“WHO’S ON YOUR PLAYLIST?”
Matthew 17:1-9
(02-03-08)

On Apple’s iTunes website there’s a feature
where you can look up what celebrities are listening to on their iPods.
For example it will tell you that the famous Canadian songbird Anne Murray
listens to, among others, Amy Grant, Olivia Newton John, Shania Twain
and even Calgary’s own Jann Arden.
The former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield
has a soft spot for Barry White and the Commodores.
Paula Abdul, when she’s not busy judging the next American Idol,
listens to Stevie Wonder, Journey, The Police, Van Morrison, Michael Buble
and even Kelly Clarkson, the first American Idol winner – maybe its in her contract. Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X,
and all around commentator on pop culture,
stays true to his Canadian roots and listens to mostly Canadian artists,
including Leonard Cohen, The Grapes of Wrath, The Crash Test Dummies,
The Cowboy Junkies and the Tragically Hip.
I’m beginning to see a lot of eyes glaze over.

Perhaps many of you aren’t familiar with the artists that I’ve named.
But we do know that we like to listen to music that we can identify with.
That’s why Avril Lavigne is popular with young girls and not so much with me.
One of the more listened to songs on my iPod is the Roy Clark song,
Yesterday when I was young.
I first heard that song as very young boy of around 10.
Back in the days when they actually used vinyl to press records,
my uncle bought an album and that song was included.
For many years afterwards I never gave it another thought.
But a couple of years ago, on the cusp of turning 40,
I found myself looking for that song again.
With each passing day I seem to identify more and more with that song.

What do you listen to? Who do you listen to? Who’s on your playlist?
Maybe we don’t own an iPod, but we know who we listen to, don’t we?
It may not be in the form of music, but someone, something has our ear and we listen. Today we have come to this place, to this sanctuary, to listen to God.
Maybe God’s not on the top of our playlist,
but even if its only once a week, that’s better than most.
But there are times when we find it hard to listen
and today might be one of those days.
This morning’s text from Matthew’s gospel is the account of the transfiguration of Jesus. Its always been a difficult text to understand.
Transfiguration, literally in the original Greek is metamorphosis,
which means to change into another form.
As Matthew tells the story,
Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain.
And there he was transfigured before them.
His face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white.
Suddenly, there appeared to the disciples, Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
It was a bit overwhelming, no doubt.
Peter, who had only just before in Caesarea Philippi,
confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, speaks up again,
offering to build three dwellings for Jesus and his companions.

What to make of this text, how do we listen to what this text says?
Transfiguration isn’t something that we are familiar with,
people don’t change into other forms.
Its hard enough to lose weight, transfiguration is out of our league.
And when we are confronted with something which is so alien to our experience,
we can easily misunderstand.
Peter misunderstood.
To be fair, I don’t think he misunderstood what was happening.
Jesus, the same Jesus whom he had confessed was the Messiah, the son of the living God, he saw being changed before his very eyes.
Yes he was a great teacher, a miracle worker, a healer and a rabbi,
but more than that, with this transfiguration,
it was clear that Jesus was exactly who Peter had confessed him to be,
he was the Messiah, the son of the living God,
he was the Lord of all creation, all history, all life.

Where Peter got it wrong was that confronted by this majestic transfiguration,
he wanted to capture the moment, to make it last,
as if this would be the high point of Jesus’ ministry and mission.
He wanted to build a booth to contain the moment.
But while he was still speaking, the text records, God’s voice interrupts Peter.
This is my son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased, listen to him!
Talk about getting put in your place.
How often do you get interrupted by the voice of God!
And what does the voice say?
The words ought to be familiar,
because these are the same words spoken at Jesus’ baptism.
At his baptism, when heaven opened and the dove came and rested on Jesus,
and now at the transfiguration,
the voice of God says the same thing.
This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.
And if that is who Jesus is,
it makes all the sense in the world that we ought to listen to him.

The problem for Peter and for us
is that listening to Jesus means that we can’t ever contain him
or solely expect him to be the Messiah for our mountain top experiences,
or for that time to come when the Bible tells that we too will be changed.
Peter thought he understood.
Jesus was the Messiah and the transfiguration was the high point.
But the climb up the mountain
would soon be followed by the descent into the valley of death and despair.
He could not have realized what was in store,
even as Jesus told the disciples not to tell of their experience to anyone
until he had been raised from the dead.

