Sermons

Sunday 5th January 2014, Epiphany, evening

John 2:1-11

by Revd Chris Palmer

Some years ago there was a diocesan conference with the title ‘Rumours of Glory’. One of the keynote speakers was Paula Gooder, and she commented that the title was strange: rumours are what you hear, she said, but glory is something you see. I thought this was slightly unfair, as ‘glory’ is used in the bible, as with us, to mean ‘reputation’, which is something you usually hear about.

Nonetheless, overall it was a good point. And in John’s Gospel glory makes its first appearance as something we see. In the Gospel reading often read at Christmas it says, ‘we have seen his glory, glory as of a father’s only son.’ (John 1:14)

The next time glory crops up in John is in today’s Gospel of the wedding at Cana: ‘Jesus did this the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory.’ (John 2:11) The Church of England seems addicted to this passage during Epiphany – it comes in each year of the morning lectionary, as well as tonight, and at various midweek services. And the reason for this is this idea that Jesus reveals God's glory. Epiphany means revelation or manifestation - the glory of God is revealed in the humanity of Jesus.

Glory is important throughout John’s Gospel. Jesus receives glory from the Father; Jesus glorifies the father; Jesus doesn’t seek to glorify himself, but the father glorifies him. And as the Gospel goes through we come to realise that the moment of truest glory is when Jesus is lifted high on the cross to suffer and die.

We immediately see that the glory of Jesus is not a glory perceptible to ordinary vision. We imagine that earthy vision is somehow ‘objective’ – even though scientists have been telling us that all ways of the looking at the universe are relative and philosophers have been telling us that all perspectives on truth are subjective. What does glory look like? Like A list celebrities, pages of Hello Magazine, winning an election, driving this or that car? Lots of people seem to think so.

It’s not difficult to perceive that this is false glory. It’s like fools gold: it sparkles, but doesn’t stand the acid test. But even if we pride ourselves on escaping this crass version of glory, there’s a good chance that our alternatives are just more subtle versions of promoting status or judging worth in worldly ways.

St Irenaeus, 1700 years ago, gave us a famous saying about true glory: ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive’. A human being fully alive: this is what St John shows us in Jesus. The incarnate Lord is the truly human one, a human being 'fully alive'. And true humanity is pursuing whatever deepens our relationship with God, what leads to God’s life deepening within us at every moment. This the choice to be a human being fully is the way of Jesus.

There is an irony in this, of course: choosing to be fully alive leads Jesus to death and the cross. And yet that is the moment of his glory precisely because it is the outworking of his conscious choice to be truly human. The resurrection reveals God’s perspective on Jesus’ choice; it shows that his chosen path is to be fully alive, to blaze with glory.

But, as I said, this glory can be seen only from God's perspective. That is what faith is, to see the world as God sees it. St John tells us that the disciples achieved this: ‘Jesus... revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.’ (John 2:11) To believe is, among other things, to share God's utterly different perspective on what counts as success or glory in the world. We see this spelled out time and again in the New Testament. In the beatitudes it is the poor, those who hunger and thirst, those persecuted who are blessed – ‘well off’ – in God’s sight. Or St Paul, reflecting on the cross, tells us that God’s wisdom is the world’s foolishness. Or the parable of the sheep and the goats tells us that our king is present in the hungry and naked and imprisoned of the world. I’m sure we could think of other examples too.

This all calls us to actively desire to see the world from God’s perspective. This viewpoint is so utterly different from the ambitions, priorities, and judgements that the world, media, colleagues ask us to cling to every moment of every day. But God’s perspective has the power to bring us consolation, joy in God’s presence, even in extreme circumstances. And God’s perspective shows us that when we feel far from God we should renew our resolve to seek God, believing he is still close.

Seeing in God’s perspective is not only about how we see the world but also how we see ourselves. One of my favourite ways of praying the examen – the prayer in which I review my day – is to imagine that God is looking at me. What did God see in my day? When was God delighted? When did God experience displeasure? This is an exercise in active imagination, one in which I seek God’s grace to be present in my fantasy and imagination so as to gain some deeper perspective on my life. With God’s grace I am able to escape both the grandiosity of ‘vain glory’ and the despair of failing to see the true glory of my creation. I discover that the belief that I am love and valued and cherished by God goes perfectly well with the belief that I fail and make mistakes and still need to learn lots.

It may seem ironic, but this is actually seeing God: seeing God seeing me. That quotation from Ireneus finishes like this: ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive, and the life of humanity is the vision of God.’ The vision of God is to see the truest glory. It is a gift of grace, because our natural sight – even our natural spiritual sight – is simply blinded by the sheer brilliance of God. But in seeing with God’s sight, seeing glory in the baby in a manger, seeing glory in the peasant from Nazareth, seeing glory in the convict on a cross, we are able to see the glory that transfigures all being and draws us to wonder and worship.