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February 18, 2007: Last Sunday After Epiphany
Transfiguration of Our Lord

Luke 9:28-36
Listen to Him!

Our gospel lesson begins with the words, now about 8 days after these sayings… so you may have flipped back to last Sunday, 8 days ago, to Jesus' Sermon on the Plain with the four beatitudes and 4 woe-ititudes, and you maybe assuming these are the sayings Luke is referring to, but he isn't. A lot has happened between chapter 6 last week and chapter 9 today.

Jesus has demonstrated his mastery over the sea and fed a multitude in the wilderness, just as God did through Moses during the exodus. And like the ancient prophet Elijah, Jesus has multiplied food, cleansed lepers, and raised the dead. Herod wonders who Jesus is. John the Baptist's followers are asking Jesus: are you THE ONE?

And after all these spectacular miracles Jesus asks his disciples “who do the crowds say I am?' They answer: “some say you're John the Baptist, others Elijah.” And then Jesus asks them, “who do you say I am?” Peter declares, “ the messiah the son of God.”

Jesus commands the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah, and that he will undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes. Even worse, he will be killed, and rise again on the 3 rd day. And as the disciples are still trying to digest that piece of unbelievable news, Jesus says something even weirder to them:

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?”

So today's gospel picks up 8 days after these sayings. Jesus takes Peter, James and John on a mountain climbing expedition up THE mountain.

Once there, Jesus begins praying. Luke doesn't tell us what Peter did up there with James and John, except try to keep from falling asleep. While praying Jesus catches fire from within. His face changes, and his clothes become a dazzling white. The glory of God shines forth from him. It is as though all exterior barriers to Jesus' identity have fallen away as he radiates the presence of God. This is a slightly different account than Mark and Matthew give us in their gospels. Here Luke underscores the power of prayer to mediate God's presence.

When we read this Gospel lesson in tandem with our first lesson today, the parallels are unmistakable.  Moses is on a mountain talking with God.  Jesus is on the mountain to talk with God.  As a result of the conversation, Moses' face radiates the glory of God.  In the course of his prayer, Jesus' face is changed and his clothes flash with dazzling, radiant light.   But now the parallels end.  T wo other figures appear with Jesus -- Moses the lawgiver and the prophet Elijah -- dead heroes of the past who Jesus is mistaken for.   Luke tells us about their conversation.  The three talk about what is soon to happen to Jesus in Jerusalem . Significantly, Luke uses the verb exodon or “exodus” that Jesus will soon embark upon.  Don't miss the powerful imagery Luke gives us here: the lawgiver, Moses, and the prophet Elijah, testify to Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection as a new kind of exodus, one from slavery to sin and death, to new life and freedom in Christ. An exodus that the Incarnate God leads, bringing salvation to all nations.

As Moses and Elijah begin to fade away.  Peter blurts out: “Master it is good for us to be here. Let us make a dwelling for each of you.”

There's a lot of speculation among preachers and biblical scholars about just why Peter would suggest such a thing. Here's my theory: I think Peter, like many of us, just wanted to be busy doing something “constructive” as a way of controlling the mystery and strangeness of the moment. It was a way of moving him out of the anxiety he was feeling about being in a situation he couldn't control and sure as heck didn't understand. That's a Peter I can identify with. On the day of my father's funeral, 3 of my 4 brothers spent the afternoon installing a garbage disposal in my mother's kitchen. She had wanted one for awhile, but my father never got around to putting one in. Ever been there and done that? Busied yourself doing something constructive to give you some control in a situation you couldn't control?

Peter's building proposal is met with silence as the 4 men are immersed in the cloud of God's presence, understandably terrifying three of them.  Now, God speaks: “This is my Son,” – the very same words Jesus had heard at his baptism are now being heard by Peter, James and John.  But there is more, “... my chosen; listen to him!”

Jesus is the one they, and we, are to listen to.

Luke goes on to tell us: After God had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And Peter James and John kept silent and in those days they told no one any of the things they had seen.”

Their reactions of keeping this strange and awesome event to themselves is in some respects the most believable part of this story. Have you ever experienced something so strange, so foreign to your experience that you could only share it much, much later, if it all?

It is so difficult for us humans to incorporate, to integrate something that is so totally outside our experience, our worldview of the way things are, that we invariably employ some kind of denial mechanism until we are able to experience life in light of whatever new thing we have seen or heard.

