Sermon: Listen to him and do not be afraid. (Feb. 23, 2020)

Transfiguration Sunday

February 23, 2020

Matthew 17:1-9

INTRODUCTION

         Today is the day we call Transfiguration Sunday. That’s a totally churchy word, one you probably don’t hear anywhere else, but it’s an important one. This day always falls at the end of Epiphany, the season of light, because it is the brightest day of all. We’ll hear the story of Moses on Mount Sinai talking to God amidst lightning, thunder, and fog, and then the story of Jesus on a mountain with his disciples, in which he suddenly turns dazzling white, with face as bright as the sun. In our epistle reading, Peter, who was on that mountain, will retell this same story. On this Sunday, we truly see the glory and brightness of God – a sight that is as magnificent as it is terrifying, as we will also see!

         But Transfiguration also serves another purpose. From that high point on the mountain, we will walk with Jesus and the disciples back down the mountain, and start heading for Jerusalem, where Jesus will be killed. It is the turning point from the season of light, to Lent, the season of penitence and lament. I’ve often viewed this experience on a mountaintop as a sort of gift and assurance of God’s glory before we head into a season of sacrifice and prayer, a journey that will take us with Christ the cross. As I have traveled that Lenten journey, I have thought back to the assurance we experience on this day, and held it close for comfort, as we move toward the resurrection joy we will find on Easter.

         So as you listen, look for something you can hold onto for the next 6 weeks of Lent. Where do you find hope in these stories? Where do you feel assured? What makes you feel confident that God has got this, and will never let us fall? Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Here are two things you may or may not know about me. 1) I buy most of my clothes at consignment and thrift shops. 2) I love talking to strangers (that’s probably not a surprise!). With that in mind, here is a story about a time I was totally in my element… and then I totally wasn’t. A few years ago, I was shopping at one of my favorite consignment shops, and I found a sweater I liked. While I was paying, I was trying to make conversation with the woman who worked there, but she was very disjointed, and kept saying how scattered her mind was this week… and then she finally said, “I’ve been absent-minded all week. My niece was killed on Sunday.” Not what I expected! Figuring she must have told me this because she needed to talk about it, I gently asked what happened, and listened to her story. As she spoke, I felt a voice saying, “Tell her you’re a pastor. Give her your card. Pray with her.” I started praying silently throughout the conversation, but the voice wouldn’t quit. But something kept me from listening to it: I was afraid. I didn’t want things to turn awkward. I didn’t want to put myself out there. I just wanted to buy my sweater! Before I left, I told her I would be praying for her and her family, but even as I said it I knew that I still wasn’t listening to what that voice was telling me. The fact was, I was still afraid.

I can’t help but think of that encounter when I read the Transfiguration story: first, God’s words, “This is my Son. Listen to him!” and then, “and the disciples fell to the ground and were overcome with fear.” It seems to describe to a T my encounter in the consignment shop, where God had clearly said to my heart, “This is my Son, listen to him!” and I – even though I love talking to strangers, and I love talking about Jesus – responded with fear and resistance.

Maybe you have a similar story? A time when you felt God telling you something, but the task for whatever reason seemed to overwhelm you with fear? It happens to me fairly often: I see an opportunity, I am excited by the potential of it, but I quickly dismiss the idea because I am too afraid… rationalizing it with statements like, “It’ll never work, it won’t make a difference, I don’t have time, it’s too expensive,” and other reasonable things like that. You see, I am very good at letting my own voice speak more loudly than God’s.

 “This is my Son. Listen to him!” said that voice to the disciples, and so also to me and to all of us. And they fell to the ground and were overcome with fear. They did not know what it might mean to listen to Jesus. What might he tell them to do – things that are difficult and scary and out of their comfort zone?  What might it mean for their lives – a change? A transformation for which they aren’t prepared? A venture into a way of life that is entirely unfamiliar? Of course they – we! – are overcome with fear!

