What Will It Take for Us to Recognize Jesus and Listen to Him? Mark 9:2-9 Dr. Christopher C. F. Chapman First Baptist Church, Raleigh February 15, 2015 Many years ago Dana s father was flying back from London to New York after doing business in some other part of the world. The plane was about ready to leave the terminal in London when a limo pulled out near the plane and a woman got on and sat down next to Mr. White. He figured she must be someone important or influential, but did not ask who she was. They talked some during the flight, mostly small talk, but it was all very natural and friendly. At one point, she was doing needlework and he told her he didn t think she was doing the corners right. My daughter does needlework, he said, referring to Dana, and then he showed her how to do it and she said thanks. She said things he might have picked up on, like that she had family in Philadelphia and was coming back for a board meeting of 20 th Century-Fox, but he didn t. Just before they got to New York, she went in the restroom and put on some makeup and when she came back, he realized that all of this time, the lady he had been talking to like she was his next-door neighbor, the lady whose needlework he had corrected, was Grace Kelly! Now he felt awkward and struggled to get out a word. But they did talk a bit more. She wanted to know where he was from and he said he lived in Louisville but was from a small town in Kentucky she probably had never heard of. She said she had been to the Derby in Louisville but the only small town she knew in the state was Hopkinsville because the playwright who gave her her first role was from there. You re not going to believe this, he told her, but I am from Hopkinsville and that playwright s father took out my tonsils. The conversation continued until they landed. They found other connections, like someone Dan knew in Hop-town who sent a country ham to Monaco every Christmas. She invited Dan s family to the palace but she died in a car accident very soon thereafter. 1
It was quite an experience, the kind Mr. White often had in his travels. Every time he has told this story, I have said that I would have known Grace Kelly even without her make-up, but the truth is I have no idea whether I would have known her or not. Sometimes we struggle to recognize the person sitting next to us until something helps us to see. Something like this happens to Peter, James and John when they go up on a mountain with Jesus, the mount of transfiguration. They finally recognize who they have been following. We might assume they know already. That s why they are following him. And in the story right before the one we have read today, Jesus asks his disciples first who others say he is and then who they say he is, and Peter says, You are the Messiah. But he doesn t have any idea what this means, which is probably why Jesus sternly orders him not to tell anyone at this point. How do we know Peter doesn t understand who Jesus is? Right after Peter says Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus tells his inner circle of followers he will undergo great suffering, ultimately be killed and then rise again after three days. And Peter takes him aside and rebukes him. He doesn t just gently disagree or ask a probing question as to why Jesus thinks these things must happen. He gets in his face and rebukes him! So, not only does Peter fail to understand what kind of Messiah Jesus is, not a political deliverer but a suffering servant, one who will lay down his life for others. But the very fact that Peter talks to Jesus in this way says he doesn t know who he is. He may be sitting next to him on the plane, he may have left his home and family to follow him, but he still doesn t know because if he did, he wouldn t talk to him this way. A minister tells the story of being taken up in a small Cessna by a retired Delta pilot. During the flight the pilot invited him to fly the plane, with his help, of course. The minister had never flown before. So, he listened carefully to every word of instruction and did exactly what the pilot told him to do. It never occurred to him to say, No, I don t think I want to do it this way, or, I don t feel like doing that right now. It was obvious as to who had any knowledge of how to fly a plane. Why would he argue? And yet, he wonders, how often do we argue with God in this way about things we know nothing about? 2
