Have you ever been on a road trip, maybe with friends or extended family members?  Have you ever had it happen where there was an argument or a fight a few days into the trip that made everyone uncomfortable, but you had to stick it out to the end?  I knew a couple who were dating.  They took a trip to Spain.  About halfway through that trip, it became clear to both of them that they were no longer interested in a romantic relationship.  But they still had Madrid and Barcelona left on their itinerary.  That was just a bit awkward.

Imagine with me a pretty major argument between Jesus and his disciples.  It starts with Peter, of course.  It starts because Jesus tells them that he is going to Jerusalem where he expects to be executed.  It’s understandable that Peter says, “No way. We can’t let you do that.”  But Jesus calls him an agent of the devil and says that Peter has no idea how God works.  Strong words.  These guys have been on a road trip together for about 3 years now.  There have surely been some arguments, some hurt feelings, some awkward times before, but this one is a doozey. 

And even though Jesus called him Satan, I think that probably the rest of the disciples took Peter’s side. I suspect that they spent most of the rest of that week pleading, begging, cajoling, and badgering Jesus not to go to Jerusalem, to find another way. That was six days ago. By this point, Jesus is more than a little tired of standing firm, of saying no to his friends. Truthfully, it’s not like he’s eagerly anticipating what’s ahead, anyway.

So, maybe to get some perspective, maybe to argue his case one more time, maybe just to get away, Jesus goes hiking with Peter, James and John. Sometime after they reach the top, it happens. They see Jesus differently. He seems to shine or glow. And suddenly, two long dead heroes are with him – Moses and Elijah. Poor Peter is still thinking about the argument with Jesus, still trying to change his mind. So he seizes the opportunity, “It’s good to be here Jesus” “Forget Jerusalem and Mount Zion.” “We can just stay here on this mountain.”

Before Jesus can say, “Cut the crap, Peter,” Someone else does it for him. A voice booms out of the cloud, interrupting Peter who falls terrified to the ground with James and John. You know, it’s interesting – seeing Jesus shine like the sun, that didn’t scare them; seeing two dead men talking to Jesus, that didn’t scare them; but the voice, presumably God’s voice, that paralyzed them with fear.

The voice says exactly the same words that it said at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased,” and then it added, “Listen to him.”

Remember when you were young and your parents knew something about you, something you had done, but you didn’t think they had been watching, didn’t think there was any way they could have known? And then you got in trouble for it? I wonder if that’s what it was like for Peter. He hadn’t been listening to Jesus. He had been arguing with Jesus. But how did the Voice know that? Unless that voice belonged to God. Which it clearly did because who else would be speaking out of a cloud? And when God speaks out loud where humans can hear it, I think the only possible response must be abject, paralyzing fear.

United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon says that the predominant emotion in the gospels is not joy, not excitement, but fear. When Jesus assists his disciples after a bad night of fishing and they bring in an overwhelming catch, they are afraid. When Jesus calms the winds and the waves and saves them from drowning, they feel fear. When the women come to the tomb on Easter and find it empty, they are afraid. Time and again, Jesus has to say, “Don’t be afraid.”^[1] This is one of those times.

It might be like the young boy who wasn’t coming to Sunday School any more. The teacher asked his sister why and the girl said, “Well, to tell the truth, he just can’t stand Jesus!” He had had more of Jesus than he wanted.

Maybe these disciples have gotten more Jesus than they want. Sure, they want the Jesus who is a good storyteller, the one who gets them invites for dinner parties. And it’s probably handy that he knows some things about healing. But there are some times when they get more Jesus than they really want. Like when he insists on healing on the Sabbath and they catch the attention of the authorities. Or when he won’t back down about going to Jerusalem.

The voice says, “This is my Beloved, listen to him.” The voice scared the disciples, but what did it do for Jesus? I wonder if this was perhaps another time of temptation for him? Maybe the disciples were wearing him down, making him second-guess himself. And the voice reminds him of who he is, the Beloved. The voice reminds him of his baptism, and in doing so, affirms his identity and his mission.

Christians have spent a couple of millennia holding in tension the ideas that Jesus is fully human and also somehow fully divine. Perhaps that is nowhere clearer than in this moment. I’m just speculating that Jesus might need reassurance, need some encouragement, to stick with his plan at this point, but if I’m right, that points to his full humanity. He is afraid of the cross, like any sane person would be. But when the voice speaks from heaven, he does not fall down like the others. Instead he shines like . . . well, like God.

