'Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah"--not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
'On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not." Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here." While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.'
--Luke 9: 28-43a
“Listen to him!” The voice of God speaks on two occasions in the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The first is at Jesus’ baptism, when the voice speaks directly to Jesus, calling him “my beloved” and saying “with you I am well pleased.” The other time is the moment we just heard, the Transfiguration atop Mt. Tabor, when Jesus is lifted in the air, shining and resplendent light, and shown conversing with Moses the Law-Giver and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets. In a moment filled with awe and wonder, the voice speaks about Jesus, once again calling him a Son, the chosen, and instructing the onlookers – and everyone who inherited this story - to listen to him.
Well, they didn’t listen. If you go atop Mt. Tabor today, you can see the gigantic Basilica of the Transfiguration, and when you step inside, you’re greeted by the chapel of Moses on one side and the chapel of Elijah on the other. Peter, it turns out, got his way. We built the things. We didn’t listen to Jesus. Why is that so hard?
I wonder if it’s because we so rarely ever listen to each other. When I played baseball in college, we had a practice one day in which we were working on catching flyballs. Coach hit a sky-high pop fly to left field. The left fielder, shortstop, and third baseman all tried to catch it. The left fielder called for it – “I got it! I got it!” The other two slowed up a little but the ball fell between the three of them. The third baseman and shortstop told Coach that they had, in fact, heard the left fielder call for the ball. “You may have heard him,” Coach said, “but you weren’t listening.”
There is a difference. Hearing is a natural sense of the body, while listening means really paying attention to what’s being said and responding. It’s more relational, it’s active. The third baseman and shortstop, Coach said, should’ve let the left fielder know they were listening by yelling back, “Take it! Take it! Take it!” To listen is to communicate, verbally or non-verbally, that you’re in it with the other person. Can you think of a time when you were speaking to someone and they didn’t respond in any way that did thisl? Maybe they told you afterwards that they heard you, but they weren’t listening. What does it mean for us to not just hear Jesus but to listen to him?
Had Peter really been listening, maybe he wouldn’t have suggested building the three dwelling for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Maybe the Basilica of the Transfiguration and its accompanying chapels wouldn’t exist atop Mt. Tabor. Maybe he could’ve understood then what Jesus is still trying to get us to understand now, which is that we can’t stay on the mountaintop. We have to come down.
Mountaintop experiences are wonderful, don’t get me wrong. A wedding, a graduation, a birth, all of these are moments of pure excitement and joy, where it feels like our hearts are set on fire with a kind of holy exuberance that comes from encountering the Divine face-to-face. We can’t help but want to stay in them. But it is only by coming down from them that we grow and learn. Weddings are great, but then the couple has to learn to live together in this new way. Graduations are exciting, but will a job exist that will enable the person to use that new degree? And a birth is cause for celebration, but that child is going to need a ton of love and support if they are going to have a chance in this world. If I may bring it closer to home, being declared a parish and celebrating with the whole diocese was an amazing experience for everyone here, but we gotta learn what being a parish really means from here on. Like Moses, Jesus, and especially those three disciples, we all must come back down from our various mountaintop experiences if we are going to become who God is calling us to be.
What happens when Jesus comes down from Mt. Tabor? It ain’t pretty. A man comes up to Jesus in desperation to cure his child’s epilepsy. The disciples who had not gone up the mountain had tried to help, but they failed. No one knows what to do, and Jesus’ frustration begins to show. “How much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” he wonders out loud. Have you ever seen the images of ‘Facepalm Jesus,’ the statue of Jesus that looks like this….
Yeah, that’s more or less what’s happening here. He doesn’t find peace or quiet or people who have it together. When he comes down from the mountain, down into the valley, Jesus finds chaos and confusion. His ministry shifts, too, from walking around and meeting people where they are in Galilee, to heading up the long, treacherous road to Jerusalem. To betrayal and death and resurrection. This is why every year we hear the story of the Transfiguration the Sunday before Lent begins. Our focus, too, is shifting. We are about to embark on a time of fasting, praying , and reflecting. The journey is long, but it ends with resurrection.
We may wish for the euphoric moments in which the power and majesty of God is as close to us as it was to Peter, James, and John. But it is down in the valleys of our lives that we learn and grow and discover our true selves. Whether willingly or unwillingly, to move into those valleys and head toward our own Jerusalem is frightening, but we do not travel the way alone. We have each other, and most of all, we have Jesus, who has already blazed that trail for us. Maybe you feel like you’re in the valley right now and will never reach that mountaintop again. But know that where you are is not where you will finish, and together, we’ll get to resurrection.
The first time I preached on the Transfiguration I told the story of how I grew up on a mountain, how the majesty of the mountains can often connect us to God, but how, like Jesus and the disciples, we are so often compelled to come down from the mountaintops of our lives in order to become who we are meant to be; and I used as an example, driving away from that mountain for the last time and heading off to seminary and this great unknown journey Jesus was calling me to take. I thought it was a pretty good sermon, to be honest, but as the folks filed through the receiving line, one woman said to me: “Oh I just love the mountains, too!” The point of the sermon, which was that we have to come down from the mountain, had been completely lost on her. I guess she heard my sermon, but she didn’t really listen to it.
In the wilderness of Lent, will we simply hear Jesus, or listen to him? Will we not just hear him rebuke Satan’s temptations of power, prestige and possessions, but listen to him compel us to rebuke them ourselves? Will we not just hear his story of a prodigal child, but listen to him as he shows us the ones that we can embrace and love in the same way as the father in that story? Will we not just hear him call Lazarus to get up from the grave, but listen to him call us out of the depths of our unworthiness, grief, and pain, and into the light of our true selves? On the road to Jerusalem, in the upper room washing feet, crying in agony on the cross, and walking away from an empty tomb, this is Jesus the Father’s Chosen. Let us listen to him.