The month of February, as you likely know, is Black History Month. Though there are many impressive and important people to celebrate this month, I’m sure the one who leaps most immediately to our minds is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Of course, he is not only a part of black history, but an integral part of American history. His relentless work on behalf of civil rights is widely commended, lauded, and lifted up as faithful and patriotic example. He is a giant of American history, even named often as a contemporary prophet.

Of course, like all prophets, he wasn’t nearly so lauded in the time when he was doing that important work. He was threatened, arrested, dismissed, even received hundreds of death threats. He recounts one night in 1956, after receiving a particularly chilling death threat, when he found himself unable to sleep. He made himself some coffee and sat at the kitchen table. With his head in his hands, he cried out to God. He later recalled, quoting the old hymn, “I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone… He promised never to leave me, no never alone.”

            “This is my Son. Listen to him!” Thank God that brother Martin was not afraid that night to listen to Jesus’ voice! He had every reason to be afraid – far more reason than most of us have to dismiss God’s calling to us. He had every reason to go to that now-famous mountaintop to view the Promised Land, and respond, “No way. It is too hard. The personal sacrifice is too great. I quit.” But he didn’t. He listened. He kept that vision of God’s glory in his heart and mind. And though he may very well have been overcome by fear, he marched on, fought for the oppressed, and rode that arc of the moral universe just as close to justice as he could get in his too-short time on earth.

What an important time in history it is to lift up his legacy – his legacy of listening to Christ in the face of fear, and acting in faith. As we look around at the state of the world, the state of our country, we can see that there is much work to be done. Division and hatred are rampant. Racism looks different now than it did when King was doing his work, but it is still very much a reality. Some people fear for their lives, whether they cannot afford adequate healthcare, or because they have the wrong color of skin, the wrong religion, or the wrong walk of life. Poverty rates in our own city are too high, and graduation rates are too low. We might look at any number of the problems in our city, in our country, in our world, and ask God what we should do about it, and the answer we get when we “listen to him” is not the one we want to hear. Because getting involved in any of these issues – plus the countless others I didn’t even mention – causes fear: fear for our safety, fear for our comfort level, fear for our reputation, fear for our personal relationships with people we love but disagree with, fear for our way of life and our view of the world. Listening to God puts us at risk, and that’s scary. I would rather just bask in God’s glory on a mountaintop, blissfully unaware of what is happening back down in the valley, at the bottom of the mountain. I would rather listen to my own voice instead of Jesus’, because my voice is full of reason and safe ideas. Jesus’ voice too often causes me to be overcome with fear.

Yes, listening to Jesus can be paralyzingly scary. He often asks us to do things we are uncomfortable doing. No one knows this better than Jesus himself, who ended up on a cross for doing what God told him!

But the grace of our faith is that the story doesn’t stop there, in fear and death. It doesn’t stop at the cross, nor with the disciples on the ground overcome with fear. After they fall to the ground in fear, Jesus comes to them and touches them – I love that detail. He touches them, in this gentle, caring gesture of understanding. And he says, “Get up and do not be afraid.” Get up, and do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, because after this, we’re gonna walk down this mountain, face the world, see just how bad it can get… and then I’m gonna show you that I am more powerful than all of that. I’m gonna show you that death has no power over me, and because of that, you have nothing to fear.

            Fear can be paralyzing. Death can be devastating. But Christ could not have shown us that ours is a God of new life without first going through the fear and death. And so we are empowered to face what pains and uncertainties might come from listening to Jesus’ voice – as challenging as it is comforting – because we have been assured that out of this comes transformation: a new and glorious life that would not have been otherwise possible.

This is God’s Son. Listen to him, and do not be afraid.

           Let us pray… Glorious God, you have promised to bring life out of our fear and death. Give us the courage, then, to listen to your voice, to trust you, and not to be afraid. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Photo credit: 
Walsh, George, 1939-. Kingdom of God, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57353 [retrieved February 24, 2020]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tullow_Church_of_the_Most_Holy_Rosary_South_Transept_Window_Mysteries_of_Light_and_Pope_John_Paul_II_Detail_Transfiguration_2013_09_06.jpg.