Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon from Mark 9:2-9
on February 22, 2009 (Transfiguration, Year B)
on February 22, 2009 (Transfiguration, Year B)
Transfiguration requires change but change is not always a good thing. For instance, when I was in high school the curriculum was changed to teach the "new math." The new math meant the teacher no longer taught math. She handed you an algebra book at the beginning of the year. You were to read the book and figure out how to work the problems. If you had a question, you asked the teacher. Otherwise, a typical class consisted of the teacher talking about his favorite rock and roll group while the class members did whatever they wanted to do as long as they stayed inside the room and did not get loud enough to disrupt another class. Needless to say, only the brightest students learned algebra because they could learn it on their own. Most of us didn't learn anything except how to manage stress. The new math was not a good change. It contributed to what some people refer to as the dumbing down of America.
I recently viewed the 1967 film "Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back" which documents Dylan's tour of England. Most of the film consisted of the young rock star smoking cigarettes and babbling about nonsense with other intoxicated young people. In the scenes where he diddles around on the piano or guitar or harmonica it is obvious he's not a very good musician. He phrasing is good but his singing voice is not. His lyrics are interesting in a Jack Kerouack or Allen Ginsberg copy cat kind of way. Mainly he lopes around with long disheveled hair or peers outside his limousine window through dark sunglasses. Yet he was presented as the great artiste of the moment when he played in Albert Hall in London. He crooned, "The times they are a'changin'." But not all change is good.
In a former pastorate I had a church member who literally became a rock star while I was a pastor of the church where she was reared. Her parents still attended the church and her mother was a leading elder and soloist in the choir. Every year the new rock star came home for Christmas. She attended the Christmas Eve musical program and then everyone went to her parent's house for a Christmas party after the service. Whenever I saw her, I found it hard to speak. My mouth dried up. One time I mustered the courage to say, "What have you been up to?" She said, "Oh, I've been touring Latin America with Elton John. He gave me this expensive set of antique china. He's so generous with his friends." I said, "Wow" or something to that effect. How would you respond to a statement like that? Here was a young lady whom I knew through church who had recently won Grammy awards and she is standing in front of me in her own childhood home on Christmas Eve.
Peter was feeling some celebrity shock when Elijah and Moses joined Jesus on the mountain top. Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them. Elijah, along with Moses, came into view, in deep conversation with Jesus. So what did Peter do in the midst of this incredibly holy event? Peter interrupted Elijah, Moses and Jesus. Imagine the nerve. He interrupted their conversation. Why did he interrupt them? What did he have to say that was so important that it could not wait? He said, "Rabbi, this is a great moment! Let's build three memorials— one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah." He blurted this out without thinking, stunned as they all were by what they were seeing.
Peter, James and John, the three disciples Jesus took with him up the mountainside in today's story, were not well known in their own lifetimes. We know them as three of the twelve disciples of Jesus. They are famous to us now but in their own lifetimes they were just ordinary people. They weren't particularly spiritual, they didn't understand very much and they weren't even particularly reliable. For although they were the three singled out after the Last Supper to watch with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, they all failed to stay awake. And along with the other disciples, they all deserted Jesus when the crunch came.
So although they had this amazing mountaintop experience of transfiguration, and heard God speaking to them from a cloud, nothing much changed for them initially. It was only years later, after Jesus had died and had risen again, that those early experiences came into their own and Peter, James and John became the acknowledged leaders of the early church.
Some people today enjoy mountaintop experiences, where they have an overwhelming spiritual revelation of some sort. But just as only a quarter of the disciples experienced the glory of the transfiguration, so not everybody has mountaintop experiences.
Many of us muddle along in a bit of a cloud, not quite knowing exactly where we're going, and not able to see the way ahead very clearly. And most of us experience clouds from time to time. But they're not necessarily white, fluffy clouds. The clouds which gather over human lives are often dark and ominous and threatening.
So it's worth remembering that no matter how glorious the transfiguration experience, God didn't speak at all during it, but spoke afterwards from the cloud which followed it and which overshadowed them.
And God didn't give a particularly earth-shattering message, but simply repeated the words used at Jesus' baptism, "This is my beloved son, listen to him."
Perhaps when we're overshadowed by cloud, we sometimes expect God to give very specific directions, telling us exactly what to do and how to do it. But if we're expecting that, maybe we fail to hear the quiet voice and the gentle message which simply says, "Listen!"
Or maybe we apply an often used technique called "Selective listening." Many of us have selective listening, don't we? We hear what we want to hear. Many of us certainly know people who have selective listening. Some of us are probably married to someone who practices selective listening.
Listening is important in our relationship to God and in our relationships with our family. A recent survey by Cynthia Langham at the University of Detroit found that parents and children spend only 14.5 minutes per day talking to each other. She says that many people are shocked to hear the 14.5 minutes statistic. But once they take a stopwatch to their conversations, they realize that she is right. Tragically, that 14.5-minute statistic is actually misleading since most of that time is squandered on chitchat such as, "What's for supper?" and, "Have you finished your homework?" True, meaningful communication between parent and child unfortunately occupies only about two minutes each day. Langham concludes, "Nothing indicates that parent-child communications are improving. If things are changing, it's for the worse."
She points to two major reasons for this breakdown. First is the change in the work force. A few decades ago the dinner table was a forum for family business and communication. But now, Dad's still at work, Mom is headed for a business meeting, and Sister has to eat and run to make it to her part-time job. Even when everyone is home, there are constant interruptions to meaningful communication.
The second reason for poor parent-child communication is television. A recent study reported a forty-year decline in the amount of time children spend with their parents, much of the recent loss due to television. [Leslie Barker, "We Never Seem to Talk Anymore," [DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 25 Sept 1989, C. Cited in J. Kerby Anderson, SIGNS OF WARNING, SIGNS OF HOPE (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994), p. 33.] Our challenge is to slow down and listen to one another.
We had a very productive Session retreat yesterday which focused on community building and learning to listen. The retreat leader shared a technique that I found helpful. When we have an issue between us and another church member, we may put that issue into a cooker. He showed a slide of a big outdoor grill with a grilled chicken in it. He suggested using that mental image to put away a divisive issue into a safe place so that we can listen to one another without hearing everything that is said through the filter of the divisive issue. I like that idea and plan to use it. I suggest it to you.
Learning to listen can lead to positive change – the kind of change that transfigures us – as the caterpillar is transfigured into a butterfly. My intuition tells me this church is about to experience a positive transfiguration. I don't know what it will look like or when it will happen but it will be a positive change when it does happen.
Listening can transfigure lives. Although it wasn't immediately apparent, those ordinary disciples listened sufficiently to God's voice in the cloud to enable their lives to be transfigured at a later date. Perhaps if you want your life to be transfigured, you simply need to listen to God when the clouds overshadow you. As we read in Mark's version of Jesus transfiguration: "Just then a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and from deep in the cloud, a voice: "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
