190331 Sermon on John 6:1-15 [Galatians 4:21-31] (Lent 4) March 31, 2019 With both the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000 Jesus commands his disciples to give the thousands of people gathered together something to eat.  I think it is important for us to consider what this must have been like for the disciples.  Jesus asked them to do something that was impossible for them to do.  The disciples are quite right when they said to him that the better part of a year’s wages wouldn’t be enough to buy the amount required just to give each of them a little snack.  We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars here in today’s money.  Suppose I told you to feed just this congregation that is gathered together this morning.  Let’s pretend the kitchen is off limits.  All that’s available is what you have with you right now as you sit in the pew.  “Feed them,” I say.  What are you going to do?  There’s nothing that can be done.  You don’t have any food.  How are you supposed to feed people without any food?  This is what the disciples say to Jesus.  He must have been insistent though.  “I don’t care that you don’t have any food.  Feed them!”I think this is the atmosphere within which you have to understand Andrew’s answer to Jesus.  This is an answer of desperation.  It should really just be rejected out of hand as silly.  He says, “There’s a boy here who has five loaves of bread and two fish.”  That is like one of you answering my demands to feed us all by saying, “I have half a thing of tic-tacs.”  What are we supposed to make a meal out of tic-tacs?  Each person gets one tic-tac and that’s the meal?  That is about how far five loaves of bread and two fish would go among 5,000 men.  Five loaves of bread among five thousand people means that a thousand people have to share one loaf.  Fifty people would have to split up one slice.  If you split up a slice of bread into fifty pieces you are going to end up with a tic-tac sized piece of bread.  I don’t even want to think about splitting up two fish into 5,000 pieces.  That would be their meal.  And so I want you to see that Andrew’s answer was stupid.  It was an insult to our reason. But you know how the story goes.  Jesus takes the food at hand, gives thanks, and gives it to the people.  I think we would all like to know what that looked like.  How was it that there was more bread and fish than what they started with?  One way that it is possible to make sense of what Jesus did with our reason is that the itsy bitsy pieces of food were given out but they were miraculously satisfying and filling.  But that can’t be the case because of the many baskets of leftovers that were gathered afterwards.  Somehow there ended up being a great deal more bread than what they started out with.There have been some rationalists who have tried their hand at interpreting what is going on here.  Rationalists do not think that anything supernatural is possible, and so all miracles have to be explained away.  What they say here is that the people were spurred on by the boy’s example of generosity to pull out the loaves of bread they all had hidden in their luggage to share with one another.  This is the kind of interpretation you will get from a mainline protestant church these days.  But this interpretation also must be ruled out by the reports from the Evangelists.  The people knew exactly who it was who gave them their fill of bread and fish.  They thought this Jesus was an alright guy.  In fact, they liked him so much that they were ready to march on Jerusalem and make him king.We are left in the dark as to the mechanics of how Jesus made the five loaves and two fish feed so many people.  All that we are told is that he did.  He started out with this much.  They ended up

190329 Funeral Sermon for Mary Lou Block, March 29,2019 A domesticated animal is an animal that is no longer wild.  You can put domesticated animals in a pen or in a fence and they are pretty much going to stay there.  A person is able to control a domesticated animal.  A wild animal is not like that.  It does whatever it wants.  You can’t control it.We have a tendency to domesticate animals; we also have a tendency to try to domesticate God.  The stuff that gets done in churches can give this impression.  We tend to do the same things over and over again.  Routines make it seem like we are the ones in control.  Like a dairyman milks his cows for his own benefit, so also it can seem as though we in our churches milk God and use him for our own benefit.  Some people like to drink milk, others don’t—some people have more use for a dairyman than others.  That is similar with how churches are thought about.  Some people like the God talk, others do not.  And so it is not surprising that most folks say, “To each their own.  If that’s the way you want to spend your time, then fine, but I don’t have to if I don’t want to.”If we were lords and masters, and if God were a cow to be milked, then I suppose there would be nothing wrong with this picture, but that’s not the way that things are.  We have not domesticated God.  We are not in control of him.  God is going to do what he wants whether you like it or not.This is something that is brought out very forcefully in our readings today.  Something unheard of is going to happen in a very short time.  There will be a resurrection from the dead.  This resurrection will be for a purpose as you heard Jesus say, “Those who have done good will be resurrected to life.  Those who have done evil will be resurrected to judgment.”  It doesn’t matter one bit what you think of this idea, because you are not the one who is in control.  