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“To Him Be Glory Forever!” – a sermon on providence and perplexity from Fr. Peter . . . To God we should give glory, God we should praise – not just when we experience success, not just when we think we understand his plan, but always . . . Aug. 21, 2005
It’s interesting to look at the context for today’s readings. If we were to read the next verses in Isaiah, we would hear of the disgrace of Eliakim. Just as Eliakim had replaced the disgraced Shebna as “master of the palace”, the number two man in the kingdom, so Eliakim too falls into disfavor and is ousted. In today’s gospel, Peter confesses his belief that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, yet in the very next section, when Jesus predicts his own violent death, Peter tries to tell Him that he should not die in such a way. Jesus turns and harshly rebukes Peter, the one on whom He had just promised to build his Church, the one to whom he had given authority over the Church, for lack of faith, for failing to understand the Father’s plan. Jesus addresses to Peter the harsh words, “Get behind me, Satan.” Scripture records what we all experience, that even those who are chosen fail and fall. Yet it is in this context that should hear Paul writing to the Romans: “To him be glory forever.” To God we should give glory, God we should praise – not just when we experience success, not just when we think we understand his plan, but always. We know how to thank God for his blessings and gifts. And we certainly know how to ask God to fulfill our requests, our petitions. But do we know how to praise God? Are we able with St. Paul to give glory to God always? Paul certainly did not lead a charmed life free of frustrations and sufferings. Nor does he call us to give glory to god forever at a moment of grace when he is able to forget the other frustrations and sufferings of his life. No, Paul breaks into his hymn in praise of God at the very moment when he is most frustrated and confused. He passionately loved his own people, and yet they – his own family and friends – failed to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul knew the history of his people and the history of God’s dealings with them, how God had called them, how He had formed them into a people for himself when he freed them from Egypt, how He had given them the law and the covenant, the great leaders and the prophets, and the promise that they would be a blessing for all peoples. Yet this very people had failed to accept that blessing for themselves when it arrived in Jesus Christ. It is when Paul reflects on the fate of his people, when he considers the apparent dead-end in God’s plan for the Jews, that he breaks out into his hymn of praise. And in so doing, Paul teaches us how we too can give glory to God forever and always. Paul’s hymn of praise does not mean that we forget or deny the sufferings we must endure, the sufferings we bring upon ourselves, or the confusion we feel when we cannot discern God’s plan in the events of our lives or of the world. Paul’s hymn of praise rises up in the midst of all that because he knows the one whom he is praising. He knows that God’s wisdom and knowledge are richer than anything we can imagine, that his judgments are untraceable and his ways are unsearchable, that there is nothing we can give God so as to deserve return. Paul knows God personally, having had the experience of him on the road to Damascus. Just so, our praise is based not on our ability to see how well God handles our life or the life of the Church or the affairs of the world, but on God himself, more specifically on Jesus Christ himself. We take comfort and confidence in Jesus’ promise to St. Peter not because Peter can conjure up some extraordinary faith, not because Peter has the judgment always to choose the right path, and not even because the Father revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ. No, we take confidence in Christ’s words to Peter because they are Christ’s words. We take confidence in them because of Jesus, not because of Peter. Christ guarantees the stability of Peter as the rock and foundation of his church, not some trait Peter has. Our ability to praise Christ is based on our experience of God. How do we gain the experience of Christ that leads us to trust and praise? We can’t do it unless we become quiet and humble, unless we can, like St. Paul, sit in wonder before the creator, before the God of history, realizing our creatureliness and his loving wisdom. When we meet Christ in Scripture and in the Eucharist, in a friend’s simple act of self-sacrificing love, we should pause and listen and praise God. The more we do so, the more we will be able to make our own the prayer of St. Paul, “Glory to God forever.” Does all this mean that we must somehow close our eyes to the sins and failings of St. Peter and his successors and all of us in Christ’s church? No. Paul’s prayer means that we adopt a twofold attitude: First, we must be humble. After all of his effort to understand God’s plan for the Jews, St. Paul breaks out in song, acknowledging the limits of his understanding: “How inscrutable are God’s judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given the Lord anything that he may be repaid?” No one. We are mere creatures incapable of understanding the big issues of God’s plan for mankind, or even many of the very little issues in our own lives. So, to praise God always, we must first be humble. Second, we must believe. We must believe with St. Paul and with St. Peter in the Risen Christ, that the Father raised Jesus from the dead. We have been blessed recently with men who served as great popes, but we can also see in history the story of many a bad pope. We have been blessed with many a good priest, but we know only too well that many a priest has failed, sinned, grievously. Christ’s promise to Peter gives us confidence not because Peter was always open to the Father’s word, not because he was always as faithful and stable as a rock, but because Jesus Christ himself made the promise, and Jesus was raised from the dead. As we begin this new school year, let us work on those two attitudes of humility and faith in the Risen Lord so that we can then join St. Paul in saying, “To him be glory forever.”
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