"are We Listening?"

“Are We Listening?”

Luke 9:28-36

“Are you listening?” a mother asks her child.

She knows the child’s hearing is fine, but the kid is playing on their phone or watching t-v and she wonders if the sounds she made were absorbed and attended to by him or her.

So, she says, “Timmy, were you listening?

What did I just say?”

And Timmy looks up with a blank look on his face because even though he does have perfectly good hearing—he was not listening.

He has no idea what she just said.

I can totally relate that.

It is basically impossible for me to listen to what someone is saying while concentrating on something else at the same time.

I don’t know how many times I have been reading a book or looking at something on my computer and my wife will tell me that she has a meeting next Wednesday at 7 p.m. or Owen has basketball practice that night and I need to pick him up and it just does not process in my mind.

I hear words—something--but I’m thinking about something else.

So, subconsciously I’ll say, “Okay,” or “Sure,” without have listened to what she has said.

Then later, when these things become a surprise to me, “I’ll say, ‘You never told me that,” and she will reply, “I told you but you weren’t listening.”

And then she will feel hurt and frustrated.

So, now, I am starting to listen.

But I have to be very intentional about it.

I have to stop whatever it is I am doing and concentrate on what my wife is saying.

I have to think about what she is saying, internalize it, make a mental note.

And when I do this, I realize that I have been sort of self-absorbed in the past when I have not stopped to listen.

It’s selfish of me to continue reading or whatever when someone is talking to me.

On the other hand, it’s an act of kindness and of respect when we listen to others.

Hearing and listening are two related words that are sometimes used interchangeably, but they have two different meanings.

Webster defines hearing as: “The process, function, or power of perceiving sound; specifically: the special sense by which noises and tones are received as stimuli.”

Listening, on the other-hand, means to hear something with thoughtful attention: giving consideration to what is said.

And God wants us to listen.

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration is, admittedly, a strange one.

It comes right on the heels of Jesus telling His disciples that He will soon be killed…eight days on the heels, to be exact.

Jesus takes His inner, inner circle of disciples: Peter, James and John and He on a hike up a really high mountain to pray.

And then, as Jesus is praying there is this other-worldly—sci-fi kind of thing that happens.

Jesus’ face somehow changes, and His clothes become as bright as a flash of lightening.

And two men, Moses and Elijah, who had died some 1,600 years prior to this situation—suddenly appear in what we are told is “glorious splendor” and they start talking with Jesus.

We are told that “they spoke about [Jesus’] departure,” which means His upcoming death and Resurrection.

Now, Peter, James and John had apparently been sleeping through Jesus’ prayer.

Apparently, Jesus prayed for a really, really long time, and if it had been in silence, it would have been very easy for them to fall asleep.

…or if they had only been hearing Jesus pray and not really listening, that would have had the same affect.

But God really gets their attention this time.

Because we are told that “they became fully awake.”

And wouldn’t you?

Ever hear a bump or crash in the night and suddenly you are fully awake…heart racing, mind racing?

I think it was kind of like that—except times ten or times a thousand!

In any event they start watching this Holy Conversation between Moses, Elijah and Jesus.

It’s kind of like having a front row seat to heaven.

It’s like they are looking behind the curtain and seeing into another dimension.

Now, the funny thing about this story is that we aren’t told exactly why this happens.

There is no later explanation by the Gospel writer saying something like, “This occurred so that…”

No.

There is none of that, so we have to kind of do some guess work as to why this is happening.

And I have preached on this passage many times, and I have mostly surmised that Moses and Elijah are giving Jesus a sort of “pep-talk” about what He is facing.

They are assuring Him that He will not be killed in vain.

But I’m not so sure about that.

Now symbolically, Moses represents the Law and Elijah represents the prophets.