What is
it to be glorious? I ask, because I don’t think we use that word
a lot. Words we use to say that
something’s very good tend to suffer deflation over their history and new words
need to be coined. Something can be
awesome without actually causing anyone much awe anymore, or brilliant without
really make much of anything shine, or amazing without anyone being all that
amazed. But, glorious, that word seems to have kept a mystique, a value all of
its own. Our gospel tells us that at the
end of time, the Son of Man will come in his glory, that he will be glorious,
but we kind of have to hunt through the text to find what glory really means.
The
first thing that might strike is what he is arrayed with. He has a throne, he reigns, the Prince of
Peace will reign, but that’s where he sits, that’s under him. Arrayed around him, we don’t find
descriptions of precious metals or fine jewels or lavish garments, which so
many other scripture texts are more than happy to use as symbols of glory. No, we find the angels and the saints. We find, we hope, us. Christ’s glory is manifest in his being
surrounded by humanity. “All the nations
are assembled around him,” gathered around him.
God gathers us around Christ. As
we heard from Ezekiel, God rescues us from our scatteredness and gathers us,
tends us, shepherds us. God gathers us
around Christ and that reveals his glory. It’s one of my favorite parts of the
Eucharistic Prayer, when the priest exclaims to God, “You never cease to gather
a people to yourself!” It was St. Irenaeus who said that “the glory of God is
humanity fully alive,” and gathered around Christ we discover what it means to
live fully, to live gloriously, we discover how wonderfully and fearfully made
we are, that we might be the jewels in Christ’s crown, the revelation of his
glory.
We
discover that about ourselves, and we discover that about our neighbor,
including, especially, the neighbor
who seems rather inglorious, who we’d rather look past. Because our gospel tells us something else
about Christ’s glory. That our glorious
Lord and King, judge of the universe, is truly present in the hungry, in the
thirsty, the prisoner, the migrant, the refugee, the sick, physically, mentally
and spiritually, and in the homeless.
How can that be glorious? It’s
glorious because Christ does not hunger in vain. Christ hungers for us. I don’t mean that in a way that spiritualizes
away or romanticizes hunger. Christ knew
hunger in his earthly life, really, bodily, physical hunger that gnawed at him,
just like the 14% of American households that scrape by in food
insecurity. And he did that for our
sake, for love of us. And while he is
risen and ascended, praying for us forever at the right hand of the father, he
remains God-with-us, Emmanuel. He
remains in the hungry. Christ hungers
for our sake, and at the same time, Christ hungers for us. Christ thirsts for us, Christ is imprisoned
for us, Christ is cast out for us, Christ loses his clothing and shelter for
us, Christ is sick for us. The greatest
glory of Christ is his willingness to suffer for us.
Christ
desires us and in the bodies of those who go without that desire cries out to
us. In the pang of a starving stomach,
we encounter Christ’s tender plea for us to take our place in his body. And
when we dare feed, we find ourselves enveloped by his glorious presence. In the tears of an economic refugee labeled
illegal, we encounter Christ’s own lament when we refuse to make room for him
in our hearts. And when we welcome the
stranger, we return that embrace and find we’re clinging to our Lord. We can do
these things. We can reach out to embrace and be embraced by our loving Lord.
Or we can choose not to. And God respects our choice. What we can’t do is claim
to be following Christ and then constantly turn our back on him in the poor.
I read a
pen sketch of heaven and hell this week.
Both are identically furnished: a lavish banquet is spread, cups
overflowing, plates piled high. Both
have people seated at table. In both,
the people’s arms are affixed to splints, meaning they can’t bend their
elbows. In Hell, the people weep,
because they can’t feed themselves. In
Heaven, they rejoice, because they can feed each other.
God
never fails to provide the banquet.
Christ hungers for us. Let us
join him, and feast.
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