Exodus 33:18-23, Isaiah 6:1-5, Romans 8:18-25

Recently I was looking through some old cassette tapes and came across one of Larry Norman - an American Christian singer whose concerts I attended religiously in my teenage years. I found a kindred spirit in Julie-ann and we put on one of her old cassettes that we discovered we both knew word for word, much to the embarrassment of OUR teenage children! Larry Norman was best known for his rock and roll music - groundbreaking in the Christian music scene at the time - you may remember the song "why should the devil have all the good music" which I understand was actually a quotation from the 16th century reformer Martin Luther! But as we sang through the songs from his album that we both knew so well I was struck by the other-worldliness of them. He seemed very preoccupied with the transience of this world and the glory of the world to come - there was almost a disdain for any attachment to our planet.

This preoccupation with the next world was quite prevalent in the Baptist church I attended as a teenager - I remember being concerned for some years that if anyone wasn't where I expected them or in an appointed meeting spot I might have missed the rapture. But even now there are some Christian traditions that seem to emphasise it out of proportion - rather disturbingly, for example, welcoming volcanoes, tsunamis etc as signs of the approaching end of the age.

This emphasis seems to me to be a distortion of the biblical witness - much of it comes from reflecting on Revelation which probably isn't so much about the end times as it was about how to live in the Roman Empire - the age in which it was written. Jesus seemed to teach about how the Kingdom of God should and could look here and now rather than counselling a removal from this world. The Old Testament is very grounded too - although much of the history of the people of God is of a people on the move, there is always an emphasis on how to live in the land in the here and now in relation to God and to each other. It is true that God's presence is pictured as a strange mobile cloud, shimmering with an inner fire so that it is visible both day and night: a cloud that lands on the mountain or fills the tabernacle or temple and makes those places holy. This cloud is referred to as "kabod" - the word best translated "glory", so God's glory fills the temple or rests on the mountain, the meeting place between God and Moses. The text describes Moses emerging from such meetings with a glowing face like an alien from another planet. And yet in the passage we read from Isaiah 6 with what we might understand to be its vision of the heavenly realm, we read the amazing statement that our liturgical tradition has altered: (look at the words in the text): "Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts. The whole EARTH is full of his glory." The Kabod, the presence, the glory is in earth. The earth, like the temple or tabernacle, has become God's sanctuary. The worth of our planet is clearly affirmed in this statement. The earth is a chosen home for the creator, not just a place for intermittent visitations and not a temporary existence on the way to a better one.

Another biblical tradition that refers to God's glory and keeps it grounded on earth is the passage read from Exodus. Moses had a privileged relationship with God, but this was so because he was a representative of his people. Perhaps there is some intention to show how the role of the priest came to be: where individuals were specially set aside to be representatives of the people before God.

But the passage seems to tell us that even for Moses there were limitations. God says to Moses "no-one can see me and live." This is a well founded biblical tradition. We saw it in Isaiah's experience: as the heavenly vision unfolds his reaction is "woe is me, I am lost." (Is 6:5) In the story of Gideon in Judges we are told he cried out in fear, "alas my Lord Yahweh! I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face" (Judg 6:22). And yet that rascal Jacob is able to say "I have seen God face to face, and I have survived" (Gen 32:30) and when the incident of Moses meeting God on Sinai is found in the Deuteronomy account the people are quoted as saying "The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness?. today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live." (Deut 5:24). Last week we heard from Genesis that in the garden, death that was expected didn't follow an act of disobedience - it seems God's nature and God's willingness to be in relationship with his creation is greater than what might be conventionally expected. And God turns this expectation completely on its head in the person of Jesus: when the world saw God's face in Jesus, even death was taken into the experience of God. The mystery is not how can humankind look on God and live? But rather how is it that God embraced humankind so fully as to also take on the experience of death?

So we step into this biblical tradition of mystery when we hear Moses' request to see God's glory. And what a mix of awesomeness and outrageousness this glorious presence seems to be. On the one hand the divine presence is overwhelming, too dazzling for human eyes. On the other hand, is this story telling us that God has a backside??! While the assertion is made that no-one can see God and live, what is permitted is a glimpse of the divine body. God is not afraid to become embodied in our world.

And it is in our nature to affirm that. We see the glory of God in the beauty of our planet, in the marvels at our feet and our fingertips. (As John's children's talk showed) the ordinary can become extraordinary when seen with different eyes or with new knowledge. Creation is bodies, alive with the breath of God. Faith is not about the other-worldly, but about being alive to the presence of God in this world. Where is a place you experience God's presence? We might expect it to be in a church or a place of pilgrimage, but when surveys are done with people of faith the majority say they experience God in natural places. Let me quote again from Martin Luther; he wrote: "Do you think God is sleeping on a pillow in heaven? ?God is wholly present in all creation, in every corner, behind and before you." He also wrote, "God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars." We shouldn't miss the opportunity to hear the Gospel in its entirety.

