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Listen Up


Listening is important, though it isn’t always easy.  For instance: a couple of years ago, one of my parishioners stopped me following Sunday morning worship.  He told me that, the previous Sunday, he’d come through the line after the service to shake my hand.  I’d asked him how he was, and he’d replied that his shoulder was giving him some problems.  My response?  “Good, glad to hear it!”  Needless to say, I was stunned and rather embarrassed by this revelation.  Still, I can’t say precisely why it happened.  Perhaps it was misfiring synapses.  Perhaps old age is setting in.  Perhaps someone else was talking to me at the same time.  Regardless, I wasn’t listening well.  I’m just fortunate that this particular congregant has a good sense of humor, and lovingly teases me about my faux pas.
            
So yes, listening is important.  It’s an essential component of human communication and relationships.  It’s one of the best ways we have to stay connected with one another, and to learn about one another.  Yet listening’s also an essential component of our relationship with and understanding of God.  Myriad verses in scripture beckon us to hear, to pay attention, and to listen to and for divine instruction and guidance.  In the New Testament alone, one finds the word akouō (“to hear,” “to consider,” or “to perceive”) and its derivatives hundreds of times.
            
But the passage which stands out most, from my perspective, is one that’s somewhat easy to overlook.  The story of Jesus’ transfiguration is one that, in my experience, hasn’t received due attention in Christian preaching or teaching.  I’m not sure why this is the case.  But it typically doesn’t get the same airtime as other gospel narratives, like Jesus walking on water or feeding the multitude or cleansing the temple.  Those are all great stories, with invaluable lessons.  But they lack something which the transfiguration story has, something found only in the transfiguration story: a direct mandate from the voice of God.  In the gospels, God speaks but one command.  And the command is to listen to Jesus (Mt 17.5; Mk 9.7; Lk 9.35).
            
This is striking to me, because in that moment wherein the glory of Christ was revealed—wherein the divinity which rested on him and dwelled in him was fully disclosed—God could’ve said anything.  God could’ve instructed anything.  God could’ve commanded anything.  But God simply tells those disciples who were present to listen to Jesus.
            
It really is a simple command.  And I believe that many of the problems which the Church faces might be resolved (or, at the very least, diminished) if we could better live into this command: if we spent less time squabbling and quibbling over peripheral issues and highlighting matters of little consequence, and more time just listening to Jesus.  Being who he asks us to be.  Going where he asks us to go.

The issue is that, while it’s a simple command, it isn’t simple to do.  Not all the time.  Even after that mountaintop experience, during which they saw clearly who Jesus was, the disciples didn’t get it right at every turn.  They still had lapses in their faith.  They still stumbled as they tried to follow Jesus.  Even the sincerest Christian will make mistakes, saying or doing things which he or she later regrets.

What it comes down to, I think, is the effort we make.  In the story I offered at the beginning of this post, I shared that I simply wasn’t listening well.  And maybe that’s the key in our faith journey.  Maybe we just need to be a little more deliberate—a bit more intentional—in our listening, recognizing that we have the opportunity to hear Christ in various ways.  Christ might speak in moments of private prayer or devotion.  He might speak in worship, as we open our hearts to praise.  He might speak through a coffee shop conversation with a friend or colleague.  He might even speak through a tattered soul on a street corner, holding a cardboard sign and asking for grace.

Thanks be to God for pointing us to the Son.  May we have ears to hear him, and to listen.

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