Listen

The scriptures referred to are 1 Kings 19:9-18,2 Peter 1:16-31, and Mark 9:2-9.

You know the one character who appears in all 4 Monty Python movies and in the opening of their TV show? I'm not talking about the 5 writers and one animator who played almost all the parts.They always played different characters—except this one. It was God. He was usually a cartoon and sometimes just a foot that would descend from the heavens to squash something. In one sketch, a family is disgusted by finding dead bishops on their doorstep every day so they call the church police. The officers are dressed like English Bobbies but with crosses atop their helmets. Led by a detective who wears a priest's stole, they first ascertain the bishop's diocese (it's tattooed on the back of their necks) and then pray that God will reveal the murderer. A gigantic hand comes down and points to the culprit. As he is hauled away, the detective leads the family in a hymn.

Wouldn't it be great if God worked that way? If he always popped up the minute someone sinned, told them they were wrong and made them repent right then and there. Or, if someone was particularly bad, if he just zapped them with a lightning bolt or squashed them flat with a big foot? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I don't think so either. Putting aside the whole issue of having to pick your way through streets clogged with folks who were either crispy or crepes, it would be very hard to function if God visibly and verbally intervened at every infraction, however minor. It would be as if your parents followed you everywhere. Apart from being annoying, it would lead to the world's population being afraid to do anything for fear of getting it wrong. People would flee from God like cockroaches flee from a light. It would even lead some people to choose open rebellion against God. We see this often in “preacher's kids.” Some of my colleagues were PKs and admit to deliberately cultivating a bad boy attitude as an overcompensation for the constant pressure to not only behave but be perfect.

God doesn't want robots. He wants people who obey him out of love. Maybe that's why God set up the world so that our every sin doesn't result in immediate pain or suffering. He gives us a margin of grace in most things. We have time to repent and change our ways. But if we continue doing the same sins over and over, the physical, social, emotional and spiritual damage will accumulate.

Still wouldn't it be nice if God talked to the world audibly sometimes? The Israelites didn't think so. At Mount Sinai, the God who took them out of slavery in Egypt spoke to all the people. And they asked Moses if, from now on, he would act as a go-between. Just as they thought that seeing God face to face meant death, hearing the creator of everything address them was a profoundly unnerving experience. (Exodus 20:19)

So from that point on, we see God speaking to and through his prophets. Even so, they were freaked out by these encounters. Isaiah was acutely aware of his extreme lack of holiness in God's presence. (Isaiah 6:5) Words fail to coherently describe what Ezekiel saw. (Ezekiel 1) Jeremiah stammered that he was too young. (Jeremiah 1:6) Maybe that's why God speaks so softly to Elijah in 1 Kings 19. Elijah is fresh from his triumph of exposing the false prophets of Baal for what they were and destroying them. But he fled from the threatened backlash for that to the mountain of God and now is depleted and depressed. He thinks he's the last prophet left in Israel. Standing at the mouth of a cave, Elijah sees quite a spectacle. A wind comes up suddenly, cleaving mountains and blasting rocks into powder. But the Lord was not in the wind, we are told. After that, the earth shivered as if in fear. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. After that, flames engulfed the view. But the Lord was not in the fire. Finally after all that, Elijah hears a “still small voice.” Some translate this as “a gentle whisper.” The new RSV renders it “a sound of sheer silence.” Whichever you prefer, God realizes that he needn't shout to get his point across. The content speaks for itself. Elijah hears that he is not alone, not by a long shot, and that God has a plan to depose the corrupt regime that rules Israel. Furthermore, there is work for Elijah to do to kick it all off. Encouraged, Elijah is ready to fight again.

The point is that Elijah waited to hear what God had to say. Which is more than we can say for Peter in today's reading. Just a week earlier, Jesus asked them who they thought he was. Peter says, “You are the Christ.” And after congratulating Peter on his heaven-sent insight, Jesus starts talking about how he will soon be tortured and killed. Peter reprimands Jesus for saying such things and Jesus rebukes Peter for for not letting him be the kind of Messiah he was sent to be. Peter is hurt and confused. All he wants for Jesus is the best. So why was he called Satan for suggesting that Jesus is frightening the troops with all this death talk? (Mark 8:27-33)

Probably still upset by Jesus' teachings about what will happen to him, the inner circle of Peter, James and John accompany Jesus up another mountain. And then it all changes. Jesus' clothes look blindingly white. Moses, the lawgiver supreme, and Elijah, the paragon of prophets, are talking to Jesus. This doesn't happen every day, not even to Jesus. Frightened out of his wits, Peter starts babbling about camping out with these two heroes of the faith. That's when the cloud covers them and God tells them, “This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him!”