God is in control, and he is going to do it, whether you like it or not.And so you must get it out of your head that God is someone you can use, however that might be, to suit your own purposes.  It is also good for you to realize that what we are engaged in here today at this funeral and burial are not routine.  Stupendous matters are laid out before us here today.  Mary Lou’s course of life in this world is done.  We are placing her body into ground.  “The time is coming,” Jesus says in our Gospel reading, “when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and be resurrected.”  Mary Lou will hear this voice and she will come out of this very casket with her glorified body.Unbelief and hardness of heart wants to tamp all this down and say, “Oh no, nothing so nearly as exciting (or perhaps frightening) is taking place today.  This is all totally routine.  This is just yet another person who has died.  She’s not the first and she won’t be the last.”  Those who do not believe want to hold on to their delusion that they are in control and everything is well in hand.  Amazingly, believing this and living this way works pretty good for the time being.  These folks are cool, calm, and collected.  The problem, though, is that it isn’t true.  It’s like playing pretend or make-believe: “Let’s pretend that God won’t resurrect us or judge us and that we can make whatever we want of our own life.”I can’t make anybody stop doing this kind of thing.  All I can say is that it is just wishful thinking, and will prove itself to be untrue when the time comes.  If you won’t believe my warning, then there’s nothing that can be done for you.  But perhaps I can also alleviate your fears by telling you more about this God who is in control, so that you can know what he is like.  We naturally think that only those things that we are able to control are safe, because if something is outside

190324 Sermon on Ephesians 5:1-9 (Lent 3) March 24, 2019 The first case of church discipline after Pentecost was with a husband and wife named Ananias and Sapphira.  For an offering they sold some of their property.  But when Ananias presented it to the apostles he kept back a portion of what he had sold.  St. Peter responded: “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?  It was your property.  You could have done with it what you wished.  You have lied not to men but to God.”  When Ananias heard these words he fell down and breathed his last.  The men wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him.About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.  St. Peter asked her, “Tell me whether you have sold the land for so and so much?”  And she said, “Yes, for so and so much.”  Then St. Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Holy Spirit?  Look, the feet of those who have already buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out too.”  And immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last.  The young men took her out also and buried her.  Understandably, great fear fell upon the whole church as well as those who were thinking about joining the church.  Those who were merely curious stayed away, but St. Luke says that the Word of the Lord grew tremendously nonetheless.In this first case of church discipline we see that it was the Lord himself who carried out the punishment.  The couple were not just excommunicated from the congregation, but from the land of the living.  We should see here that making offerings to the Lord is not some trifling matter.  If someone wants to trifle with their offerings, then they would be better off not giving them at all.  That is what St. Peter said to this couple.  The money was theirs to do with what they wanted.  Nobody forced them to give anything.  But in their keeping some of the proceeds back and then lying about it, they had offended God so much that he punished them with death.This strikes everyone, I think, as being overly harsh.  Lying and covetousness were Ananias’ and Sapphira’s sins.  Those rank pretty low on the natural man’s list of sins.  In fact, they are so low that they often aren’t regarded as sins at all.  Folks will even go so far as to praise lying and coveting as being shrewd.  When you understand the ineptitude of the natural man when it comes to understanding God, then it’s not surprising that what is honorable among men is an abomination before God, and that what is good in God’s sight is seen as worthless in Man’s eyes.  Since our natural understanding is so abysmal in the matters of lying and covetousness, it is good for us to spend some time in looking more closely at these sins.There is a common denominator that ties together lying and covetousness: self-interest or self-love.  The reason why people lie or are greedy is because they think that they will be blessed with success by doing so.  Ananias and Sapphira thought that they would have a happier life if they did not give away all the proceeds from their sale.  Perhaps they didn’t want to appear stingy in the eyes of their fellow congregants and so they decided to lie and say that they gave all of it away.  Who, after all, wants to appear to be a skin-flint or a miser?  And so it was their looking after themselves that drove their actions.What, then, is the alternative?  The Bible has a lot to say about this.  Jesus says “Do not worry about what you will eat, drink, or wear.  Look at the birds and the flowers and how God takes care of them.  You are more valuable than birds and flowers.  Won’t he take care of you?  Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousne

