“Again & Again, We are Called to Listen”
Rev’d. Tanya Stormo Rasmussen
The Congregational Church of Hollis, U.C.C.
Lent 2B, “Again & Again” Series
28 February, 2021
Psalm 22:23-31
Mark 8:31-9:8
First, I want to share with you the artwork and Artist’s Statement from Lauren Wright Pittman of A Sanctified Art. She’s titled it ‘Transfiguration’—it’s a hand-carved block printed with oil-based ink on paper. About the gospel passage that inspired her artwork, she wrote:
“I’m not a good listener. In the midst of our national reckoning around structural racism and white supremacy in the U.S., I’ve found that I’ve done a terrible job listening to my Black and Brown siblings. I constantly have to resist the urge to explain myself, to be seen as good and antiracist. I try saying all the right things, I do performative acts of allyship, and quite honestly, I need to be quiet and listen. I need to be ready to accept criticism, and instead of trying to prove anything, I need to gain awareness of my internalized biases and learned racist tendencies and do the difficult work of unlearning them in every moment. “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33)
“Here we find Peter stepping in and saying all the right things, rejecting the notion that Christ must suffer and die; but in the end, he’s not listening to Jesus. It seems Peter’s rejection of this narrative reflects his fear of the suffering he also might face in following Christ. “Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).
“Six days later, the disciples are called to listen once again. In this image, I zoomed out to focus on the moment of Transfiguration. Jesus shines like a beacon atop the high mountain while former prophets appear. The disciples are terrified, but also want to live this moment forever, making the glory-filled rock face their home. At once a cloud descends, obscuring things further, and God’s voice echoes down, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!” (Mark 9:7). It’s almost as though Jesus had exhausted all efforts to get the disciples to listen, and God had to spectacularly reiterate the importance of listening. I think it’s important to note that following God’s words, all the disciples could see was Jesus.[1]
Well, Peter did have a reputation for always sticking his foot in his mouth. He was constantly talking before reflecting, speaking before he really listened. That’s why for a lot of us, Peter is such a relatable character. Like many of us, I’m sure the eager disciple wanted to show how much he knew. How well he understood the world and what Jesus was trying to teach him—he wanted to demonstrate that he really “got it” with Jesus. Often times, it’s our need to prove ourselves that gets in the way of our ability to listen … but whom are we trying to prove ourselves to?
In both cases—the moment when Jesus wound up effectively saying to Peter, “Shut up and listen!” (only Jesus used the words, ‘Get behind me, Satan/Antagonist/Adversary!’), and the moment when Peter babbled some nonsense about building huts in order to freeze-frame a powerful moment—Peter was demonstrating that all-too human inclination to be in control of the narrative, when we’re actually just characters in a much larger story. Although it surely wasn’t intentional or conscious, in both moments, I think Peter was trying to reassure himself of his own importance and command of his world.
That’s one of the things we learn when we settle our minds and spirits down enough to truly listen. To really pay attention to what’s happening. We begin to recognize our desire for control, but then also that it’s not really all about “me”; the good and the bad doesn’t all boil down to any one of us—because we’re all connected, all members of a body and a story much grander than our own individual experience, and the story is about far more than our personal point of view—or even that of our broader social group.
Peter was accustomed to being in charge. He was a natural leader, that much is clear and even Jesus acknowledged it. But he was also confident in his identity as a Jew, as a man of faith, as one who had paid attention to his relationship with God, who had listened to the Scriptures—after all, wasn’t he the one who correctly identified Jesus as Messiah?
But the thing about Peter is that he was so busy practicing confidence in the rightness of his point of view (which more often than not comes off as self-righteousness) that he didn’t spend much time being curious about others, or seek to understand the experience of his siblings—fellow children of God.
The Rev. Denise Anderson, a Presbyterian pastor and Coordinator for Racial and Intercultural Justice with the Presbyterian Mission Agency, wrote this Commentary on our gospel lesson for today:
“I’m a Black woman who does antiracism education and advocacy in a very white denomination. I do that work often in the face of fierce opposition from fellow Christians, but it’s not hard to understand why. Think of the times we’ve tried to quiet a friend who was going through a tough time, or averted our eyes away from someone asking for money at a street corner. Approximately 75% of sexual assaults in the U.S. go unreported for a reason. We don’t exactly incentivize the telling of hard truths.
“Hard truths trouble the waters of our understanding and challenge notions of what is real. For Peter, hearing Jesus foretell his agonizing death and resurrection must have made no sense. Just before this, he had named Jesus “Messiah” … How could the Christ talk like this? Peter wants to quiet Jesus. Jesus would instead quiet him.
“At Jesus’ transfiguration, a sight that may have been more in line with Peter’s Messianic imagination, he wants to build altars to mark the event. But again, Peter is quieted. He is told to listen.