Long before Luther was another influential monk, one remembered even better for his care for the natural world. Francis of Assisi was born in the 12th Century, the son of a very wealthy merchant family in Italy. In his youth, he was known for his extravagant, bawdy, consumptive lifestyle. But as he entered his 20s he began to hear callings from God that would change his life. The callings came as he witnessed true poverty and disease and in a time of prayer he heard a voice say, "Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin." Francis took this message very literally at first and gave up all he had to repair a few churches that lay in ruins. He took a vow of poverty in order to remain focused on his ministry to God's house here on earth - to not be distracted by his former acquisitive lifestyle. Over time he became aware that God's house was actually God's household or oikos, a Greek word from which words like ecology, economics, and ecumenical are formed. Gradually, Francis saw that this household consisted not only of dilapidated church buildings, but also included the poor, the creatures of the earth, the afflicted, everyone and everything. God's household included all of creation, and the most vulnerable parts of creation especially revealed, to Francis, the vulnerable and beautiful face of Christ. Francis truly had nothing, but in emptying himself, he realized that he shared a home with the moon, sun, stars, water, fire, flowers, children, elders, birds, and even "sister bodily death." Francis believed that this home rested in the hollow of God's hand (another example I could have included in my pastoral letter!). To all who shared this home, Francis called brother and sister - not stranger, but family - and he always compromised his own comforts to protect and provide for his family members. In Francis' opinion, first among the responsibilities of all family members (including himself) was to praise the Source and Sustainer of life.

There are psalms of praise in the bible that reflect this desire of St Francis', such as Ps 148 where the first two-thirds of the psalm describe the praise of the natural world. And yet we have to admit the heart-breaking news that humankind is, knowingly and unknowingly, muting the "voice of the Earth," which the psalmist envisages as going up to our God in songs of praise. According to the Worldwatch Institute 11% of the world's bird species, 25 % of mammal species, and 34% of all fish species face immediate danger of extinction as a result of human-created habitat loss, pollution, and global warming. And in the words of the World Wildlife Fund, "Every species loss diminishes the diversity of life on Earth with untold consequences for the web of life. Yet, at present rates of extinction, as much as a third of the world's [plant and animal] species could be gone in the next 20 years." What are we doing to this earth, this sanctuary of God's presence, this place that is both our home and God's home?

The words read from Paul's letter to the Romans are even more pertinent today than when they were written - songs of praise make way for groans of travail. If we are allowed, indeed invited to see God's glory embodied in the world, then we should experience not only awe as we meditate on the wonders of our planet but also compassion for all bodies in pain. Where the body hurts, the creator hurts, and we as caretakers of the body hurt.

The groaning creation that Paul speaks of is a reminder that creation is suffering, feeling the pain of injustice and vulnerability. Human bodies within creation suffer too, the suffering of oppression, of ill health, of psychological pain. But Paul's letter is a reminder that when we speak of creation we speak of the creator, the one who allows us to continue to hope. Indeed the word "groan" Paul uses is the Greek word for labour pains - the groans are not expressions of self-pity but an anticipation of a new beginning. Hope has to do with a belief that the world is God's world and that God has a continuing relationship with it. If we recall the image of the world as the sanctuary for God's presence, then we can be moved both to contemplate the glory of creation and compassionately identify with and serve the fragile and suffering expressions of creation that we see around us. We can be aware of both the guts and the glory, the mud and the mystery. In fact, the glory we anticipate comes only through the guts and mud: the incarnation of God in our bodily world means that we see God through the bodies that we pay attention to, listen to, learn to love and care for. This is the way Jesus taught his followers to live - to be people who paid attention to each other, especially the vulnerable, to listen to the lessons of the natural world, to love and care for those in need. And this way of living led him to express his love finally in death on a cross. A tortured, dying body was the ultimate and paradoxical message of God's presence and glory in our world. But God is ultimately on the side of life, and so our hope is not only in the dying Christ but in the truth of the resurrection. All of creation will be redeemed. Paul counsels patience, but the state of our world suggests action is needed now. Whether it be species on the way to extinction, a depleting ozone layer or debilitating salinity, we need to act now to allow the glory of the creator to be seen. Whether it be asylum seekers languishing in detention, indigenous people still feeling marginalised, or lonely and needy neighbours, our participation in bringing freedom and joy to such lives are needed now. We need to hurry up and act as we wait for God's renewal of all creation - to live in hope is to act on what we know now and leave the ultimate results in the loving hands of the creator God who is more than willing to be in relationship with his creation.

Last weekend I attended one of the sessions of the conference "Living under the Southern Cross." One of the participants gave a wonderful recital of a number of Judith Wright's poems. Judith Wright lived in close affinity with the land, nature, the environment, but felt its beauty pointed beyond itself to the creator. I have used her poem "Grace" before in sermons, but its profound truth struck me again as I heard it last week. It tries to give words to this transcendent "otherness" with lines like "it slants a sudden laser through common day" and "it plunges a sword from a dark star". And yet the poem acknowledges at the end that we can only glimpse this other dimension through our own human relationships - the last two lines read "Maybe there was once a word for it. Call it grace. I have seen it, once or twice, through a human face."

Where is the glory of God in the world? May our eyes be opened to see at least the back of our God as we walk through each day and relate to each other. Amen.