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“Pondering the Solas, Part V, Soli Deo Gloria”: a Sermon for Trinity United

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“Pondering the Solas, Part V, Soli Deo Gloria”: a Sermon for Trinity United “Pondering the Solas, Part V, Soli Deo Gloria ”: A Sermon for Trinity United Church (Nanaimo, B.C.) for November 4 th 2017 (22 nd Sunday after Pentecost/Remembrance Sunday) by Foster Freed Psalm 150 To make the move that we are making this morning, to the fifth and final sola — soli Deo Gloria, for the Glory of God alone: so to move is to find ourselves shifting ever so slightly from the realm of Lutheranism—the realm of Martin Luther—and entering the realm of Calvinism—the realm of John Calvin: founder of the Reformed Churches and, in effect, the initiator of the movement that gave birth to the Scottish Presbyterian Churches to which we in the United Church of Canada trace at least some of our roots. Mind you… …mind you: it’s not that there is any contradiction between this fifth and final sola and any of the others. On the contrary: the spirit of soli Deo Gloria is a spirit with which Martin Luther most certainly would have been fully at home. Go no further than the first of the solas: sola gratia, by grace alone. The logic of that sola, which clearly credits God and God’s grace with human salvation, is a logic that pretty much leaves no choice but to recognize that it is to God—and to none other—that glory ought to be offered. And yet! Calvin was a significantly more systematic thinker than Luther. Most of what we have from Luther takes the form of Biblical commentaries, thematic essays, and table talk. While we also have a considerable wealth of Biblical commentaries from Calvin, his most important contribution was his Institutes of the Christian Religion, a volume that first appeared in 1536 and which Calvin kept revising and enlarging until the publication of the final edition nearly 25 years later. That book is perhaps the first real attempt at providing a systematic theology for Protestants, and it marks Calvin as someone who is ruthlessly committed to a thorough exploration of any idea he wishes to advance. Pushing the notion of God’s sovereign grace to its logical destination, it isn’t hard to see how a related concept would take on centrality for Calvin, namely that the only adequate response to God’s sovereign grace was for human beings to offer all things to the glory of God. Soli Deo Gloria ! As a matter of fact: So insistent, was Calvin, on the sovereignty of God, that he came to embrace— with increasing determination over the years—the idea that came to be known as “double predestination”: the notion that God, from the time of their creation, predestines some human beings for salvation, others for eternal condemnation: and that said human beings have no real freedom in the matter! Not surprisingly, it’s the facet of Calvin’s thought that has received the most criticism from other Christians, who find repugnant the notion that God would predestine anyone for condemnation… let alone expect us to glorify Him for so problematic an act. And yet: given the extent to which our scriptures choose to ascribe all things to God…it can be argued that Calvin was simply working out the logic of what the Bible is really saying. After all: if God can harden the Pharaoh’s heart, what is to prevent Him from hardening other hearts? So goes the logic of “double predestination”. Suffice it to say that subsequent developments in the Protestant world included strong reactions against that facet of Calvin’s heritage, including the developments that gave birth to Methodism in the 18 th century. And so yes: given that the United Church of Canada is chiefly grounded in the coming together of Presbyterians and Methodists, you can start to understand why some Presbyterians chose to stay out of Church Union in 1925, convinced that we would become a theologically incoherent denomination. I’m not going to attempt to prove them wrong this morning! * * * * * What I do wish to do, this morning is to ponder two dimensions of soli Deo Gloria: two dimensions that strike me as especially noteworthy. The first of those dimensions involves the sort of piety that tends to take shape within those Churches that give serious thought to this final sola, a piety which—not surprisingly—tends to be on the rather stark end of the Christian spiritual spectrum. Begin by pondering the basic meaning of the technical term “glory”. The Hebrew word, kabod , and the Greek word doxa (from which we get the English word doxology), are the two key words that stand behind the English word “glory”. At the most basic level, these words connote “weightiness”; in other words, to give God glory is to give substance back to God. Additional meanings involve notions of “radiance”, “brilliance”, “light” and