“The Lenten journey calls us to examine the things in which our hearts are invested. How important is comfort to us? Would we be willing to listen to hard truths and be changed by them even if it proved to be difficult? Or are we committed to the status quo because, though it may be imperfect, it’s at least familiar?
“Again and again, we are implored to listen, especially when what we hear is unsettling. Repentance means changing direction. Like a heavenly GPS, Spirit is highlighting a new path. May we tune our sensors heaven-ward, despite the difficulties along the way.” [2]
Across the past several years, I’ve been reading and listening to a growing number of Black and Brown voices about their experience. I’ve shared some of them with you across the past few weeks. And my reading and listening hasn’t all been easy. Not because I’ve felt like I’m personally being blamed for anything, though I have felt challenged to pay attention to the ways in which I’ve ignorantly been complicit in reinforcing certain disempowering assumptions, patterns of relating, and ways of viewing reality. And challenged to change. Just because I don’t, or didn’t, see it doesn’t mean it’s not or wasn’t there.
It’s a bit like the young woman/old woman optical illusion that most of us have seen: just because you can’t see the image of each one in the picture doesn’t mean that they’re not both present. And once you see it, you can’t not see it, and you might wonder how you didn’t see it in the first place. But the transforming challenge of seeing reality differently is that it means I need to live differently, which although it’s always rewarding, isn’t always easy.
Sure, I’ve also occasionally heard Black and Brown voices suggest that the focus on racism is misplaced, that white privilege and systemic racism is a bunch of overplayed malarkey. And it would be easy for those to be the voices I allow to guide my thinking, to allow their words to drown out, to silence the myriad others … because they don’t ask anything of me; they keep me comfortable. Which, honestly, is tempting. Most days, don’t most of us simply want to feel like we’re doing okay just as we are – that it’s other people who need to change?
But the hard gospel truth is that we’re ALL in need of transformation, of deliverance. Every one of us stands in need of divine grace. But the Good News is that’s only part of the gospel truth. The other, bigger part is that God’s grace and love is up to the task, and is tireless in its efforts to move us forward, even when we’re comfortably stuck in a rut. God welcomes us as we are, but also knows (and wants us to feel the joy of knowing) our full potential! As the Psalmist alluded to in Psalm 22:24, God hears and understands the cries of our spirits. Even when we don’t; even in moments when we’re unaware that we’re stifling our own spiritual fulfillment, somehow drowning out or otherwise not listening to the fearful, confused, or frustrated cries of our own soul.
“Peter and the other disciples hear Jesus,” Rev. Anderson says, “but it’s not until their reality is transfigured” – until they see things in a completely new and different way – “that they truly listen to the voice of God.”[3] Jesus showed us that the way to a life that is truly alive, that experiences the joy of salvation, is one that opens itself to being changed. It’s a life that engages in genuine listening, especially to hard or uncomfortable truths, with a curious and open mind and spirit—which is to say, the spirit of one willing to be changed.
Are there practices to help us to cultivate and sustain a posture of listening? Well, a good place to start could be to prioritize curiosity over confidence. As children, we somehow learn that in order to get ahead in life, we’ve got to be confident, self-assertive. But sometimes, confidence can get in the way of good listening, especially when we’re so confident in our rightness that we become self-righteous, which is a brittle, defensive, and uncurious spiritual condition.
Like Peter, our instinctive response to hearing uncomfortable or confusing things is to try to gain command of the subject: to defend our dearly-held position or understanding, to reassure ourselves that we know the score, too often by trying to silence the one who feels like a threat to our way of seeing the world. So, we should work to become more curious than confident.
And then, we can practice repeating back in our own words what we’ve heard the other say. Not our assessment of their position; rather, let our conversation partner hear their own position and experience reflected in our phrasing; this way, they will know they’ve truly been listened to. This takes real time and effort, especially if our views are very different. But the marvelous thing is, then we really do begin to see the richness, complexity, and profound beauty of this diverse world that God has created—is creating, with our participation … and others’, too!
Friends, we are each and all characters in God’s ongoing, grand Chronicle of Creation. Each of our lives represents a story unto itself. Still, our lives and their meanings are woven together in this immense tapestry of being, of life, of reality that stretches far, far beyond the scope of our comprehension.
At the center of this ongoing Creation story is a mystery for us to explore and to delight in: God’s delight in us and God’s dreams for us, as expressed again and again throughout the history of our faith and of humanity more broadly. Again and again across the pages of Scripture. Again, and then again, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, again and again, in ways that are unique to our personal lives.
But the only way we can possibly begin to hear and understand the delight and dreams God has for us is again and again, to remember and respond to our call to listen. Amen.
[1] Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman, “Artists Statement: Transfiguration”, Again & Again: A Lenten Refrain.
[2] Rev. T. Denise Anderson, “Again & Again: A Lenten Refrain” – Sermon Writing Commentary, p. 7.
[3] Ibid.