Glory and the Hunger Games

Glory is a funny word. Or maybe it’s a word we don’t know how to use anymore—one of those antiquated Old English things that has fallen out of common use. Sportscasters still sometimes talk about glory, especially British soccer commentators, but for most of us we can hardly imagine a context where the word would come up in normal dialogue. It fits in this whole category of Christian words that nobody else uses, though they remain germane to our worship experience. But “glory” is special even in that category, because it’s not the kind of word—like Covenant, Eucharist, Kyrie, or Salvation—that seems uniquely churchy.

Glory seems like it might be something that anybody can achieve, that is until we think of the glory that Jesus is after. Jesus’ glory is self-sacrificial; in fact, it is complete submission, humbling himself to the point of death. Christ’s glory shows itself on a cross. You see, glory may only be five letters but it is a big word. But enough word study; the real question is why should we care? Why does it matter that Christ is glorified, and what does it mean for us?

            Let’s start with this: glory involves death and resurrection. The image Jesus uses is a grain of wheat—something that sheds its seed in death in order to rise again in the spring. Life requires death, whether it’s grassland, a forest or a farm, whether it’s the life cycle of predator and prey or the chemical gifts associated with organic decay. All life benefits from the death of others. You have benefited from death in your life, both from the things that you have eaten and the people who have gone before. Jesus’ glory is that death taken to an extreme—in dying, he feeds all of creation from the bread of life. He rewrites the rules; death is not just death but a precursor to resurrection.

            Still, our dominant experience of death is hardly glorious. You see this in all areas of life. This weekend was the opening of The Hunger Games movie, taking in record movie receipts across the country. Many of you are probably familiar with the plot, but for those that aren’t: the Hunger Games is a trilogy of books set in a future, post-apocalyptic America called Panem. In Panem, there is a central Capitol which rules over 12 outlying districts, which were crushed in a long-ago war and were now little more than tools of the Capitol. As penance for their insurrection, each district is responsible for providing a single girl and boy between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games. The Hunger Games consist of these 24 children battling to the death in a nationally televised event with only one emerging as victor.

            This really is a horrific premise. The one certainty of each Hunger Games is that there will be a lot of death—that, and it won’t be pretty. I bring this up today in part because it is so timely, and in part because this is the kind of glory the world is most often interested in. The victor of the Hunger Games does achieve a kind of glory, but it is glory that changes them for the worse. The world of Panem is a mess because their leaders have conflated what is horrific with what is glorious. There is no room for self-sacrifice; nothing like Jesus’ glory on the cross.

            The Hunger Games are a good illustration of our misconceptions of glory. We make our champions—in any field—into figures deserving of praise. Maybe we are civilized enough that we honestly believe we would never glorify a killer, but given the opportunity I would guess we aren’t so different from those people in the Capitol. Our idea of glory is being the best at what we do, being exceptional, surpassing the lot we were given in life. Our glory has become about fame and wealth.

            This is our “glory” problem. Death doesn’t seem glorious; it seems like weakness. All those kids who die in the Hunger Games are the unfortunate losers, none of whom could be described as glorious in the Panem world. Panem is a rough place; actually quite a godless place. This is what life looks like without the cross. It is people rising up against each other over and over again; it is dictators and their subjects each vying for a larger slice of the pie. It is politics of a horrid sort. Politics does not understand death and resurrection; instead it considers death to be something to be avoided at all costs. Jesus is above such games. The reason he came, he says in today’s Gospel, is to glorify himself not by becoming a powerful ruler but by laying down his life on the cross. That is real glory. It is why he tells us to pick up our crosses and follow.

            Glory is dying to yourself. It is saying that my little plans aren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. It is quite the opposite of being a victor; it is letting go of your need to be important. Whether it’s giving up an argument that isn’t worth it, or spending your time as a service to others, or maybe electing not to respond to that aggravating comment by a person you despise, dying to yourself is often not a particularly popular thing to do. But in Jesus’ glory we get a glimpse of how best to live our lives. Sure, we can take advantage of every little thing and everybody. We could live as if life is our own personal Hunger Games. But that’s also the kind of life that is going to leave us cold.

            The reason we struggle with glory is because it is not the kind of thing we experience in this life. It is an adjective ascribed to God alone, and that is because when we reach for it we often do it in spite of others rather than as a service to our neighbors. True glory accepts no substitutes. It decries the attitude that suggests “Every man for himself” is an adequate motto for living life, and it laughs at the hope—as the motto for The Hunger Games goes—that the odds are always in your favor. Jesus smirks at the idea that we our fortunes are determined by the roll of the dice. He came for glory. A cross. A strange thing for those of us on this side of the veil of what true glory looks like. And he’s heading there not so that the odds will ever be in your favor, but in order to give you a promise: that you are find glory through him. Now and forever.

Amen.