The ministry of the Messiah would not be about preserving the mountain top experience. It would be about getting into the trenches,
into the guts of this earthly existence,
it would be about living amidst the pain and suffering, hurt and anguish,
fear and sorrow of our human experience.
Listening to Jesus means being ready to be interrupted
when what we think we hear Jesus saying really isn’t what he’s saying at all.
Listening to Jesus isn’t about coming to church
so that he can pat us on the back and tell us that we’ve got it all figured out,
its not about wanting God to verify our presumptions.
There are some people who love to form opinions
and then go looking for some small piece of verification from the word of God.
When God says that we must listen to Jesus,
I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.
Listening to Jesus means listening to the one who is Lord of all creation, history and life, and yet still sacrifices his life on the cross.
It means to hear what he says, what he really says,
not what we would like him to say or think we hear him say,
but to truly hear, even, and maybe especially, if it means that we get interrupted.

After all, Jesus says some pretty eye opening things, the Bible is full of them.
Blessed are the poor and those who mourn,
those who are meek and those who hunger and thirst.
Blessed are the merciful and the pure and the peacemakers
and those who are persecuted for his sake.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, don’t judge or you too will be judged.
Those who want to be first must be last and the servant of all.

I know that its hard to listen to Jesus.
And our culture makes it all that much harder.
Today is Super Bowl Sunday, the biggest day of the sporting year.
And it is also the biggest day for television revenues from commercials.
This year it will cost advertisers an average of $90,000 dollars a second
to air a commercial during the Super Bowl.
The average 30 second spot will set a company back $2.7 million.
There is only one company that is confirmed to have bought commercial time
for all four quarters of the game,
Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Budweiser and Bud-Light.
If you plan on watching the game,
even here in Canada, where we don’t get the same commercials,
listen for what is being said.
Listen to what the advertising executives think is worth spending $90,000 a second on.
What are they preaching? What is Jesus preaching? Who’s on your playlist?

I asked how often do we get interrupted by God
and the answer, I believe, is that it happens all the time, if we will listen.
To truly listen to Jesus means that we have to be ready to be interrupted
when what we think we know isn’t really what Jesus wants us to understand,
or as one preacher puts it,
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said…
All of us want to keep Jesus where we’d like him to be, how we’d like him to be.
It doesn’t matter who we are or where we are theologically or in our faith development. There’s always the temptation to get to a comfortable place with Jesus
and keep him there.
And that’s precisely where God keeps interrupting us.

But if we’re listening, really listening,
we’ve got to confess that its very difficult to go anywhere with Jesus and be comfortable. If we will truly listen to Jesus,
we may not be transfigured as he was,
but we can be transformed.
We can’t change what we are,
but we can change who we are and who we listen to.
God interrupts us all the time,
but sometimes our playlists are so full that there’s no room to add what Jesus has to say. There’s no room for loving our enemies
when we know that they’ve got it coming to them.
There no room for the poor or the meek or the mourning
and we all know that mercy is for the weak.
Why get persecuted for anyone’s sake when life’s hard enough as it is?
And when you read about tragedy after tragedy
every time we turn on the news or open a paper,
how can we be expected not to judge?

You know what’s good about iPods that’s better than the old vinyl LP’s?
With the new technology there’s a delete function.
You can’t erase and write over an old record,
but you can do it with your iPod in a few key strokes.
When we come to the realization that even when Jesus speaks,
we have no room for him on our playlists,
we need to delete the stuff that runs counter to what Jesus is preaching.
We’ve got to make some room on our playlists for something new
so that we don’t just go on our merry way
believing that we’ve got it all figured out,
so confident in our patterned responses
that even when holiness breaks upon us
we just go on and miss the point altogether.

There are many voices competing for our attention.
The powers of this world invest incredible resources
so that we will listen to what they have to sell.
But the most important investment we can make
is to listen to the one who is God’s beloved Son.
Have you had enough of the noise of this world’s clatter?
Who’s on your playlist?
Maybe its time we listen to another tune!

Prayer: God, we live among confusing noises and competing voices. But we know that there is only one Lord of all creation, all history and all life. There is only one Jesus, who is your beloved Son. You invite us to listen to him. Open our ears and our hearts that we would hear his words to us anew today, perhaps for the very first time. Help us to clear out the clutter that only takes up room in our lives, that which only serves to keep us lazy, ignorant and unchallenged. Reveal to us the truth that the only life truly worth living is a life which follows the lead of Christ, as uncomfortable as that is at times. May we make room for his voice in our lives that we would hear a new tune, a new song calling us into lives of community, compassion and your generous hope. Through Christ our Lord we pray, Amen.