Title: Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and our Savior Jesus, the Christ
Author: Laurie Jungling

Transfiguration Sunday, Feb 11, 2024
Mark 9:2-9
Bishop Laurie Jungling
Synod Manuscript

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and our Savior Jesus, the Christ. Amen
“…For they were terrified.” Terrified. Terror. Since the 9/11 attacks over 20 years ago, terror has become a household term, so much so that when big accidents happen like the collapse of a bridge or a building, the first thing our leaders feel compelled to do is to reassure us that, “no, it is not a terrorist attack. It’s just an accident.” 
How many of you remember a couple of years after 9/11 happened when an ad campaign went out through the country. This ad campaign was apparently designed to teach people what to do in the event of a terror attack, including showing us how to build an emergency kit specifically designed to ward off biological and chemical weapons. And what was so special in this kit that it would protect us from such heinous instruments of death? According to the report: duct tape and plastic wrap. In the event of such a catastrophe, we were to race around and tape up all the windows in our homes or offices. Then we were to wait until the chemical/biological agent blew over. It felt like the old campaigns that I heard about from the 1950’s calling for children in school to “duck and cover” should there be a nuclear attack. I also chuckled at the time because I was living in California then, and while duct tape and plastic might work in Montana where they believe in insulation, in California the walls are so thin you’d have to use industrial-strength-Saran-Wrap and wrap your whole house to keep the weapon out.
Of course, we Americans don’t really have much idea of what it’s like to live under the constant threat of terrorists, although our terrors of violence and attacks are very real. But we don’t have to deal with what people are experiencing in Palestine, Israel, Sudan or other terrorism-laden areas of our world every day. Instead, we create TV shows that glorify fear, perhaps in order to dilute it…although I’m still not clear how watching a woman being dumped into a vat of poisonous snakes is going to ease my terror.
“For they were terrified.” The 3 disciples on the mountaintop with Jesus in Mark’s gospel are filled with terror. Jesus has just gotten done telling them who he is, that he will undergo great suffering, be rejected, die, and then rise again. And he says that anyone who wants to follow him must join him in such suffering.  
Then he takes Peter, John and James “up a high mountain apart, by themselves,” alone where anything can happen and there seems to be little to protect them. In Mark’s gospel telling of the Transfiguration, these disciples don’t go up to pray with Jesus. Jesus is leading them somewhere they don’t know and for a purpose they don’t understand. “Is this the time of suffering, rejection and death?” they may have asked of Jesus. “Is this where I may have to take up my cross too? I don’t know if I’m ready for this, Jesus.”
And then to add to the fear, suddenly on top of the mountain, two dead guys, Moses and Elijah, appear out of nowhere to have an intimate conversation with Jesus. And Jesus starts shining brighter than Clorox. According to prophecy, Moses and Elijah are only supposed to appear with the coming of the new kingdom. I’m betting those disciples were wondering: “Is this it, Jesus? Is this the time I have to suffer and die for God’s kingdom? I can’t do this, Jesus. This is too scary.”
But Peter, faithful yet frightened Peter, figures that he has the answer to alleviate everyone’s terror. “Let’s build three houses where you guys can rest, take it easy, and think about what you’re doing. That way I can escape my terror and just enjoy this lovely view.”
Sadly for Peter, the terror wasn’t over yet. A cloud rolls in and starts talking. Just like that we’re listening to a talking cloud. Now, clouds don’t generally talk to us…there’s often thunder, lightning, even rain or hail or the occasional tornado. But no talking. “No, Jesus. I’m not sure I handle talking clouds today. Maybe tomorrow…”
You can just see the duct tape and plastic wrap emerging, quickly sealing off the windows and the doors, covering ears and eyes, allowing the disciples to recede into the self-protection of terror. 
Of course the disciples are terrified! We would be too, wouldn’t we?! This is not a peaceful mountaintop experience or even the terrified awe of a rollercoaster. This is a mind-blocking, tongue-trapping, ear-stopping kind of terror…a terror that doesn’t really end when they come down the mountain where Jesus reminds them once again of the death and resurrection that’s coming.
In the face of such terror, building sound-proof booths and escaping behind plastic windows sealed with tape too often tend to be our first reactions. Our brains close off, our mouths say incoherent words and all we want to do is put our hands over our ears to hide in the presumed salvation of our duct-tape. We feel justified to do whatever it takes to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our homes. And very quickly our relationships with God, with others and with our selves become defined only by fear.  In the end, we are no longer justified by faith, but instead we are justified by fear.

