Lord, Show Us Your Glory - Exodus 33:12-23

The partial solar eclipse this week got me nostalgic for the big eclipse back in 2017. We have some great photos of the watch party here at the church. The one with two adorable children looking up at the sun, wearing those square, cardboard safety sunglasses, was perfect for that year’s stewardship campaign, with the slogan “The Future is Bright.” I might have peaked that year as the campaign manager. Anyway, I was reminded this week of another, lesser known star event that happened around that same time. A collision of two neutron stars made the news. The so-called “kilonova,” which happened 130 million years ago, unleashed an explosion that rippled space-time and splattered the cosmos with a cocktail of heavy metals. Apparently it takes a hot cloud of star debris to create gold. If you’re wearing any gold or platinum jewelry right now, that’s how it got here. Astronomers had detected new evidence of such an explosion through gravitational waves, which registered on an electromagnetic spectrum. The science is impressive, of course, but so are the theological implications. I can’t help but think that God created the so-called vast expanse of interstellar space for the sport of it. I bet it absolutely delights God when we stare up at an eclipse with our safety glasses, or when two neutron stars collide and create such a magnificent show.

In the news cycle that followed the discovery, a physicist was interviewed who explained that the gravitational waves produced by the collision are actual distortions in the shape of space. Those distortions vibrate in the same frequency range as human hearing. If you were standing close enough to the collision, they would rhythmically compress the hair cells in your inner ear, causing neurons to fire. Your brain would interpret this information as sound. So you would hear the collision, even in the vacuum of space. The physicist marveled at what a beautiful thing that would be. Then he paused and said, "Of course, if you were close enough for your ears to pick up the waves, you would also be close enough for them to shred the protein chains in your body.” He paused again. "Still, it would be an incredible thing to hear.” (posted by Peter Schell) For a brief instant, the physicist stepped out of the realm of observable science, right into the realm of wonder.

Not to project too much emotion onto the creator of the heavens and earth, but I wonder if God would be disappointed if we didn’t stop and wonder at it all from time to time. How quickly we get wrapped up in the news cycle here on earth, especially in a week like this when the there is so much tragedy in the headlines. Wars and human struggles for survival leave little room for wonder.

I’m sure it felt that way to the Israelites as they wandered in the desert. Limited resources and an insecure future were overwhelming. Moses often had to negotiate with God on their behalf, to secure God’s favor under harsh desert conditions. In today’s lesson, Moses wanted to make sure that God would go with the Israelites when they left Sinai. So Moses pleaded his case with a straightforward, “You have to go with us.” And God agreed, sealing the deal that Israel would be God’s chosen and the presence of the Lord would go with them. The terms of the contract were clarified.

But then a very strange thing happened. Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And in that moment, what had been a careful contract negotiation turned into something else, something perhaps closer to a courtship. “Show me your glory” is the request of a lover, not a negotiator. Moses suddenly asked to be shown more of God, as much as he could handle. There was nothing useful or helpful about this request. True love never is pragmatic or contract based. It’s about wanting to know the essence of another, for the sole purpose of being in the presence of another’s glory. Moses was starting to fall in love.

Imaging some delight on God’s part, God granted the request. First God’s goodness passed before Moses. Then, God came up with a way to show some of God’s glory, since the full dose, especially seeing God’s face, would be lethal. God placed Moses in the cleft of a rock and covered him with a divine hand as God passed by, so that Moses would see the back of God and survive the encounter. And yes, this is the moment when graduate students in Old Testament turn into middle schoolers and snicker about God’s backside. Which, I think, is also appropriate for the unfolding of a love story - how can we not feel a bit awkward at new found intimacy with God?

A love story began that day in the cleft of the rock. It’s a love story that continued to unfold for generations. Jesus entered that story with a heart more open than the world had ever seen. Like God on Mt. Sinai years before, Jesus freely offered his own glory, in how he loved humans in their struggles and in what would become a complete self-gift on the cross. His teachings remind us to offer ourselves like that, too. He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” We can hear this commandment as something like, be a good and kind person, be good to your neighbor, act ethically in this world, and show deference to God. But the spiritual life cannot be reduced to behaviors or fulfilling our end of a contract. It’s about love, about giving something of ourselves away so that we might experience the glory of another, of both God and neighbor. When we do, God is quick to meet us there, offering as much of God’s glory to us as we can receive.

If you need a love story these days, or a bit of wonder, you’ve come to the right place. This is a place for love. When things are difficult, when humans are at war and when glory seems especially thin on the ground, we can come here to be uplifted and to be reminded of the love story at the heart of this cosmic story. Here we can adjust our eyes to see more of God’s glory, and more of one another’s glory as brothers and sisters in Christ.

We’re told that Moses’ face would shine after he talked with God, as if he were coated with the residue of the glory he encountered. Maybe there’s a connection - the brilliance of his face, the light in each other’s faces, the gold exploding into space after the collision of neutron stars, all connected through glory. Perhaps we could try praying like Moses, asking to know God more fully, in order to see more of that brilliance. “Lord, show us your glory.” I trust that when we pray like Moses, our faces will shine with some of that residual glory, a light we can take into the world.