah’s” message in a nutshell is that God is coming not only to reveal himself to Israel but also to reveal his glory to the whole world. Cf. also ibid., 248-49.

[4] This is a theme in Jürgen Moltmann’s theology. He says that when the glory of God is revealed over all the earth, all humankind and all creation will be drawn into “the life stream of the triune God,” where they experience “boundless freedom, exuberant joy, and inexhaustible love,” which is what God intended for creation in the first place. See Moltmann, Trinity, 124, 126, 161, 178, 212, 222. Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, 183-84; Jürgen Moltmann, In the End—The Beginning, 145.

[5] Walter Brueggemann, “Expository Article: Luke 3:1-4,” Interpretation 30 (Oct 1976): 409