And right there, is more Jesus than some of us want. We are comfortable with the human Jesus. We can identify with the man who was tempted in the wilderness, with the one who is tired of arguing with his friends, but this shiney, God-like Jesus? That’s much harder to understand. For me too. I discovered this week that I have only preached on this event one other time. I think maybe there was more Jesus here than I wanted.

What happens when we’re faced with more Jesus than we want? Some people simply choose not to believe. It’s like the girl who was a pastor’s daughter. At every meal, her mother sent her to wash her hands two or three times before she got them clean enough. One night, as she sent her back for the second time, her mother said, “I’m not going to have you eating with those hands still covered with germs.” Back to the bathroom she went, muttering to herself, “Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus, that’s all I ever hear around here, and I’ve never seen either of them.” Some of us have a really hard time believing in what we can’t see. Ironically, we can put our faith in science, which has already taken humans to discoveries beyond our wildest imagining, but we can’t trust the mystery of God when it calls for a bit of imagination.^[2]

Some of us, when faced with more Jesus than we want, domesticate him. We find a church that is a safe place, one that never challenges us theologically or socially or politically. We keep Jesus within certain boundaries and that way we never get more Jesus than we really want.

And some of us do what the disciples did. We back off in fear, or we try to compromise. We want to follow Jesus, really we do, but we also want to maintain a certain level of normalcy in our living, a certain standard of comfort. We don’t want to be too radical. Like Peter, we say, “Not that, Lord. Surely, you don’t mean for me to do that.” And like Peter, if we ever let ourselves hear the demands of discipleship, we become afraid.

We are afraid because the demands that Jesus makes aren’t spiritual. They are daily and physical and require us to change and act in ways we might not otherwise choose. It’s interesting that the two ancient heroes who come to Jesus on the mountain are Moses and Elijah. It turns out that they have a lot in common with Jesus. They were both initially rejected by their people, but vindicated by God. They each had mountain-top encounters with God, and at least Moses’ face shone afterwards. They are seen as representatives of the Law and the Prophets, two great organizing pillars of Judaism.

But if two dead heroes were going to visit Jesus, there were other good choices . . . like King David, his ancestor, the most beloved king in Israel, the man after God’s own heart, or Aaron the first high priest. David and Aaron would have represented church and state, ritual and royalty, which might have been fitting for an occasion like this. But that’s not who showed up. Jesus appears to the disciples with Moses, the first labor organizer, the one who protested unfair working conditions and oppression and slavery and eventually led his people out into freedom; and with Elijah, whom King Ahab called “that troublemaker of Israel” because he challenged King Ahab’s breaking of the covenant. Jesus knows all this. When he sees Moses and Elijah, he gets the message. They each had had a mission, a vocation, which cost them dearly, but it was the right thing, the God-given thing to do. And Jesus knows that he is right to set his face toward Jerusalem.

“This is my Beloved. Listen to him.” The sense of that verb is a continual or repeated action. “Keep on listening to him.” What exactly were they to listen to? Probably his plans to go to Jerusalem and his daily teachings about the ways of God, which are not like the ways of humans.

After the instructions to listen to him, Jesus says two things. First he tells them to get up and not to be afraid. And then on the way back down the mountain, Peter asks about Elijah. Jesus has talked about his resurrection. It was a common belief that Elijah would return before the end of time, before the time of anyone’s rising from the dead. So Peter wants to know how Jesus can be resurrected before Elijah has come? (That’s one more example of how we try to contain Jesus – we try to make him fit our expectations, to play by our theological rules.) Jesus says that Elijah did come, but wasn’t recognized, and instead was executed. Then the disciples understand that Jesus is talking about John the Baptist who was beheaded. John the Baptist was executed, but Jesus is right to keep heading for Jerusalem? No, the ways of God are not like the ways of humans. “This is my Beloved. Listen to him.” Keep on listening to him. Listen when we connect, when we enjoy his earthy stories. Listen when we are afraid, remembering that he too was afraid and remembering that he faced his fear and went anyway.

“This is my Beloved. Listen to him.”

 

Keep on listening to him.

Listen even when we don’t understand.

Listen when it stretches our imagination.

Listen when it demands something of us.

Listen when there’s more Jesus than we really want.

Amen

 

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