I suggest we have a similar problem listening to Christ, discerning God's will. By looking at the state of our world and church, discerning God's will isn't something we do very well these days. But Moravian Bishop Art Freemans warns us: “If Christ cannot give us guidance and participate in the life of our churches, then we may have to recognize that he is not present with us after all, and we are actually only relating with him as a figure of past history, a once great religious leader who has left us traditions which shape our present faith.”

As Moravians we profess our church is a theocracy—Jesus Christ is our Chief Elder. We declare in the Ground of the Unity that Jesus is present with us NOW, and directs and unites us through his spirit thus forming us into a Church. We hear him summoning us to follow him.

The Moravian Synod of 1764 described the relationship between Christ the Chief elder to our church as very similar to the relationship between Yahweh and the chosen people during their exodus, their transition time. Just as the wandering Israelites were totally dependant upon Yahweh for everything, for direction, for daily food and water, so we as Moravians are to be totally dependant upon Christ's headship in our church.

Christ knows our deepest potential. Christ sees the hidden complexities of our circumstances, comprehends our situation in relation to the larger picture, and grasps the broader implications of our plans. Discerning the voice of Christ, listening to Christ, is our effort to tap into this flow of divine wisdom. Knowing God's will for us is the greatest thing that can happen to any of us, for when we respond to God's call we discover who we really are. We lose our false selves, and find, save, our true selves.

So how do we embody this? How do we incorporate the vision, the abstract belief that Jesus is the head of our church into our actual day to day living and decision-making as Christ's church? Or asked another way: If we take the involvement of Jesus as our Chief Elder seriously here at First Moravian, if we really want to listen to him speaking to us his congregation now, how do we do that? How do we distinguish Jesus' voice from all the other voices that speak to us?

Discerning the voice of Christ, hearing Christ, is a prayerful, informed, and intentional effort to distinguish God's voice from all the other voices that influence us, our own voices of urgency or fear, voices of parents, authority figures, and our consumer what's in it for me, culture.

Henri Nouwen, in his book the Voice of Inner Love advises us:

“The root choice is to trust at all times that God is with you and will give you what you most need. God says to you, ‘I love you. I am with you. I want to see you come close to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and a new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God.'” Sound familiar? Remember last week's sermon?

Nouwen continues: “This is the voice to listen to. But that listening requires a real choice, not just once in a while but every moment of each day and night.” A daily relationship with God is necessary for good discernment. To attempt to discern God's will in a vacuum, by simply following a set of instructions, or trying only when it suits us, is futile. God cannot be manipulated. God does not play games with us. The foundation for discernment is an active and vital prayer life with our prayer being more than a one way monologue of our needs and wants to God, as if God were Santa Claus instead of the very force of life and love that is constantly sustaining us.

Remember Jesus goes to the mountain to pray, and as he is praying he is changed, radiating the divine presence. Throughout Luke's Gospel Jesus withdraws to pray. Prayer is what sustains his ministry! Prayer is what will sustain us! For how can we deceive ourselves in thinking we can do better than Jesus and not pray?

This week I invite you to just try sitting in the presence of God for ten minutes every day this week. Just find a quiet place where you can be alone with God. Repeat in your mind a phrase like “I trust you God.” Or maybe “Help me to trust you,” is a more honest description of where you are. “I want to know you, God.” Or, “help me to love myself as you love me, O God.” Whatever your deepest need is that will help you to put your trust in God alone and experience the fierce love God has for you. Stick with the phrase, and if your mind wanders gently bring it back to the phrase you've chosen. Keep at this, gradually increasing your time until you reach a level that feels right to you.

Hazel Mc Comas, one of my teacher's at the Spiritual Formation Academy says she began this kind of contemplative prayer with a 6 week commitment. At the end of the six weeks, she got up and thought to herself: well, I haven't gotten much out of this. I didn't think this kind of praying was right for me, and now I know for sure. When all of sudden this thought came to her, “But all your days are different.” But all your days are different.” Oh, she said, is that what this is about? And she had to admit to herself, that indeed, her days were lighter, brighter, more peaceful—not that her troubles magically disappeared, but that she had new found strength and peace to move through her days.

God says to you, and you and you and to each of us: “I love you. I am with you. I want to see you come close to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and a new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God.” Amen. Thanks be to God.