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"Stop, Look and Listen"
Transfiguration
B
February 22, 2009Mark
9:2-9
In the Name of Jesus. Amen. Have you ever thought you knew someone really well? And then you discover something about that person that completely surprises you, completely changes your certainty that you truly know that person? Then you realize that you really only knew that person on the surface. We hear of people, and perhaps you are one of them, who eventually became best of friends with someone they previously did not like at all, after they allowed themselves to actually get to know the person. I know many of you, after the cottage meetings of our strategic planning process, commented that you were delighted to get to know people from your own congregation who you thought you already knew; but those conversations in the cottage meetings revealed thoughts and personalities that enriched your understanding and your appreciation for the people in your group and, if nothing else had come from those meetings, that, by itself, made those meetings worthwhile. Knowing “things about” someone is not the same thing as taking time to get to know the person. Peter, James, and John hardly knew Jesus at all when they first met him and decided to leave everything in order to follow him. Over time they came to know him better. They watched him heal people. They listened to him when he spoke with people. Around the fire at night, he became their teacher, their friend. And then one day, they went up to a mountain with Jesus, and were dramatically changed by what they experienced. They saw Jesus as they had never seen him before. What they had known was comparatively superficial. They knew Jesus was a carpenter. They knew he healed people. They knew he taught values that were often in conflict with those accepted and endorsed by society, both secular and religious. They also knew that Jesus consequently deeply offended and angered some people; while others couldn’t get enough of him. But on that mountain they saw him – literally – in a different light. What about us? How well do you know Jesus? How much does it matter? Are we content to simply know some things about Jesus? Are we in pretty much the same place with Peter, James and John when they first met Jesus, or have we moved beyond that to the point where our knowledge of Jesus, our relationship with Jesus, makes a genuine difference in the way we make decisions, the way we spend our money, the way we use our time, the way we view and treat other people? If we focus on the miraculous details of the story – Jesus’ clothing whiter than bleach, the appearance of Elijah and Moses – it’s easy to pass over the most important part of the story. The three disciples heard God tell them, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suppose for a moment that Peter, James and John thought that what they already knew was enough – Jesus was a great healer, a great teacher. How, then, could they have listened? Have you ever tried to talk with someone who already “knows it all”? What’s the point? Or have you ever tuned someone out because you didn’t think they had anything to teach you? We do it all the time. If you are over 5 years of age, you may remember a lesson from kindergarten. We were taught to stop, look, and listen before crossing the street or the railroad tracks. That’s not a bad lesson to learn about relationships as well, both human and divine. Our friendships don’t remain friendships, or marriages don’t remain marriages, if we don’t continue to grow in them. Those things which motivate two people to be friends or to get married will not by themselves hold a friendship or a marriage together 5 or 10 or 20 years later. Relationships don’t grow without listening to each other. We miss so much in life because we will not listen. Christian writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. “I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at meal times, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day,” he recalls in his book, Stress Fractures. “Before long,” he continues, “things around our home started reflecting my hurry-up lifestyle. It was becoming unbearable. “I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, ‘Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin’ and I’ll tell you really fast.’ “Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, ‘Honey, you can tell me – and you don’t have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.’ “I’ll never forget her answer: ‘Then listen slowly, Daddy.’” Anyone besides me been there, too? There is as true of our relationship with Jesus as it is with a friend or a spouse or a child. It’s one thing to listen-on-the-run ... which is often the character of Sunday morning worship where we listen to virtual sound-bytes of Scripture, with our eye on the clock so we can get out of here in no more than 60 minutes in order to get on to other more pressing things. It’s another thing altogether to really listen, to hear not just the words, but the heart and soul of another person, to hear the heart and soul of Jesus. But mountaintop experiences with our God are about much more than stop, look, and listen. Peter made the mistake of thinking the miracle was all there was. He didn’t really understand what had just happened. He wanted to build three dwellings and stay right there on the mountain. A brilliant magician was performing on an ocean liner. But every time he did a trick, the captain’s parrot would yell, “It’s a trick. He’s a phony! That’s not magic.” Then one evening during a storm, the ship sank while the magician was performing. The parrot and the magician ended up in the same lifeboat. For several days, they just glared at each other, neither saying a word to the other. Finally the parrot said, “OK, I give up. What did you do with the ship?” The parrot, who thought he knew everything, didn’t understand what had happened. Peter, babbling about building three dwellings, didn’t understand what had just happened either. The first readers of this story were Jewish Christians. They would have known of Moses and Elijah like we know of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. They would remember the stories of Mount Sinai, of Elijah’s being taken to heaven in a chariot of fire. They would have been encouraged by this story of Jesus taking his place among the great prophets of God. Peter, wanting to pay tribute to that, wanted to turn the mountain into Mount Rushmore. But that wasn’t God’s intention. This vision on the mountain isn’t to be captured in dwellings or statues or gardens or even sanctuaries like ours. This vision is to seize the hearts of Jesus’ disciples. When Peter finally quits talking, a cloud appears and surrounds them. The voice of God speaks to Peter, James, and John: “This is my Son whom I love. Listen to him!” That’s it. Ten simple words. Short; to the point. So when will be the next time that you stop, look, and listen to Jesus, to really get to know our God, the creator of heaven and earth, our Savior, the Lord and Giver of life? What God has said to us, particularly in Scripture, we need to stop, look, and listen to, to savor, not just on-the-run on Sunday mornings, but quietly, thoughtfully. One week from tomorrow evening, Monday, March 2 at 7:00 PM, we will begin a 7-week guided conversation called “Opening the Book of Faith,” – our first offering of the ELCA Bible: Book of Faith initiative. We will look together at several ways to read and study the Bible, and then we will take several texts and try them out. The goal of this churchwide Bible study effort, which each congregation can undertake in whatever way is fitting for that particular congregation, is beautifully stated as this: “That the whole church becomes more fluent in the first language of faith: the language of Scripture.” Why is this so important, so exciting? Because mountaintop experiences can give us a feeling of being away from the noise, stress, deadlines, and projects that come at us daily like wild animals. But Christianity is more than a mountaintop, feel-good religion. We are given mountaintop experiences so that we can travel through the next valley. We are called to take what we’ve been given, to follow Jesus who we know more than superficially, and bring it down the mountain. We are called to allow our own vision, our knowledge, our faith to be transfigured, transformed by Jesus, whom God insists we actually and truly listen to, and to bring that faith and that knowledge to the part of the world we touch. But we can only do that if we take the time to stop, look at God’s Word, and open our hearts to listen to Jesus. Peter, James, and John went on to become bold believers, bold disciples, not because they always understood, not because they always did and said the right and faithful thing. They became bold because they came to know who Jesus was and is; because they were confident in the deepest parts of their beings that what Jesus taught and did was true and of God; because they were fluent in the first language of faith – the language of the stories and promises of God recorded before and after the life of Jesus in Scripture. Jesus came out of hiding on that mountain of transfiguration. Thanks to the Bible, we are now witnesses to who he truly is. Let this vision encourage us, and help us, to become bold believers and storytellers – as we come to know the story better and better ourselves. Amen. Rev. Joan Gunderman, Senior Pastor
Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa, Minnesota |
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