PRAYER
Let us pray.  Holy God, God of city and country, of the prophets and apostles, of mountains and oceans, of Eagles and Patriots, of dreamers and optimists, of losers and winners, help us now and in this hour to still the voices within us, the excitement within us, the busy-ness and worldliness within us that we might be still before you and know that you are God. For we have come here to worship you in spirit and in truth. Amen.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta was once asked in an interview whether she prayed. “Oh, yes” she replied, “I pray all the time. I pray constantly.” The interviewer asked her what she said when she prayed. “I don’t say anything” she replied. “I just listen.”

The interviewer then asked her what God said to her when she was listening. “God doesn’t say anything,” she replied. “God just listens.”

The ancient Greeks believed that knowledge was gained through seeing: through sight, vision and observation. But for Jews and Christians, knowledge – particularly knowledge of God – is gained through hearing and listening. Arguably, the single most important teaching in Judaism, the essence of Judaism, is summed up in the Shema: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is One.” Hear. Listen up. Paul argues in his letter to the Romans that “faith comes through hearing.” Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther defined a Christian very simply: The Christian, he said, is someone who listens to Christ.

Listening is at the heart of the strange story of the Transfiguration. It is a mystical story, and the kind of story with which a great many post-modern Christians have a difficult time.

We wonder: what is the truth of this story? If that moment had been recorded on video, what would we see? The least we can say is that something happened there, that day, on that mountain. Jesus’ closest disciples (Peter, James and John) experienced something, saw and heard something, something extraordinary that profoundly affected them. They understood in a flash, with thunderous clarity, that they stood in the presence of one who, himself, stood in the presence of God.

In the story of the Transfiguration – as is so often the case – Peter is the fall guy, the knuckle head, who gets it wrong and with whom so many of us can identify. In this story, he is gaping up at this thing – this inexplicable mystical event, this transfiguration: Jesus is glowing and he is flanked by Moses and Elijah. And Peter starts babbling. What he says is incoherent and confused.

We know he is babbling because the gospel writers tell us so: Luke says Peter, “did not know what he said.” Mark says Peter, “did not know what to say …” although that didn’t stop him from speaking. But in Matthew’s account, the one we are listening to today, Peter is babbling on and on and on and on and God has to interrupt him to get in a word edgewise. God interrupts Peter and says, in effect, stop talking and listen to Jesus!

It reminds me of a youth retreat I was asked to speak at last year. I was somewhat startled when one of the youth, whose job it was to open the meeting, yelled out above the noise in the room, “Hey, everyone: shut up so I can invoke the Lord.”

Sometimes we just have to shut up and be still, stop talking and listen. The Christian, says Martin Luther, is one who listens to Christ.

That is how it has been from the very beginning, at God’s initiative. In the very first story in the Bible God speaks the universe into being. “Let there be …” and there was. When God speaks, things happen. The God who speaks in our scriptures is a God who speaks … a still speaking God.

The understanding that God is still speaking is profoundly important for those who follow the Congregational Way. When Puritan pastor John Robinson addressed the Pilgrims as they left Amsterdam on their quest for religious freedom – the quest that took them to these shores in 1620 – he encouraged them: “Remember, there is yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s holy word.” In other word’s God is still speaking.

Not everyone agrees. When the United Church of Christ posted signs that read, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma … God is still speaking” they were met with a counter proposition by fundamentalists who put up their own signs. Their signs read: “God has spoken. Period.” In the UCC we are unabashed in proclaiming that God is still speaking.

Today, we welcomed new members into the life of this congregation. What a gift. What a joy. This is their ‘Gotcha Day.’ Perhaps you are familiar with that phrase. Many adoptive families celebrate their child’s birthday, but also their ‘Gotcha Day’. The day that child first entered their new family.

Peter, Joyce, Michael, Sam, Janice, Elizabeth, Tony, Ralph, Peter & Nancy: this is our Gotcha Day … the day we joined this family in faith.

By committing to join this family, we have said, in effect, that we will endeavor to quiet the noisy and confounding voices of this greedy, violent and materialistic world. We have vowed that above this world’s cacophony of sounds and voices we will listen for one voice, that of Christ.

And, why not?

 For the voice of Christ speaks healing to all our woundedness.
  The voice of Christ speaks grace to all that would demean.
   The voice of Christ speaks life to all our death and dying.
  He speaks audacious hope to the world’s tendency to despair.
    He speaks peace to our warring madness.
      He speaks welcome to our inclination to exclude.

This voice of Christ is countercultural. It is hard to hear. We have to practice listening. Moreover, because his voice is so hard to hear above the babble, because, like Peter, we are knuckle heads when it comes to God and faith, we need each other’s help. We need to listen together … and to help each other to hear.

Today at the 335th Annual Meeting of Old South Church we will become a listening community of Christians. Indeed, this listening to Christ is what distinguishes us from others, and it is what distinguishes church meetings from all other meetings. At New England town meetings, for instance – meetings that grew up in parallel with Congregational meetings – people vote to express their own opinions, preferences and proclivities … even their own prejudices. But at Congregational meetings, we listen together, discern together and then vote to express – not our own opinions, God forbid! – but our best sense of where the voice of God and the voice of Christ are calling us.

The Christian is one who listens to Christ.

The church is a family who listen together to Christ.

Therefore, let us listen. Listen. Listen.
 

i. Dan Rather interview with Mother Theresa, see www.cbsnews.com
ii. Thomas F. Torrence (theologian, b. 1913)
iii. Romans 10.7
iv. See A Year of the Lord, by Herbert O’Driscoll, p.68

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Scripture Reading
Matthew 17. 1-9
Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.  As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

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