190317 Sermon on Genesis 32:22-32 (Lent 2) March 17, 2019 I’d like to begin today by setting up the background to our Old Testament reading about Jacob wrestling with the mysterious Man.  Jacob was the grandson of Abraham.  Abraham was the man God chose from among all others to be his own.  God promised to bless him and his offspring.  They would be fruitful and multiply.  They would possess the land of Canaan.  The Messiah would come from among his sons.  This promise was passed down to Abraham’s and Sarah’s only son Isaac.  Isaac and his wife Rebecca were given twin boys by God, Esau and Jacob.  Esau was born first, Jacob came right after, grasping his heel.Normally Isaac’s blessing would fall upon Esau since he was the firstborn.  But a couple things intervened to make that not so.  First of all, one time Esau came into the house extremely hungry and Jacob had made some food.  Esau evidently cared so little for God’s promises that he agreed to give them to Jacob, if only Jacob would give him his food.  Second, later, Jacob and Rebecca his mother tricked his father Isaac into giving him the blessing by dressing up and acting like Esau.  And so it happened that Isaac as a blind old man blessed his second son Jacob instead of his firstborn Esau—the one he preferred of the two.As you might imagine, Esau was extremely displeased to hear that his birthright had been stolen away from him by his brother Jacob.  Esau was also nobody to mess with.  He was a ferocious opponent.  And so Jacob’s mother sent Jacob away to Laban her brother.  God was good to Jacob.  He gave him his two wives Leah and Rachel.  God gave him many children.  God also blessed both Laban and Jacob with wealth.  Jacob ended up living and working together with Laban for twenty years.Eventually, though, God told Jacob that he should return to the land that God had promised to give him and his descendants.  But to do that Jacob would need to leave his father-in-law and business partner.  Jealousy, like it so often does, had degraded the relationship that Jacob had with Laban.  Laban thought that Jacob had become successful at his own expense.  And so not long before the time of our reading this morning Jacob left Laban’s country secretly and when Laban found out about it, he was hot on his tracks.Soon Laban caught up with Jacob.  Jacob and all his household were worried about what might happen, but God had intervened with Laban.  He had told him that he was to leave Jacob alone and let him keep his property.  And so Jacob and Laban established a boundary between them.  Laban would not continue to pursue his son-in-law and his daughters.Jacob then sent messengers to his brother Esau because he was now moving closer to the territory of where Esau lived.  The message he sent to his brother was that God had richly blessed him and he was intending to give Esau a goodly share of his bounty.  He was telling his brother that gifts were on the way.But when the messengers returned to Jacob they did not have the reply that Jacob was hoping for.  Jacob had hoped that Esau would be satisfied with the promise of gifts and stay where he was at.  But what had happened is that Esau gathered four hundred men and they were on their way to meet Jacob.  Jacob thought that Esau was still angry for having stolen his birthright, and that now he was coming to kill him, his wives, his children, and his servants.  Jacob’s desperation can be seen in his subsequent plans.  He splits his family and servants into two groups.  His hope was that if Esau attacked they would stay busy slaughtering the one half, while the other might have time to get away.  Think of the frame of mind that is necessary to come up with that plan and carry it out.This brings us to our Old Testament reading today.  Jacob ha

190310 Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11 (Lent 1) March 10, 2019 Temptation is tricky business.  It’s tricky because the devil is tricky.  He is a liar and the father of lies.  The trouble with lies is that they can become so believable.  The devil is very good at lying, and we aren’t very good at sorting them out.  Who can know the heart of Man?  The evilness of it is beyond our comprehension.  And so the devil’s lies find a ready reception in our heart.  So far as our Old Adam is concerned, we vastly prefer his lies to God’s truth.Compounding the trouble of temptation’s trickiness is time and change.  Perhaps if we were only tempted once, and the temptation would go away, then we would have more success at it.  But the devil and his demons are persistent.  If we do not fall today, then it might be tomorrow.  Today they try this, tomorrow they try that.  And then they go back to this again.  We’re thrown off balance.  Pressures increase.  Release is desired.  It is as the hymn writer puts it: “I walk in danger all the way.”We are given some help in this dangerous, difficult, and tricky business by the example of our Lord Jesus recorded for us in our Gospel reading today.  Jesus is tempted three times in three different ways.  There is a similarity in his response to each temptation.  He quotes Scripture all three times.  He also focuses his attention on God all three times.  The devil would like him to think of other things instead of waiting upon God.  In the first temptation he would like Jesus to focus on his hunger.  In the second he’d like Jesus to focus on an idea, on a bit of theology.  In the third he’d like Jesus to focus on the glory being offered to him.  All three times Jesus turns the mind’s eye away from these things to God and his Word—his will and his promises.  But today instead of dealing with all three temptations, I’d like to look closely only at the first temptation.  