Listen to him!

The online dictionary describes stubbornness as “having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so.” It uses synonyms like pig-headed, strong-willed, and contrary to describe it.

I resemble that remark. I have been known to be unbending at times when I was convinced I was right. I would simply not listen to voices I didn’t want to hear.

Sometimes I guess that is good. When overwhelming popular opinion is leading in a direction we know is not right we need to be able to stand. We need to be willing to stand against the grain and to face whatever consequences come from that. It is like following Jesus to the cross.

But sometimes the stand we take is just plain wrong. It may be built on selfish pride, or love of the way we’ve always done it, or ambition. That is when we cross over into being stubborn. When we come to the place when we won’t listen to the voices God sends to correct and guide, we are just plain stubborn.

We need to learn to listen to him.

Peter had problems with stubbornness. When he was right he was right. The Holy Spirit revealed to him before the others that Jesus was no ordinary prophet but the Messiah of God. But at the same time Peter could be just plain stubborn.

When Jesus began to tell his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem, be rejected by the officials, and killed by them it did not compute in Peter’s worldview. He couldn’t listen. So he began to correct Jesus. He couldn’t let that happen because it didn’t fit the radical zealot scenario of his upbringing.

Jesus likened him to Satan, rudely put him in his place, and told all of them if they were going to be his followers they all would have to accept a Roman cross. Then he gave them a week to stew over it.

After an awkward six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the summit of Mount Hermon for an overnight prayer retreat. It was cold and snowy in the early spring. And very dark.

Mark tells of the cold dark night being interrupted with blazing light emanating from Jesus himself. His garments were glowing white, and God’s glory filled the night sky, bouncing off the low clouds and the snow cover. Jesus looked different.

Moses and Elijah were there, and it is interesting the normally clueless disciples picked up on that. They were talking to Jesus, the gospel writers say, about what would happen with Jesus at Jerusalem. The same things Jesus had told the hard-heads the week before.

Peter, caught up in the moment, and not knowing what to say, prattled on about building makeshift tents. He still didn’t get it, and avoided the obvious by running his mouth. It took God himself, with a voice of thunder, to say “This is my beloved son. Listen to him!”

Listening means more than hearing words. It means seriously considering them, making them a part of one’s life. Words have power and have an intended result. They accomplish what is intended. When the Bible tells us to “hear the word of the Lord” it means to take them to heart and obey them. Blessed are those who not only hear the word, James says, but do the word. That is listening.

And it helps a lot if we are not stubborn.

God doesn’t want to interrupt the night with bright light and loud voices to get through to us. He’d rather speak to us with the still small voice he used with Elijah. He’d rather that we understand and apply the Scriptures. He’d rather us pay heed to the authorities God places in our lives – our parents, our pastors, our teachers, our leaders. Those with wisdom and experience and relationship with God.

Jesus tried to tell his disciples something they didn’t want to hear. It was hard to hear about submitting to death so readily when all their lives they had been told it would be a fight to the end. What Jesus described sounded too much like humiliating defeat and more of the same oppression they wanted to throw off. So they wouldn’t listen.

Don’t let it be so among us. God has many things to tell us that we may not want to hear. We can’t let the stubbornness of our pride get in the way. There is a way that seems right to us, Solomon says, that is after all a way of death. Let’s not go that way.

Listen to him.

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)

Mark 9:2-9 (Transfiguration B)