“…whatever you do, do everything for the
glory of God.”
--1 Corinthians 10:31
“My son, give glory to the Lord, God of
Israel,
and confess…” –Joshua 7:19
This past Sunday we heard the story
of the leper who said to Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
(Mk 1:40b) After the Lord heals him, this man goes about telling everyone about
the miracle and the man who “made him clean.” He is understandably excited, but
it is interesting –and always troubled me that as soon as this man leaves
Jesus, he does exactly what the Lord has told him not to do. Jesus tells him:
See
that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer
for your cleansing what Moses prescribed… (Mk 1:44)
So, why isn’t the leper called on
the carpet? He received a miracle, was given a pretty simple directive (basically
for a leper to be declared clean required a priest to sign off that the sores
were gone) but instead of obeying it, he does the opposite. You’d think that if
this was a fable or morality tale or something like that, there would be some
kind of consequences for this vociferous leper; even if it just meant Jesus
wagging a miraculous finger at him. But,
instead we get only the lovely detail that this man sang the Lord’s glory so
successfully that Jesus couldn’t make it into the towns because people kept streaming
out to Him. All because of this “disobedient” leper. That’s interesting to me. He does explicitly what the Lord tells him
not to do, but clearly he does it for the glory of the Lord, and thus becomes an
early and highly successful evangelist. Whatever
you do, do it for the glory of the Lord!
Another twist on this might be
found in the Old Testament reading from Leviticus which shows how a leper was
supposed to behave:
“The
one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent, his head bare…
and shall cry out: unclean, unclean… He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside
the camp.” (Leviticus 13:44-46)
To submit to this treatment must have been devastating to a person
and to a family. But, to endure it with anything more than resignation and
growing despair or resentment requires a deep, a profound trust in God. But
how?
Reading Joshua the other morning, I
came across the idea of giving Glory to the Lord in a very different
context. It is in the story of Achan who
is to be put to death for stealing loot that had been put under the ban. When
Joshua discovers what Achan has done and how it has brought a curse upon the
Israelites, he goes to him and says:
My son, give glory to the Lord, God of Israel, and
confess what you have done, hide it not…
And Achan does confess. Directly he takes Joshua and shows
him the items. And immediately Joshua has him (and his family and livestock)
lead out of the village and stoned to death.
That’s pretty brutal, that swift shift from the tender sounding, “My
son, give glory to God, confess what you have done…” to: Take
him out of the camp and kill him. And his family! And while you’re at it, let’s
kill and burn his livestock, too![1]
That is a
hard shift and a hard bit of glory to be asked to give to the Lord. But if we take Paul seriously (and please
tell me if this sounds too Calvinistic), we must do everything for the glory of
God. When we are healed let it be for the glory of God, and when we feel
cursed, let that too be for the glory of God. St. Therese reminds us that even
our tiniest acts --to stoop and pick up a dropped pin—we should do for love of
God.
Do everything for the glory of
God! That in itself is the greatest witness
we can offer. And, like Bernanos’ Country Priest said: All is
grace… Yes, even the stones they throw at us.
[1] (Of course there is a lot more to be said
for the story of Achan. And there is some scholarly debate about whether the
original words mean the family is stoned or merely forced to witness his
stoning. Read Joshua. I dare you.)