The first temptation is the devil’s suggestion that Jesus should satisfy his hunger by turning stones into bread.  What is going on here?  Some Christians have thought that the devil is trying to taunt Jesus like, “I bet you can’t do that.”  This would be asking Jesus to use his divine power in a superfluous and unbecoming way.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with this interpretation, but I don’t think it really gets to the heart of the issue.What is at the base of this temptation is a desire.  Jesus is hungry.  That’s one desire people might have.  There are many others.  We desire comfort.  We desire health.  We have sexual desires.  Fulfilling these desires gives us pleasure.  Having these desires and being given pleasure are not sinful.  God himself built these desires into us as his creatures.  The trouble is that we are predisposed to treat these things as though they are the ultimate purpose in life.  What is life all about?  What are we doing here?  How should we live?  A very common answer to these kinds of questions is that we are supposed to enjoy life.  We should live for pleasure.  We should live for loaves of bread.  We should live for the weekend where we can live only for ourselves.Having pleasure as your goal in life will inevitably bring about specific sins that are too numerous to list them all—I’ll only mention a few.  It will promote lust and perversion.  Why deny urges if they give you pleasure?  It will promote greed and stinginess—if you give all your money away, then what will be left for you to enjoy?  It will even bring about murder.  Why do most murders happen?  Is it not because someone has gotten in the way of somebody else’s pursuit of pleasure?  This can even lead to the murder of one’s self in suicide.  When pleasure is gone, when

190306 Sermon on Joel 2:12-19 (Ash Wednesday) March 6, 2019

190303 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 (Quinquagesima) March 3, 2019 Love is the highest of all possible things.  Love is the content of God’s Law.  There are a couple Bible passages that we might mention in this regard.  When Jesus as asked what is the greatest commandment he said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Loving God and loving your neighbor are the highest things.  St. Paul is saying the same thing when he says “All of the commandments are summed up in the word ‘love.’” And “’Love’ is the fulfilling of the Law.”Knowing what God’s Law says is a great gift and privilege.  It is the most important knowledge there is.  Perhaps it is only because it is so readily accessible that it is despised the way that it is.  If God had hidden what his will for us was—the way that he wanted life to be ordered—no doubt folks would crave this knowledge and savor it once they had learned it.  But since all you need to do is to open your Bible to know what God’s will is, it is despised.  But that is inexcusable.  Who do you think you are?  Are you not a creature?  Is God not your Creator?  Then knowing God’s will that he has revealed to us is not some optional thing.  It is something that we are to meditate upon day and night.  Assuming that we are believers and are going to heaven, we will be students of God’s Law forever, the content of which is love.What is love?  What does it mean?  Since we use that word so much, we might think that we know what it means.  But that would be a mistake.  The way that the word “love” is used by the natural Man, the way that it is used by the person who is fallen into sin, is always going to be bound up with selfishness and personal advantage.  When we sinners speak of love we are talking about the way that other people or other things are beneficial or rewarding to us.  We do not love just for love’s sake.  We love because something is good for us.Maybe a picture might make this clearer.  Think of breathing.  You breathe in.  You breathe out.  We breathe in the goodness that we find around us.  Our love is the response to these good things.  If we get a favor from someone, then we are likely to give a favor in response.  If we receive affection from someone, then we are likely to give affection in response.  When you hear about love in movies or music, this is always the kind of thing that is going on.  It is because of mutual and reciprocal affection that love is spoken about as being present.  But what happens when that affection starts to dry up?  What happens then?  Unfortunately this cold and loveless world has no better advice than that we should move on to someone else who hold better prospects of providing us with affection.That is what the world means when it speaks about love.  What is real love—the kind of love that God speaks of as being his will for us?  Instead of love being a breathing in and a breathing out, real love is a breathing out continually.  It one big, long, exhale, filled with goodness and kindness and truthfulness and patience.  Love is giving and giving and giving and giving some more—not just to those who deserve it, but to whomever it might be that God puts into our path.  One big, long exhale—to whomever it might be who’s there.But you might say, “Pastor, that’s not how breathing works!”  I’m glad you noticed that.  True, divine, Christian love is a miracle.  It is something that only God can do and give.  It is a gift God gives to those whom he has chosen for salvation.  It is the reversal of what happened with the fall into sin.  At the time of the fall we lost God’s image.  We quit loving and became slaves

