Sermon: make known your heavenly glory

"Make known your heavenly glory".  That was the collect prayer offered to God a few moments ago on behalf of us all. If you said ‘Amen' was that ‘Amen' your signature on the document of that prayer? It's a good question for all of us: did that request go Godward with my name on it? "Make known your heavenly glory". 

It is easy to use religious language in church as if we exist in a little church bubble, like one of those glass balls with a snow scene inside it. You give it a shake and the snow swirls around and settles again on the same familiar scene of church and snow-laden trees and a snowman. The things we say and do in church seem comfortable, they sound right, they fit together, but they can so easily be left behind in the church building with the hymn books, the music and the architecture. Church can be a closed world, like the snow scene, shaken and settling reassuringly for another week.

Can we really worship God this morning without carrying on our hearts the plight of the people of Haiti? There is a note in our pew leaflet about an appeal for financial help, and we shall be praying for all those caught up in this disaster. Of course this is just the most immediate and recent of all those disasters and pains which afflict the human race and the world in general. At times like these perhaps we hear the voices of those who find belief in God difficult asking how we can talk of God revealing his heavenly glory in the face of such undeserved suffering, waste and loss? It is almost always wrong to try to explain away such suffering: the proper response is to sit with such pain until we feel it ourselves deeply enough to stand a chance of being changed by it. Is that one of the messages of the incarnation, that even Almighty God has to share the pain before he can change it? To be changed by entering into the plight of others gives us a chance of being able to offer some comfort and real support - and perhaps also to learn the lessons at a level that will motivate us to change what needs to be changed. Is an earthquake God's fault? Is something wrong with what he made and called good? Or is trouble part of the ordinary warp and weft of ‘things'? Is the greatest problem that human beings who are skilled enough to put men on the moon are not motivated enough to use the same resourcefulness to protect people from the consequences of earthquakes? What we see in Haiti asks serious questions of us, as all suffering does. It might also make us even more inclined to add our signature to that prayer to God for a great putting right, "Make known your heavenly glory". 

We are told in today's gospel that Jesus made known his glory in the wedding at Cana in Galilee. Thank God that besides much trouble in the world there is also love, beauty and joy. This very familiar gospel reading is often used at weddings, for obvious reasons, and when I was a parish priest I used to enjoy telling wedding congregations who were looking very ill at ease in church that, contrary to popular impressions, the religion of Jesus has nothing to do with being a kill-joy. When the wine ran out Jesus did not say "and a good thing too" (nor did his mother, as my son points out); he turned water into wine so that the party could continue. Whatever you think of what this sign-story means in John's gospel there is no doubting its joyous, life-affirming, astonishing graciousness. As far as what the story means is concerned let me give you the words of Bishop Lightfoot, one of the great Bishops of this Diocese: "It sets forth, for him who is willing so to read it, the relation of the old order and the new, of the Law and of the Gospel.... The Jewish dispensation, here represented by water, is now through the word and work of the Lord to be superseded by and transformed into the wine of the Gospel, which alone can satisfy men's need." And Lightfoot points out that here with wine shortage, and later when the 5,000 need bread, Jesus does not go out to buy fresh stocks; in the bishop's slightly disdainful words, "he does not have recourse to the methods of the market place". The point is that neither religion nor money is the answer; there is only the attuned expectancy of Jesus' mother bringing the problem to Jesus, and the glory which is revealed when he is trusted. "He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him." And with that concluding comment to this story John brings us to the heart of the matter.

For all that this is the glory of heaven it is not perceived by everyone. There is a connection between the perception of the glory and being a disciple. Another great Bishop, William Temple says, "The ruler of the feast did not know the origin of the wine which he praised. The servants knew and, doubtless, wondered. But only to his disciples was the glory manifest; and they believed on him. They are first called disciples at the beginning of this narrative; and by that name they are designated throughout this gospel. It is as learners that we are to think of them, and to take our place amongst them". The implication is twofold: first, it is to disciples that the glory is revealed; and second, that glory is to be revealed in the world through those who are disciples. And here I want to invoke yet another great bishop of Durham, of York and of Canterbury, our beloved Michael Ramsey. Archbishop Ramsey, in his book ‘The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ' says this "amid the stubborn and unbelieving world there is the Church of God...By the mission of the Church the judgement and the glory are made known to mankind, and the world can take its choice". Startling and challenging words. Is the mission of the Church revealing the glory? Can the church, and we as members of the church, stay close enough to the learning vocation of disciples, so that we both perceive the glory and can make the glory known to others as they too become disciples? If we have to make it clear to others is it clear in us? Can we imitate the wisdom and faith of Mary, in John's story, who brings to the attention of Jesus the emptiness of the old, and then hovers expectantly? The glory is not yet self-evident. To disciples it is like the difference between water that can never wash clean and the best wine that gives joy to the heart and to the community, but is that glorious truth made known in us? Of course, there is a sense in which God is never limited and he takes his purposes forward in the world in whatever ways please him, and we often struggle to catch up. We can never contain or constrain God. But that prayer in today's collect, "make known your heavenly glory", is only one half of the package. The complete phrase is this: "in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory".  The glory is to be seen within the context of our discipleship and our transformation. If we are to be the place where God's glory becomes apparent or not in the world, as Michael Ramsey suggests, we have to be transformed and renewed ourselves.

So, our prayer within the liturgy "make known your heavenly glory" may bounce back to us, if Ramsey is right, something like this: ‘No, you make it known!' And with that challenge we realise how much we need to be whole-hearted disciples; how much change has to happen in our lives if we are to become like Mary, bringing our emptiness expectantly. As we face up to our own need and the need of Haiti and of the world can we pray the fuller form of the prayer and sign it with a bold, Amen: "in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory".