What does it mean to “glorify” God?
Dear Friends,
When I was in seminary, I had the benefit of studying with students from a variety of denominations, and was also exposed to their doctrines and confessional books. Some of these challenged my own understanding of God, and some offered me a richer vocabulary for thinking about God. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1647, a defining document for the Presbyterian Church, it states succinctly that our “chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.” I have never forgotten this.
With everything that is going on in our lives and in our world right now, so many questions and concerns and challenges that are vying for attention and energy, where does “glorifying and enjoying God” fit in? What does it mean, anyway, to “glorify” God?
Some say it is honoring God during times of prayer and worship, which is shown when we kneel or bow, or lift our hands in praise – kind of hard to do right now, when we aren’t able to gather in one place! Others say that to glorify God is to verbalize our love and gratitude, to “bear witness” to the place of God’s grace in our lives – a bit easier to do, albeit electronically. Still others argue that glorifying God is not about outward display at all, but is an inner attitude of quiet humility, living in a way that wordlessly affirms that God is God and we, on the other hand, are not. This is something we can easily do in our present confinement, but is it enough?
In our Gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus says to God, “The hour has come; glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.” And then he tells us what he means by the word glorify: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.”
For Jesus, and for those of us who strive to follow him, it seems that glorifying God comes down to this: to faithfully finish whatever God gives us to do. To face with courage all the moments of our lives—challenging and joyful, tedious and fearful and glad—without running away when things get tough, is to glorify God. It is to live like Jesus, with open and undefended hearts, trusting and forgiving, following the path of service, not success. As one writer puts it:
“To glorify God is to step up to our responsibility in God’s continuing creation, to lift up our hearts to the Lord by lifting up those who are down, by making room for whoever has been left out. It is to thank God for our place and our part in the unfolding story, however humble, however public. It is to notice God’s fingerprints all over the place, and to know ourselves as fully human, one family in God. It is to finish what we have been given to do.” *
Take time this week, in this unusual and difficult time in our human history, to think about your place in God’s unfolding story. What is it that you are given to do, even now…and how might you be finishing it?
In Christ,
Amelie+
*Kayla McClurg, Season and Scripture , Easter A.