190224 Sermon on Luke 8:4-15 (Sexagesima) February 24, 2019 On the night when Jesus was betrayed he was arrested and brought to the chief priest’s house.  St. Peter followed at a distance and when Jesus entered the house, Peter stood in the courtyard, warming himself by a charcoal fire.  While he was standing there someone recognized him as being one of Jesus’s disciples.  And so she asked him, “Aren’t you one of Jesus’s disciples?”  And he said, “No.”  Then he was asked again, “You are one of Jesus’s disciples though, aren’t you?”  And again he said, “No.”  Finally they said, “But I can tell from your accent that you are a Galilean, you must be one of Jesus’s disciples.”  Then Peter swore, saying, “I do not know the man.”  Peter had talked big about sticking with Jesus, come what may, but after Jesus was arrested, fear seized him.  He did not also want to be arrested and killed and so he cursed, swore, lied, and deceived in God’s name that he had nothing to do with Jesus.  Prior to this he had certainly believed.  In fact his fervent love for Jesus is clearly evident.  But now in the courtyard he is an unbeliever.This goes to show that nobody is safe because of some imagined strength in the individual.  If anyone should have had the ability to retain his faith, then it should have been Peter.  He had been bold and courageous and all the other apostles looked up to him.  But he lost his faith here in the courtyard.  Likewise this can happen to anyone of us, and frankly it does happen.  None of us are safe until we close our eyes in death with the word of “Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner,” on our lips.  The forces against us and our Christian faith are strong and no joking matter.  The only real history that counts is not about politics or progress or the other things you might find in history textbooks.  The only history that counts is the way that the Word of God has fared among certain peoples, families, and individuals, and this history is full of people who once believed, but in one way or another lost their faith.  Something happens along the way, just as we hear about Peter’s fall, and Christ is no longer confessed.  Without faith in Christ the forgiveness of sins is not received.  If such people are not converted again, then upon their death they will receive the just punishment for their sins in hell.This extremely grave and serious matter is what Jesus takes up with his parable today.  Because we are familiar with this teaching we easily become complacent.  We know how the parable works and so we imagine that we understand it.  But we must realize that eternal lives are at stake.  This parable deals with the decisive factor of history sifting all people and every individual: What happens when people hear the Word of God?  Some believe.  Some don’t.  Some believe for a while, then fall away.  Some believe, but then the cares, riches, and pleasures of life choke it out.  Then there are some who endure and produce fruit.  The Holy Spirit rules their hearts and minds so that they are enabled constantly to serve God.  Jesus Christ becomes a living fountain in them, bubbling up more and more, unto eternal life.  At the end of the history of this old world, there will be a story about each and every one of us.  The story of our earthly life will consist of stumbling, falling, and (God willing) getting back up again.  The reason why Jesus tells us this parable today is so that we can become wise, fear God, and be warned and strengthened for the battle of the Word of God for possession of our soul that lies ahead for each of us.  Opposed to the Word of God are the devil, the world, and even, mysteriously, our very own sinful flesh.  Jesus’s parable is about the fight that takes place in a person’s soul between good and evil.And

190217 Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16 (Septuagesima), February 17, 2019 “What’s in it for me?”  That is a question that comes oh-so-naturally to us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.  “What’s in it for me?”  Sinful human beings are somewhat willing to sacrifice, work, and suffer, but only if there is a handsome payoff for all of that at the end.  If there isn’t a payoff, or the payoff isn’t as big as we want it to be, then good luck getting someone to sacrifice, work, or suffer.  The only other way that the sinner is going to be impelled to work in that case is by fear.  Every kid knows what it’s like to be put to work on the basis of fear.  Mom or Dad or both are going to make my life miserable if I don’t do what they told me to do, and so I will do it.  How does it feel to work under those conditions?  Don’t they just hate doing it, and can’t wait to be done with it?  That’s because the only thing that we sons of Adam and daughters of Eve care about is what’s in it for us.  If we can avoid pain or be handsomely rewarded with money or glory or praise or self-esteem or some other payoff, then we might do something unpleasant.  Otherwise, it’s “no thank you.”Suppose God thought the way that we do.  What’s in it for him with all the things that he does every moment in sustaining the universe?  The answer is nothing.  He isn’t benefited in any way.  But he is not slavish like us.  He is free.  He has his head up looking around.  He gives and gives and gives and gives.  He does this in spite of the way that he is paid back.  If he only did good to those who do him good, then even the very best and pious Christians would find that they have no help or comfort from God because they wouldn’t deserve it.  And what of those who are less than the best—are disobedient, unbelieving, unthankful?  If they were paid tit for tat they would have no happiness and only misery.  Life would be hell for them.  