Sermon: Are You Listening?

Luke 9:28-36

Are You Listening?

James Sledge                                                       March 3, 2019 – Transfiguration of the Lord

I’ve just begun reading a book entitled, The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion: A Guide to Good Religion for Seekers, Skeptics, and Believers. It’s a follow-up to another book by the same author, “What the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?” A Guide to What Matters Most.

Both books address, in different ways, the issue of Christian identity. It’s a topic I find increasingly critical in a  world where many didn’t grow up in the church. What they know of Christianity often comes from its portrayal in the media, too often examples of  the “Bad Religion” in that book. Meanwhile, Mainline and progressive Christians are often fuzzy about our Christian identity, other than not being like that “Bad Religion.”

It is all well and good not to be like those “Bad Religion” Christians, but you can’t define yourself solely by what you are not. You also have to know what you are. And if we’re talking Christian identity, it must have something to do with Jesus. That’s one reason I think this scripture on the Transfiguration is such an important passage.

Just on the face of it the event is a big deal. A cloud and God’s voice on a mountaintop recall the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. Moses and Elijah represent the law and the prophets, the very core of Jewish faith. And the divine words, “This is my Son,” recall coronation psalms along with Jesus’ baptism.

Just prior to the Transfiguration, Jesus foretells his coming death, and he teaches his disciples what it means to follow him. “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.”  Those words still echo when Peter’s befuddled proposal for some sort of shrine is interrupted by God’s command. "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

“Listen to him.” With Christian identity, there is no avoiding this. Shrines and rituals alone won’t do. Professing one’s belief won’t do. Being a caring progressive or holding fast to conservative family values won’t do. We must listen to Jesus.

When I was a boy and my mother yelled, “Listen to me!” she spoke of more than hearing the words. “Listen” put me on notice. I’d better pay attention, and I’d better do what I heard.

The word God uses in our gospel reading carries the same sort of meaning, implying to follow or obey. Jesus has already raised this issue previously with his disciples, at one point asking, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?”

Unfortunately, far too many people who label themselves “Christian” do just that. The absurd example of some churches holding “Bring Your Gun to Church” Sundays where people pack their concealed-carry in worship is a case in point.  Jesus never spoke about guns – not surprising considering they didn’t exist in his day – he did say “Do not resist an evildoer,” and “Love your enemies.” That suggests that Jesus would be against shooting anyone with a concealed-carry, perhaps against self-defense altogether.

Progressive Christians sometimes avoid such obvious bouts of hypocrisy by not mentioning Jesus at all. It’s our churchy version of choosing “No Religion” over “Bad Religion.” We adopt a vague identity that avoids looking like “those hypocrites.” And we assume that our faith is completely compatible with a nice, suburban life.

Yet Jesus says, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return… But when you give a banquets, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you…”

He also says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” And on another occasion says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” In this last one Jesus uses a Semitic idiom where “hate” should probably be heard as “love less,” but that only makes the requirement a little easier.

Regardless of whether we engage in hypocrisy that confuses Christianity with a political party or stance, or we engage in a vague, Jesus-less Christianity content with our preferred brand of niceness and caring, the Transfiguration calls us up short. “Listen to him.” Obey him; follow him.

That’s been the core of Christian faith from the beginning. It’s about discipleship, about listening to and obeying Jesus, about doing God’s will as we have come to understand it through Jesus. We simply cannot be Christian without listening to and obeying Jesus.

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We are about to enter the season of Lent, and many people will engage in giving up something. This was originally intended as a spiritual practice to help people focus their lives on God. In reality it often turns into a relatively harmless, if not exactly spiritual, excuse for quitting smoking or going on a diet.

But let me suggest you give up something more meaningful this Lent. Give up your assumptions about what it means to be Christian, to be faithful, to be religious or spiritual. Not only give them up, but examine them by listening to what Jesus has to say about following him, about being faithful, religious, or spiritual.

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As we enter into the season of Lent, we are also moving into the next steps of our RENEW process, hearing about new church structures and why we think they are needed. Some people will like these changes and others will not, but neither reaction says much about whether they are good or right. Whether or not they come from faithfully listening to Jesus is what determines if they are good or right.

Hearing Jesus speak clearly to us in our time and place is rarely simple or easy. It requires careful and serious engagement with Scripture, along with much prayer, something FCPC’s leadership has strived to do throughout our RENEW process. And I cannot help but think that all of us are now being invited to join in this careful, serious work of listening for where Jesus calls us to ministry as his disciples. God calls every single one of us to “Listen to him,” to hear and go wherever Jesus calls us. And Jesus is calling you, no matter who you are, to some form or ministry that helps us to be the living body of Christ in and for the world.

And if we really do listen to Jesus, if we actually hear and do as he says, oh what power for life and good will be set loose in our midst. Oh how the hope and joy of God’s new day will bubble up in this place.