There's a lot that's important in this passage but for our purposes I want to focus on what God tells the disciples: “This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him!” A lot of problems in our lives could be avoided if we simply did what God says here—listen to Jesus.

After the success of the first film, an interviewer asked the Pythons what their next movie would be. Eric Idle quipped, “Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory.” Everyone thought they were just joking but they were seriously thinking of doing a religious satire. Then they studied the life and words of Jesus. They were struck by how wise and good he was and they didn't want to make fun of him. But they were inspired to make fun of the ways people blindly follow and distort religious and political ideologies. The Life of Brian is about a guy born in the manger next door to Jesus. All his life Brian keeps getting mistaken for the Messiah. The joke is that Brian doesn't want to be worshipped or have followers but can't shake his fervent disciples who zealously and wrongly interpret everything he says and does. People do this with Jesus too. One scene puts us on the fringes of the crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount. They are so far away from Jesus that they can't quite make out what he's saying. “What did he say?” asks one fellow. “Blessed is the Greek,” another says. “Really?” the first guy says, “Which one?”

This reminds me of when Barbara Brown Taylor related the story of a poetry reading by W.H. Auden. The poet spoke so softly that not everyone could hear him. So other people tried helpfully to relay what they thought he was saying. Eventually the people trying to pass on what he said got so loud that no one could hear the poet himself!

We tend to get that in churches. So many people are speaking for Jesus that nobody can actually hear what he says. And sometimes people deliberately misquote Jesus. There are times when we look at what he said and go, “Oh, he couldn't have meant that!” And so we issue corrections like a White House press secretary trying to walk back what a president said. I actually heard a pastor say of a difficult passage, “Jesus couldn't have said that. Or if he did, he was wrong.” That's what Peter did when Jesus made the disturbing statement that he was going to die like a criminal. Just after telling Jesus he was God's anointed king, Peter immediately informed Jesus that he knew less about his role as Messiah than Peter did. That's why Jesus rebuked him. “You are not thinking as God does but as human beings think.” We get nothing out of the hard sayings in the Bible if we dismiss them. Instead we should grapple with them, like Jacob wrestling with the angel who declared, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26)

Sometimes we blather on like Peter at the transfiguration. We find ourselves in an unfamiliar situation and we neglect to simply get quiet and listen to Jesus. The silence can be frightening at times. We don't want to wait it out. We want someone to please say something. And so we fill it with the first thing that comes out of our mouth.

But there are times when talking is unnecessary or even wrong. Like when a friend is dealing with the loss of a loved one. We may be tempted to say something like, “It was God's will.” Or “You mustn't feel sad. He's in God's hands.” The point isn't whether what you say is right or not. The point is your job may be to just shut up and listen. Let God speak to the person through your presence and love. The best thing Job's comforters do is just sit with him silently for the first week. It's when they open up their mouths and try to justify God letting this tragedy hit Job that they get into trouble. (Job 2:13; 42:7)

In 2 Peter, the writer says, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths.” (2 Peter 1:16) When people deliberately concoct myths they usually make them comforting. They tell us what we want to hear. They don't usually challenge us. That's why new religious fads don't tell people they are sinners, and why they tell them that they are automatically going to heaven. They don't usually tell people they must make painful changes in their lifestyles or habits. They will never say that the world is violently out of balance and we must put all our weight on the side of peace and forgiveness and self-sacrifice to put it right again. Most New Age gurus bless the status quo or attack some easy target like an abstract quality of society. “Stop being so materialistic! And buy my books, videos and merch!” The popular ones never say, “...love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you...” (Matthew 5:44) Or “But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” (Matthew 5:39) Or “If you want to come after me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; Matthew 16:24)

That's precisely the sort of thing you will hear if you listen to Jesus. If we stop our babbling, stop our commentary, stop our excuses, and simply quiet ourselves, we will eventually hear in the sheer silence the still small voice of our Lord. And though there may not be any whirlwinds or earthquakes or fires, what that gentle whisper imparts to us will blow away and shatter our preconceptions, shake the foundations of our world, and burn within us like a fire in our hearts. (Luke 24:32) Eventually even Peter learned this. When Jesus lost a lot of followers with a difficult speech about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he turned to the twelve disciples and said, “You don't want to go away too, do you?” And Peter said, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:67-68)

This was originally preached on February 26, 2006. It has been updated a bit.