But God is patient and long suffering, desiring that his goodness might bring us to repentance.  He loads up even those who hate him with all kinds of good things.  God is love.  He is not motivated by what is in it for him.  He suffers so that we are benefitted.There are a couple of Jesus’s parables that throw a spotlight on this difference between God who loves and we who don’t.  These parables are the one we find perplexing, because our Old Adam can’t understand them at all.  Our Gospel reading this morning is one of them.  There’s something that doesn’t sit quite right with us in the way that these workers are treated.  Some are hired at 6 o’clock in the morning.  Some are hired at 9:00.  Some are hired at noon and at 3:00.  Finally, some are hired at 5:00, one hour before quitting time.  You know how work is.  It takes you a little bit to get in the swing of things, and then at the end of the day you need to pick things up.  This doesn’t allow these last workers to get hardly any work done.  And yet they receive the same amount of money as the people who have been working all day long.What gives?  Guess what happened the next day when the master of the house went strolling through the marketplace looking for workers?  If word got out what was going on he probably wouldn’t find anybody until 5:00.  Then he would have a busload of workers.  Why?  Because we are driven by the thought: “What’s in it for me?”  If I can get paid the same for working one hour or twelve hours, I think I’ll choose the one hour option.But this is only because we don’t care about anybody else except ourselves.  This is proof that those workers don’t give a rip about the master of the house who hired them or the work that he might need to have done.  They wouldn’t care that they aren’t contributing anything, but only taking, so long as

190210 Sermon on Matthew 17:1-9 (Transfiguration), February 10, 2019 Glory is something that is very important and yet it is something that is hard to understand.  What is glory?  We’ll get to God’s glory, but let’s start with glory among us.  Glory is when a person is set apart and made praiseworthy because of something about them.  An athlete achieves glory and is given praise when he or she is better than the rest of the competitors.  The scholar achieves glory and is given praise when a scholarship or award is given.  A rich person is glorious in the display of treasures that sets him or her apart from those who can’t afford such things.  Glory makes a person different and praiseworthy.What is the glory, then, that God has?  He is set apart and different.  He is worthy of praise.  He is the most powerful.  He is wisest.  All wealth does not really belong to any person, because each will die and it will go to somebody else.  God alone possesses it all.  This makes him glorious, set apart, and worthy of all praise because nothing is good except him.What effect does glory have on the person who is beholding it?  Again, we might see this better if we first consider the glory of human beings.  When we come into the presence of someone whom we know as having more glory than us we become bashful.  If we aren’t sure that they have more glory than us, then we might compete with them, hoping to have more glory than they have.  But when we are sure that they have more glory than us, then we become reserved and deferential.  Someone who is poor, for example, might become embarrassed of their poverty when they come into the presence of someone rich, because the richness of the one brings attention to what is lacking in the other.This might help us understand a little bit better what is going on when people come into the presence of God’s glory.  The surpassing goodness of God brings into sharp contrast what is lacking in us.  This is what we see in the Bible, without fail.  Whenever the fullness of the glory of God is beginning to be made known the people who see it are deeply affected.  There are many examples of this, including our readings for today, but we can see this effect in a special way with Moses on Mt. Sinai.  Moses boldly asked God once, “Show me your glory,” but God said to him, “No one can see God and live.”  But so that Moses could get an idea of God’s glory he shunted him away in the cleft of a rock, shielding his glory from Moses with his hand as he passed by, and Moses was allowed to look after he had passed by.  Even though Moses did not fully see God’s glory, it had a lasting effect on him.  When he came down from the mountain his face glowed with the reflected glory of God.  The people couldn’t stand to look at him and so he put a veil over his face and would only take it off when he went to speak with God.  Here you see the power of God’s glory, and it was not even the fullness of his glory, but only his backside.Now consider the final destiny of all people and every individual, including you.  Job says that he knows that his Redeemer lives and at the last he shall see him face to face with his very own resurrected eyes.  The glory of the Lord is coming to you.  This is not something that is boring.  Rather, it is precisely the absolute opposite of that.  There is nothing more stupendous, terrifying, amazing, mind-boggling, exciting—and maybe we can wrap all these words into one: there is nothing more glorious than to be in the presence of the living God.Experiencing the glory of God is the major theme that runs through all history including each of you and this present day, and we see this clearly taught in the Bible from beginning to end.  In the beginning, Adam and Eve were created in God’s image.  They were by no means as glorious a