Whenever I read this passage, which has to be one of my absolute favorites in the whole Bible, I always think of Muriel. My husband is a vicar in the Church of England, and Muriel went to his first church. When we first went to the church, Muriel was still well enough to attend, but she was elderly and, over time, became too frail to go. As happens in churches all over the world, we worked out a system for visiting Muriel so she wouldn't feel isolated and lonely. But they encountered a very unusual problem.

Often, it can be hard to find people to visit those too frail to attend church in person. But in the case of Muriel, they had the opposite problem: far too many people wanted to go and see her. The rota was to limit her visits, not to find them. I have to pause at this point and say to you something that I didn't know before. Apparently, rota is a really British word, not an American word.

We use rotas all the time in British churches. We use rotas for preaching, for leading worship, for arranging flowers, for making coffee, and for going to see people. The idea is that you fill in a slot in a schedule and you say that you're going to go at that point. I've had a fascinating conversation since writing this sermon about rotas and what you call them in America. I'll leave you to think about that, but before, as you do, I will return to my script.

You see, Muriel had lots of visitors because she shone—there was something about her that made you feel better for simply being in her presence. Over time, I found out what that was when she wasn't being visited by hordes of people. Muriel prayed; the more time she spent at home, the more she prayed, and this shone out of her more brightly than the warmest sunbeam on the brightest day.

On first reading, you may wonder why I think of Muriel when I read 2 Corinthians 3.

Let me explain. In 2 Corinthians 3, from about Verse 7 onwards, there is an extended meditation on Exodus 34, Verses 29 to 35 that we just heard, read as well. In fact, a lot of scholars, myself included, think that 2 Corinthians 3, 7 to 18 might be an early sermon by Paul—based on Exodus 34, whether this is true or not. In 2 Corinthians, Paul is reflecting at length on this passage in Exodus and on the idea that when Moses went to the top of the mountain and spent time in the presence of God, his face would shine.

One of the most fascinating things about 2 Corinthians 3 is that it shows us what Paul thought Exodus 34 was about and why it was so important for him. Exodus 34 doesn't actually mention the word glory at all; it talks about Moses talking with God and, afterwards, his face shining, but 2 Corinthians 3 is stuffed with the word glory. This gives us the first clue about what Paul thinks happened on the top of Mount Sinai.

Moses spent time with God, and the more time he spent in God's presence, the more he was infected by God's nature—so much that the skin of his face shone. For Paul, this meant that Moses' shining face was a sign that he had been affected by the overwhelming glory of God and, as a result, shone that glory in the world. There is, however, an odd feature in the Exodus passage, which is reflected in Paul's own reflection on it in 2 Corinthians 3. After Moses came down the mountain with his face shining, he would tell the people of God what God had said and then put a veil over his face. So what was the veil for?

It can't be to stop the people of God from seeing God's glory. If it were, Moses would have put the veil on before he came down the mountain, so they wouldn't see the glory at all. Instead, Moses came down the mountain, spoke to the people, and then put the veil on. In 2 Corinthians 3:12, Paul tells us what he thinks the veil was for—to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. The idea seems to be that Moses would spend time in God's presence and, as he did, would start to shine with the glory of God.

But when he came down the mountain, the glory would begin to fade until he went back up the mountain again. Once back, in God's presence, his face would shine once more. So the veil was to stop God's people from seeing the glory—fading. Moses wanted them to remember God's glory in its full brilliance, not in its faded state. This brings us to Verse 16 of 2 Corinthians 3.

Here, Paul engages in a clever sleight of hand, which the Greek allows him to do more easily than in our English translations. Literally, it reads:

On one level, then, Paul is still talking about Moses. Whenever Moses turned to the Lord and stood in his presence, he took his veil off so that the glory could be renewed. On another level, Paul is talking about everyone. Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. In other words, anyone who turns to Jesus and knows themselves to be in Christ stands in the presence of God unveiled.

So Paul can then say, at the start of Verse 18, that we all, with unveiled faces, are seeing the glory of the Lord. And at this point, we realize that Paul now has stopped talking about Moses and has started talking about us. Just as Moses stood in the presence of God and was infected by his glory, so we who are in Christ also now stand in God's presence and are taking God's glory into every fiber of our being. The key difference is that Moses, a special man, had to trek to the top of a very special mountain to stand in God's presence and take in his glory, but every time he came down the mountain, the glory would fade until he returned.

But we simply have to turn to Christ, and in doing so, at every moment of every day, we stand in God's presence, taking on his glory, being topped up, if you like, with the glory of God, or, as Paul put it, we are being transformed from glory into glory, every moment of every day. The verb Paul uses in Verse 18 to talk about seeing the glory of the Lord is a tricky one to translate. It can mean seeing the glory of the Lord.

It can mean reflecting the glory of the Lord, and it can mean both—although it is impossible to put into English, I think it does mean both. Here, as Christians, having turned to the Lord, we can now see the glory of the Lord for ourselves with unveiled faces. But as we do so, we are transformed from glory into glory.

And so we reflect that glory in the world, just as Moses did. So, that's why I think about Muriel when I read this passage. Muriel was someone who spent so much time in the presence of the Lord that her face shone. She saw and reflected God's glory with every fiber of her being, and those of us lucky enough to have known her saw that.

But Muriel isn't alone. There are hundreds and thousands of Muriels in all of our churches, often unsung heroes of the faith, whose lives and faces shine God's glory around them. This passage, though, goes one step further. Still, there are some people like Muriel, who seem to shine God's glory more brightly than others.

Those people who we can all point to and say, "I see in them God's glory." But in Verse 18, Paul clearly and definitely says, "We all, with unveiled faces, see and reflect God's glory." Seeing and reflecting God's glory is not an optional extra. We are all called to it; it is who we are in Christ, whether it feels like that or not.

The good news is that it is not dependent on how good or likable we are, how perfect we are as Christians, or how brilliantly we understand theology. The whole thing relies solely on God. It is in God's nature to shine light into the world. All we have to do is turn to the Lord and rest secure in His presence. The rest is up to Him.

And we all, with unveiled faces, seeing and reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from glory into glory, for this is from the Lord, the Spirit.

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