yes: “beauty”. In short: to speak of the “glory of God” has generally come to be regarded as a way of speaking not primarily of God’s goodness or God’s truth, but of God’s radiance. But as soon as you go to that place, you can understand why Christians in the Reformed tradition are especially prone to a form of piety—including forms of worship—that choose to be lean, in particular, visually lean. You see: …if you are especially focused upon the glory of God, idolatry immediately becomes your defining spiritual challenge. More so than Luther and the Churches that followed his lead—to this day, Lutheran churches often include significant amounts of stained glass and other Christian images; more so than the Methodist Churches which, with their roots in Anglicanism, also often include significant amounts of stained glass and other Christian images: more so than either of those Protestant traditions, the Reformed tradition of John Calvin tends to favour worship spaces that are devoid of all images, following the most radical interpretation of the 2 nd commandment. While it is true that visual beauty is of particular concern to that tradition, even music comes under suspicion: as does fine clothing and other bodily adornments. This is a tradition—a sturdy but far from easy-going spiritual tradition—that seeks to remove anything that can stand between the worshipping heart, the heart that yearns to glorify God and God alone, and anything else that might possibly compete with God or distract from God’s unmatched glory, God’s unmatched beauty. And here I am going to be honest: quite frankly, this is a form of piety that I find singularly uninviting, although—to be fair—it’s likely a corrective I need from time to time. But no! When push comes to shove, I simply refuse to believe that God is in competition with the created realm which, after all, is God’s good creation. I’m not pretending that we human beings don’t have the capacity to turn just about any object or experience into an idol; we most certainly do have that capacity, which explains why so many of us fall prey to addictions. And yet: just as there are wonderful instances of natural and human truths (which, if rightly understood, most certainly do not detract from the truth of God)…and just as there are wonderful instances of natural and human goodness (which, if rightly appreciated, most certainly do not detract from the goodness of God)…surely we can celebrate the wide array of natural and human objects of beauty, and see them not as competing with God’s radiant beauty, but as objects and experiences of delight that call us more deeply to admire and to love and to glorify the God who is the source of all beauty. And here I have no choice but to point to the example of Johann Sebastian Bach: arguably the most remarkable composer this world has ever known. Bach’s practice—a practice in which he was followed by a handful of other musicians—was to place the words soli Deo Gloria, for the glory of God alone —as an annotation on each of his compositions. Given the choice between refraining from his art—lest he compete with God’s glory—aren’t we thankful that Bach chose rather to pour himself into his art, but to remind himself and others that his art would not exist…that he, himself would not exist, apart from the grace of God, leaving him no choice but to offer the glory to God. From where I stand, that is a far better response to the problem of idolatry, than the response of those who choose to regard all human beauty as a snare to be avoided. Better to place all things in the light of God’s glory, than to disparage the very things with which God may, in fact, be seeking to draw us to His unparalleled glory! * * * * * Beyond that highly personal dimension, there is an aspect of the fifth sola that has—or so I have come to believe—inescapable implications for the corporate life of the Church. Like all of the other solas that are part of our Reformation heritage, soli Deo Gloria, is meant to draw a line of demarcation between the practices of the Protestant Churches, and the Catholic/Orthodox traditions from which the first Reformers chose to disassociate. Where the fifth sola is concerned, however, here’s the fascinating thing. Louis Bouyer, a Catholic theologian I cited a few weeks back—Bouyer started out as a Protestant but converted to Catholicism, and yet remained convinced that all of the solas were important teachings from which Catholics too could learn a great deal… …Bouyer, in his treatment of the fifth sola , asks a profound question, namely: “soli Deo Gloria , for the glory of God alone: is it a Unifying or Separating Principle?” That’s the question he asks, and clearly his answer is that soli Deo Gloria , rightly understood, is a principle that should unite Christians rather than divide them.
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