That s what Peter is doing with Jesus, telling the Messiah how to be the Messiah, until they go up on a mountain and Jesus puts his makeup on, and Peter, James and John see who he really is. Mark says Jesus is transfigured before them. The Greek word metamorphothe refers to some sort of dramatic change in appearance, though we don t know exactly how Jesus changes. Mark says his clothes become dazzling white in a way that nothing on earth could bleach them. So we get a sense of brightness and light. Then, Elijah and Moses appear, representatives of the law and the prophets, the heritage of their faith, thus signifying a new revelation if Jesus belongs with them, something big is happening here yet also linking this new experience to the past. Peter then makes his much maligned offer to build three tents for Moses, Elijah and Jesus. The offer echoes the tabernacle experience of the journey to the Promised Land, but Mark says Peter speaks more out of anxiety than faith. He does not know what to say. He and the others are terrified. To make matters worse, or more unsettling, a cloud overshadows them and a voice speaks, saying, This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! And then suddenly, they look around and see no one but Jesus. It is not an everyday experience. It is an incredible experience. Whatever they thought of Jesus before will be transcended by this time on the mountain with him. But it is not a warm and fuzzy experience. They do not respond with oohs and ahs. It is an unsettling experience, one that fills them with awe and amazement. For the purpose is not simply to confirm what they already believe but to jolt them into a deeper awareness of who Jesus really is. He has been trying to tell them but they haven t been willing to listen. So, it takes something dramatic to get their attention. It takes an experience that is filled with mystery and wonder. Theologian Rudolph Otto, in his classic work The Idea of The Holy talked about the mysterium tremedum et fascinans the holy mystery of God that shakes the very foundation of our lives and fascinates us at the deepest level of our being in such a way that draws us in. That s the kind of experience the disciples have on the mountain with Jesus and because they do, they cannot help but see Jesus in a different way. 3
He is not just an ordinary Messiah, a teacher and political leader, a healer even. There is something otherworldly about him. The voice says he is God s Son and thus they should listen to him in a way they would listen to no one else except for God. Do they finally get it now? Yes and no. They will have to process this experience and in the light of the resurrection, they will finally get it, but it will still take more time. Even Peter s offer to pitch tents could be seen as a sign of misunderstanding. He wants to extend this experience, stay on the mountain, keep the Messiah safe from harm in this high and lofty place and keep himself safe with him. But Jesus will go back down the mountain into the world of much need and risk and he will ask Peter and the others to follow him. And they will try, but they will struggle, yet through it all they will remember that there is something very special about this guy, maybe they should listen to him after all, even when they don t understand what he is saying, even when they do understand. This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! This is point of this story. Listen to him! Listen to Jesus! This is what it takes to get Peter and the others to begin doing so. What will it take for us? If the purpose of transfiguration is to enable us to see Jesus for who he really is and thus be willing to listen to his teachings, really listen to them, even when we find them difficult to understand and follow, what will enable us to do so? Like those first disciples, we may think we already know who he is. He is the Messiah, our Savior and Lord. We confess this much in baptism. We know who he is and we listen to him, really we do, most of time, when he is reasonable. But sometimes what he asks Like this busyness about forgiving wrongs seventy-seven times, loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors. Like the matter of selling all and giving to the poor and following him Like his suggestion that the dead bury the dead, that people should leave all to follow him, put him first even before family I mean, this is a teacher who says out of one side of his mouth, Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I 4
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30). But out of the other side says, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24). Do we get to choose which invitation we respond to? How can we listen to him? How can we do everything he asks? Now you know why we are not singing I Surrender All today as a hymn of discipleship. I Have Decided to Follow Jesus is difficult enough but I Surrender All? All? I didn t want to ask anyone to lie right here in the sanctuary. How do we listen to Jesus, really listen to him? What do we do with the difficult teachings and demands? I am not talking so much about the teachings that are difficult to understand but the ones we understand all too well. How do we surrender more if not all? The story of transfiguration suggests that we begin by understanding at a deeper level who Jesus is. Just in practical terms more people have followed this man s teachings than anyone else in history, people who call themselves Christians and people who do not. The only religion with as many adherents as Christianity is Islam and Jesus is a holy figure in Islam, a central prophetic figure, an esteemed teacher. Many Imams I have worked with have said that in order to be a good Muslim, you must first be a good Jew, know and follow the Torah; and then be a good Christian, know and follow the teachings of Jesus; only then can you begin to be a good Muslim. More people have followed Jesus teachings than anyone else s. This much alone might suggest that we consider his wisdom very seriously even at the points where we might be tempted to disagree. But Jesus is more than a wise teacher. He is, according to the great confessions of the church and the story of transfiguration, God s Son, not just a child of God but a unique embodiment of the Divine. If this is so, how much sense would it make to dismiss anything he has to say? To struggle with our call, to question things from time to time, to wonder if the accounts we have are accurate at every point, especially when the texts themselves disagree, to take seriously our responsibility 5
