Listen

Matthew 17:1-9

Are you listening to me?

Are you really listening?

How many of you have said those words to someone?

Or you’ve had someone say that to you?

You can hear something or someone without really paying attention. We do that all the time. But listening requires attention, response, openness, and often, action.

We need that listening from those who are important to us. We need that responsive, attentive, active listening when we are talking about what’s most important: life and death; who I am, or who we are, together.

We need that from God, and God needs that from us, too.

God even says so, today.

That overwhelming voice in the cloud says “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.Listen to him.”
Listen. Pay attention, respond, be open, take action.

Of course, there’s a backstory to this.
There is always a backstory when your spouse, your friend, your parent or child, says “Listen to me!”

There’s always something that went before when the climate activist, the assault victim, the refugee says “Are you listening?” When the doctor or teacher says “Listen!”

In today’s story, that starts six days before, when Jesus invited his disciples to tell him who they think he is.“You’re the Christ! the anointed one, Son of God!” says Peter.

Jesus confirms it. Then promptly starts talking about how he’s going to suffer at the hands of the religious authorities, be killed, and rise from the dead. And keeps on talking – about how anyone who wants to be close to him, close to the Son of God, needs to deny ourselves, give up life itself, take up our cross – and, some of us, see the glory of God before we die.
There’s evidence in the gospel text that Peter, and many of the disciples, heard that, but were too busy listening to their own ideas, fears, and plans to listen to Jesus about that.

I can sympathize.
I’m a priest and a preacher and I have the advantage of two thousand years of hindsight on the destiny of the Messiah, the “be killed and rise again” details, but I’m still not entirely sure what to do with all this “take up your cross / give up your life” that Jesus is saying.

I hear it pretty well.

Since I’ve been in church all my life, I’ve actually heard this a lot. And now it’s not novel and exciting enough, most days, to get me to pay close attention. It’s just scary enough, or uncomfortable enough, that I’m not eager to ask for more. 

And there’s a lot of other noise in my head and heart that makes it harder to listen as Jesus says all this : the noise of cultural and personal expectations, the clamor of the urgent things in my schedule and on my desk and in my house; the other people who want me to listen. 

Maybe that’s different for you. But I know many of us find it hard to see how this applies here and now.  I mean, I’m pretty sure I don’t literally need to be crucified (We don’t do that anymore, right?!). And  “deny yourself” has a lot of room in it: Are we talking about renouncing chocolate ice cream or Facebook to be a nicer person, or about giving up my home, and living on the street?
I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond, so… I just don’t.

Don’t change what I’m doing, apply what I hear, pay deeper attention, ask for more.
Which means I’m not really listening.

For Peter and James and John, what Jesus said was just as hard to literally apply, just as uncomfortable and more scary. Plus, for them this whole speech sounds like a denial of their conviction that Jesus IS the Messiah, the Son of God we’ve been waiting for. It’s all so confusing.

It’s easier to nod: “I hear you,” and wait and see what comes, than to change what they’re doing, apply what they hear, ask for more.

And so God brings Peter and James and John up a mountain, surrounds them with cloud, dazzling light, and the great heroes of faith, and says:
This IS my Son. Listen to him.

Listen.

Don’t tune out the things you don’t want to hear, the things you don’t yet understand.

Do accept what Jesus says as relevant to you, as authoritative for your life. Get into it. Explore it. Try on ways of “taking up your cross”; until you figure out what it means. Explore, seek, do all that other stuff Jesus says: about being salt and light to the earth, reconciling with one another, loving your enemies, giving and forgiving. Get moving when Jesus says to you, “Follow me.”

Of course, I know that’s easier to say than to do.

God knows that’s all easier to hear – even to approve of – than to listen to: to obey, to apply, to trust.

So everything that’s happening today to Peter and James and John – that bright cloud and thunderous voice, the blinding transformation of Jesus, the appearance of the two faith heroes closest to God, the healing touch at the end that brings them back from terror – all of that is meant to make their listening possible.

It’s a reassurance and promise: You were right, after all, Peter. Jesus IS the Son of the living God. You’re feeling that reality on your skin, your eardrums, your retinas right now. Even though a few days ago you were sure he couldn’t be the one if he’s going to let the corrupt authorities kill him, you were right that Jesus is the one you have been waiting and longing for.

More than reassurance, it’s a vivid, overwhelming, raw experience of the Presence Of God for John and James and Peter. It’s that experience of REAL that convinces heart and soul beyond any doubt.

That powerful experience of awe – of unnerving wonder, amazement – that opens us up to new possibilities, to change, the same way that the rush of overwhelming love for a child, spouse, parent, or friend opens us up to possibility and delight and sacrifice and hope in listening to them.

God wants us – you, particularly; me, particularly; all of us – to listen to Jesus.
Not just to hear, but to believe that what Jesus tells and teaches us is relevant, important, meaningful to our daily lives. To treat what we hear from Jesus as authoritative, real, and specific guidance for the here and now we live in. To respond to what we hear; to act.

And God will give us what we need to make it possible.

A few of us, like Peter, and John, and James, get the powerful, bright, thunderous and even terrifying experience of the raw and powerful presence of God that blows us wide open. Or a slightly quieter but still awe-filled moment of the presence of God in sacrament or in crisis, meditation or action that opens our hearts to listen in a new way.

Many of us – like all Jesus’ other disciples – get Peter, and James, and John themselves; the friends whose experience of God, whose trust in the reality and presence of God is so powerful that you begin to feel it too.

Or we get the beloved Sunday-school teacher or annoying squeaky wheel in Bible Study who makes you stop and listen over and over until you catch the habit of listening for yourself; the mentor or loved one whose love for and belief in you opens you up for listening to God; in heart and action as well as ears and mind.

Listening, you know, is a form of love: love that God calls us to and pours out on us. Listening is the way we grow in love and relationship, with God and one another.

And I have no doubt that God listens – really listens – to us; pays deep and close attention to our words, our hearts, and our actions, and responds with all we need to bring us closer to God.

No doubt, either, that somewhere inside every one of us is the longing for who and what we will be when the word of God is true within us, when we have learned to listen to Jesus and one another with our whole hearts, mind, soul and action.  In each of us is the longing for who we will be when every single “Are you listening?” becomes “I know you’re listening to me.”

Amen.