Yet, in the midst of our terror, a voice speaks: “This is my beloved son. Listen to him!” “Listen” is one of those unique verbs that has both an active and passive component. It takes a lot of skill and energy to listen. When one listens, somebody else is doing the work, somebody else is doing the talking. The listener listens and lets that other person talk. 
Yet the listener is not passive in the exchange. Listening is not like hearing. The listener is active, entering into the other person’s experience through their words and thoughts, their feelings and movements. Listening, in the words of my pastoral care professor, is “being present” with the speaker, literally becoming a part of her life so that speaker and listener suffer and rejoice together.
Somebody once wrote, "How hard it is to listen, really listen. It's a habit, a ministry, a way of life. But it needs cultivating. Listen to your children, to your spouse, to a friend, to your pastor's sermon. Listen for God. In fact," she adds, "why not give up talking for Lent and just listen!” 
Imagine the impossible for a moment and wonder what might happen if our leaders, especially our political leaders, would give up talking for 6 weeks and just listen…listen to the voices of their people, the cries of suffering, the calls for peace, the need for love. What if they would just listen to each other? Imagine the peace that could follow…
Of course, I realize that this is purely science fiction. Listening is a hard thing to do, particularly when we’re terrified. We hear things, but the fear plugs up our ears. Clumsy words get in the way of really listening. We jump to conclusions and make quick judgments without considering all that we've heard. We assume rather than opening our ears, minds and hearts to the full truth. We get too terrified to just stop and listen. Like Peter, we'd rather be setting up tents and doing things that will free us from our fear so that we can control it or escape from it. 
And yet, that's exactly what God is telling us to do here. "Listen, folks!” God is saying. “Jesus has some important stuff to say, new stuff, radical stuff. Yes, he's the Messiah, my beloved Son. Yes, he's full of glory and power and there is more waiting for him at my right hand. But there's more to this terrifying and awesome scene you're witnessing than power over people. My son is going to tell you some wild things, things that will be hard to believe. He will tell you about betrayal, denial, suffering, rejection and death. And in the same breath he will tell you about new life emerging from death, new hope emerging out of suffering, new relationships that will emerge out of the rejected one. Pay attention and Listen!"
Of course, Peter and John and James miss what Jesus is trying to say. The disciples seem to have a case of perpetual ear-wax throughout the gospel of Mark, always wondering what in the world Jesus is talking about. 
And like the disciples, we don't like to hear that kind of talk either. That kind of talk scares us. So God has to open our ears for us and tingle them with a signal both terrifying and reassuring. With those three hand-picked disciples, we climb the high mountain with Jesus. We are terrified as we watch Jesus speak with two heavenly beings. Like Peter, we are tempted to misunderstand the whole event. 
But we also listen as God speaks to us, a voice booming out of a cloud: "Listen. You are justified by faith and not by your fear. Listen and follow, listen and be present with, listen and live. Listen to my beloved Son." 
Bible theologian, Walter Brueggemann has a name for these ears that listen between terror and hope, between fear and faith: he calls them “Saturday ears.” In a prayer entitled “Give us Saturday Ears,” he prays, 
“Work on our ears today.
Clean them…
…so that they may tingle with the ways 
In which you have turned loose among us the powers of death and the forces of life.
Grant that we should not live…On the surface,
	But push us to the edge,
	Where the action is.
Give us Saturday ears for your tingling.”

Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, “ Give Us Saturday Ears,” edited by Edwin Searcy, p. 58.

Saturday ears. These are the ears of an actively listening life that takes place between the cross of Good Friday and the resurrection of Easter Sunday. Such Saturday life is chaotic at times, like listening to classical music and heavy metal music through the same stereo. It’s an active life of two parts hope and one part reality: a life that sometimes listens to and suffers with, but just as often ignores the wounds of people and creation. 
When we come off that mountain with Jesus and descend into the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the terrors are waiting for us. We can’t escape that. The cross is still there tolling its death-knell, beating on our ear-drums, tempting us to reach for that duct-tape and plastic wrap.  
But in the midst of our fears, the gospel message comes to us through Jesus Christ and we can hear the sweet melody of life, of love, of hope, of faith. And when we really listen, this melody can tingle our ears, open our mouths, heal our hearts, stir our souls, and send us out into the world to confront our terrors head-on so that we can hear that voice from the talking cloud calling on us to “Listen.” 
It is here on the edge between Friday and Sunday, between fear and faith, on the mountain top with Christ…it is here where our ears tingle with God’s voice tearing down our duct-taped booths of terror and calling us to “Listen! This is my beloved Son and he has amazing news to share.” So let us live with the Saturday ears of faith and open them to be tingled by God. Amen.