God's glory: oceanic.

And we are one with the ground of our being.

Image by Kanenori from Pixabay

Easter 7C - Acts 16:16-34 , Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21, John 17:20-26

“The glory you have given me I have given them…”

When I hear the word “glory” I think of a radiant aura, like a saint’s halo. But the Hebrew word for “glory” means “heavy” or “weighty.”¹ God’s glory has heft. It takes up space. It is too big to get around or shove out of the way. Maybe oceanic.

In first reading, Paul had been arrested, flogged and thrown into prison. When the local authorities learned he was a Roman citizen, they hurried to get him released. Paul said, “not before you apologize to me.” Which they did. They apologized.²

As a Roman citizen, Paul could have relied on privilege. But privilege is animated by things like racism and nativism. Paul was animated by his experience of God in the Risen Christ. He used that heft to keep up his friends’ spirits, save his jailer’s life and then give the officials who had him flogged a chance to reconsider their actions. God’s glory at work in the world.

What Paul did reminded me of the way non-violent resistance was practiced during the Civil Rights Movement. There were white allies, but the real work was done by black Americans whose strength was their confidence in the heft of God’s glory and the dignity of its presence in them. That movement was God’s glory at work in the world.

The work of the Civil Rights Movement is far from being done, but it accomplished alot. It accomplished so much that those in power are now willing to burn the country down rather than live in a society formed by diversity, equity and inclusion.

Jesus’ prayer is that we come to understand the glory that is in us. It is heft and weight and dignity. It is the “I will not be moved” of God. Others will not always honor it, but it is in us.

And the ocean, wave and water . . .

The words of Jesus’ prayer can be a blur. Words aren’t always big enough for the things we want them to carry. Sometimes images can carry more.

Thich Nhat Hahn’s explanation of the Buddhist concept of non-duality or “inter-being” has helped me.

[L]ook at a wave on the surface of the ocean. A wave is a wave… but a wave is, at the same time, water. Water is the ground of being of the wave. It is important that a wave knows that she is water, and not just a wave.

We, too, live our life as an individual. We believe that we have a beginning and an end, and that we are separate from other living beings. That is why the Buddha advised us to look more deeply in order to touch the ground of our being… The wave does not need to look for water. It already is water. We are one with the ground of our being. Once the wave realizes that she is water, all her fear vanishes.³

Peace.

1. “Glory” in Hebrew is “kabowd” (כָּבוֺד, Strong #3519). This Sunday’s gospel reading was written in Greek, but “glory” in Greek (doxa, Strong #1391) simply means “dignity, honor, praise…” as in “doxology.” For another image of God’s glory that is much more than an aura, see Ezekiel 1:1-28.

2. It was illegal under Roman law to flog a Roman citizen. The lectionary passage stops before the Roman officials discovered their error and apologized. Read that part of the story in the extra verses here.

3. Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, (Harmony Books, New York, 2015) at 211.