Will You Listen?
Transfiguration Sunday year C
Author: Kent McDougal
Photo: "Transfiguration of Christ" Artist Unknown. 1600. Athens, Greece.
Moses' Glory
Moses' followers didn't listen the first time. The first time Moses came down the mountain he found Israel had made an image of God out of expropriated Egyptian gold and celebrated the works of their hands with a sleazy worship service. It's an old problem.
The people of God trade out their calling to reflect heavenly glory for a worldly glory; the glory of the living God for the glory of Egypt & American idols. This is the glory of our own achievements; man-made god. Such golden images have no life; fame has only a surface shine.
But the depth of Israel's idolatry, like ours, shatters relationship with “I AM.”¹In classic prophetic fashion, Moses shows us what we have done. He shatters the tablets of the covenant relationship at the foot of the mountain.
Yet “I AM’s” glory is his steadfast love, his faithfulness to his unfaithful people. He mercifully offers forgiveness and a fresh start. And so Moses is called back up the mountain and there in a cloud radiant with divine glory, “I AM” renews the covenant with his people.
And when Moses comes down with the tables of the covenant this second time he has been glorified by his encounter with the divine glory. His face shines so bright the people are afraid to come near this living epiphany of God's glory.
The term "glory" & the term "horned" are so similar that some translations say Moses came down having sprouted horns, or horns of light. Why the confusion? Recall that the image Israel had made of “I AM” was a horn calf. What could Moses have to do with the golden calf?
Maybe the connection is this: The golden calf was a graven image of God made by human hands. Moses is a human whom God has made in His image. This is always Israel’s choice, and ours: Graven image makers or bearers of the image of the living God.
That's why Moses gathers the people to listen. He calls them to this vocation of becoming God's image in the world through the words of the Law. In the glow of the glory of God, the people of God are given the Word of God. Israel listens in the light to become light.²
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Is not He who formed the ear,
Worth the time it takes to hear?
Should He who formed our lips for speaking,
Be not heeded when He speaks?
Will you not listen?
Why won’t you listen?
God has spoken love to us,
Why will you not listen?Jesus' Glory
Like the followers of Moses, Jesus' followers/disciples did not listen the first time. The disciples have just come to confess that Jesus is indeed Israel's Messiah. But Jesus responds by radically redefining what they think Messiah means.
Jesus tells them that he will fulfill God's plan - fulfill the Law and the Prophets - by going to Jerusalem where he will be installed as King and bring the kingdom of God through his death and resurrection.
And he then goes on to radically redefine discipleship as well. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself & take up his cross daily and follow me...whoever loses his life for me will save it." Discipleship, like messiahship, will be shaped by death and resurrection.
As with the first disciples, these strange words are hard to hear especially when, we cling to our shinny worldly images that we make of Messiahship and discipleship as if they were some sort of golden calf. We cling to our notions of God’s glory and ours.
But the glory of God is his steadfast love, his faithfulness to his unfaithful people. So along with a few of Jesus' first disciples we are mercifully given a "sneak preview" of the kingdom of God – a kingdom that comes through the weakness, death and shame of the cross.
So up on the mountain the Father glorifies his Son as he communes with him in prayer. And as God's glory transfigures Jesus he speaks with Moses and Elijah about a second Exodus - Jesus' great act in Jerusalem of freedom for his people through death and resurrection.
The sleeping disciples wake up to catch only the end of the show. And as Peter proceeds to idolatrously rewrite the script, the cloud of Sinai overshadows the disciples reducing them to fearful silence. The Father speaks, "This is my Son whom I have chosen, listen to him."
Now the disciples listen in the light to become light. But when Jesus goes on to tell them a second and even third time of the way of the cross; they do not listen to him. Just what will it take for them, for us, to hear?
He spoke a word of flesh and blood,
Flesh and blood that bled and died
Bled and died just to be heard,
How could you not hear this Word?
Why will you not hear this Word?
Will you not listen?
Why won’t you listen?
God has spoken peace to us,
How could you not listen?
Paul's Glory
To whom will the church listen? Will the Corinthians listen to Paul and his gospel or to others who have come to Corinth with a ministry rooted in worldly wisdom and power? What kind of ministers and ministry do we want? What kind of glory do we seek? Idols or images?
After Paul planted the church, some “super-apostles” came through town packing a different kind of glory: letters of recommendation, great rhetorical skills, and requests for patronage. After all, first rate credentials and performances call for first rate pay packages!
But Paul didn't stack up to these shiny golden boys of human achievement. They had...he had a prison record, they had...but like Moses he spoke poorly, they had... while he worked a side job to make ends meet. Is this a resume of an apostle of the Lord of glory?
Nevertheless Paul is bold to claim an even greater glory than of Moses himself; a glory given by God; not man-made. While killing Christians he was blinded by God’s glory in the face of the risen Christ and made a minister of a new covenant with a glory that never fades.
Paul's ministry produces no graven image but people alive with the Spirit of the Lord. He openly proclaims the glory of Jesus and we who turn in repentance to the Lord have the veil over our eyes is removed, giving us the ability to see God's glory in the face of Christ.
The church with an unveiled face beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ are being transfigured to ever increasingly shine with the glory of God. We are made an epiphany of God's intentions in Christ for all humanity: to image God to the glory of God.
Like Paul or most of the Corinthians we are not glorious on the world's terms. But by the Gospel we’re being liberated from seeking the world's glory. We are learning to be the glory of God by being glorified by God as was his Son - through lives of death and resurrection.
This Wednesday night we set out on a journey to reherse the glory of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ through the Lent and Easter season. As we do the church listens in the light, the light of the face of Christ, in order to become light for the sake of the world.
Listen to the sacred silence,
Listen to the Holy Word
Listen as He speaks through living,
Parables that must be heard
Will you not listen?
Why won’t you listen?
God has spoken hope to us,
why will you not listen?*Poetry at the end of each section is from the song, “Will You Not Listen” by Michael Card.
1 *“I AM” is my gloss for God’s ineffable personal Name, usually rendered by the title LORD.
2 This is not just a metaphorical turn of phrase, it is also a theological one. God’s Word is God’s Deed, a sacrament, a means of theosis, transforming, sanctifying.