to think through what any teaching means all of this makes sense. But to dismiss the basic claims and calls of the One who embodies the very essence of God is like telling a trained pilot we will do the flying even though we have never flown before! It just doesn t make sense. If we see Jesus for who he really is, listening to him becomes not necessarily easier, nor even more manageable, but something we are more motivated to do. But the question is how do we see him for who he really is? For Peter, James and John it takes a dramatic experience on a mountain, an intimate encounter with the holy, transfiguration we call it. What will it take for us? I don t think there is one answer. God comes to us in many different ways. Some of us need more in the way of persuasion. And most of us have not one but many different transfiguration experiences along the way which may simply confirm the validity of our initial experience with God and thus strengthen our faith in times of challenge or perhaps teach us more and more each time. For me, simply reading the gospel accounts for the first time as a teenager was a transfiguration experience. There was something about the texts that drew me in and persuaded me to follow Jesus. Baptism was another transfiguration experience, as it often is, a moment of knowing God s love and seeing Jesus more clearly. But I have had other transfiguration experiences - running through a cloud one beautiful fall morning on Beach Mountain, worshipping with the Sisit Community in Kenya, sitting on a pew in this sanctuary listening to gorgeous and reverent and uplifting sacred music. In each experience I have seen Jesus more clearly and deepened my yearning to follow his teachings. But there are many other ways to do this, and often our experience is tied to need, our need. When we are most aware of our frailty and brokenness, we are able to recognize our need for God. I think of the journey of Louis Zamperini, documented in the book Unbroken, and now the film as well. Zamperini was a gifted miler who ran in one Olympic Games and might have set many world records if not for World War II which took him to the Pacific as a bombardier and eventually to several Japanese prison camps where he was brutally 6
beaten, starved and ridiculed in every way possible. In fact, he and the other survivors of a plane crash nearly drowned and were eaten by sharks before they even became POW s. Amazingly he survived, he was an incredibly resilient soul, and after the war, he married, but he struggled with images of his tormentors, one in particular; he was consumed by anger and all but lost his marriage; and eventually he nearly drank himself to death in an effort to dull the pain. What turned his life around was that his wife, who became a devoted Christian, insisted that he go to a Billy Graham crusade. He at first refused and eventually went only grudgingly, but once he got there, things began to change. Graham preached about our need for God and who Jesus is. He acknowledged suffering in the world that is difficult to understand but insisted that God still cares about each of us, indeed this is what the Jesus story is about. He said that God works miracles, one after another, and if we suffer, God will give us the grace to go forward. Somehow, hearing all of this, being exhausted with his struggle and knowing he needed help, Zamperini let down the walls he had put between himself and God and began to see and believe. He even remembered a vow he had made as he floated on a raft in the Pacific with sharks circling - that if God would save him, he would serve God forever. From that moment forward, he kept the vow, cleaned up his life, put his marriage back together, even tried to get to his tormentor so that he could offer him forgiveness and invite him to follow Jesus. It is an amazing story and Louis experience of transfiguration is distinctive. We hope not to suffer in the ways he did, to need God so desperately. But we do suffer and we all need God and sometimes our need is what helps us to see. Our vulnerability tears down the walls and opens our eyes, and finally we see who Jesus is, and we are ready to hear the Good News that can put our lives back together again. The Good News today and every day is that Someone important and influential is sitting next to us. If only we will recognize Jesus for who he is, we will be able to listen to him and follow his teachings and thus live in a way that brings us the deepest joy we can know. 7