February 26 – Casey Shobe Sermon

[1] about a time that a man from the telephone company came out to do some work on her telephone. After the man finished his work, he noticed that she kept peacocks, and so he spent the next 20 minutes trying to coax one of the birds to display, to put up its big beautiful plumage. She insisted that all he needed to do was wait, and the bird would eventually display. But he eventually got bored and frustrated, and climbed in his truck to drive away. Well, sure enough, at that moment the bird fanned out his glorious tail feathers in a typically magnificent spread. The display was perfect. O’Connor called to the man and got him to come back to see it. “Well, what do you think of it?” she asked.

“Never saw such long ugly legs,” the man said. “I bet that rascal could out­run a bus.”

You know, sometimes we shouldn’t say the first thing that comes into our minds. Sometimes we should really just stand still and pay attention and keep our mouths closed. Sometimes the best thing we can do is be quiet.

Peter, James, and John go up a mountain to pray with Jesus, and while they’re there, the glory of Jesus’ divinity is revealed. “He was transfigured before them,” Matthew tells us, “and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” And then, as though the scene needed more splendor and majesty, Moses and Elijah show up, two of the greatest and most revered figures from Israel’s history, and they begin to talk with the dazzling Christ. The whole scene is utterly profound and awesome and one of those moments that you might hear someone say in response, “Well, words fail me.” You know, an experience that leaves you speechless, because to say anything would break the power of the moment.

And yet, what does Peter do? He opens his mouth. And while what he says is not quite as silly and crass as the telephone repair man gazing upon a peacock in display and commenting on its legs, it’s not a whole lot better. Essentially, when faced with the display of the Lord’s divine glory, rather than simply experience it, Peter babbles the very first things that pop into his head. “Lord, it’s a good thing I’m here! I know what you need, you need me to make some tents for you…yea, that’s it, tents. Then you can do whatever it is you’re doing, but you’d have, you know, a place to be, or something.” Peter’s babbling is the epitome of compulsive speech, or what we more commonly refer to as “word vomit” – when you open up your mouth and words just come spilling out that don’t necessarily have a point or a purpose other than to fill the space. Peter didn’t know what to do or what to say, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself from saying the first thing that popped in his head.

But the truth is that sometimes we shouldn’t say the first thing that comes into our minds. Sometimes we should really just stand still and pay attention and keep our mouths closed. Sometimes the best thing we can do is be quiet.

We live in an age that values talking and prioritizes noise. We talk about everything, and when we’re not talking, we’re posting, and when we’re not posting, we’re commenting, and when we’re not commenting, we’re liking someone else’s posts or comments. Our society rewards people who have a quick remark, or a biting retort, or the witty comment. But it feels like, for all the talking we do, not a whole lot of it is thoughtful or worthwhile, and much of it seems like it’s the first thing that jumped into someone’s head. And perhaps even more problematic, for all the talking we do, it often feels like there’s not a reciprocal amount of careful listening.

In the Transfiguration story, there’s a funny and easily missed detail that has everything to do with this. It says that while Peter is still talking about building tents, while he’s still babbling, a cloud descends upon them and a voice literally interrupts Peter to say, “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him.” Now, I’ve always thought that it was simply a declaration from God the Father about the divine identity of Jesus. But this week what really struck me was the word listen. “Listen to him.” Stop talking so much. Stop babbling. Stop filling every moment with noise and chatter. God literally has to interrupt Peter and remind him to not always say the first thing that comes into his mind, but to be quiet and listen.

You and I are also standing in the presence of the Transfigured Christ today, and I believe God has a similar message for us. God is eager for us to do a lot more listening. We need to be quiet, to pause before we speak, and resist the overwhelming compulsion to speak all the time. We need to model a different sort of presence in this world with our words and our ears, because I am convinced that the level of dialog and conversation in our society will not change unless Christians begin to model a holier way of speaking and hearing.

Let me give you a few examples of what I’m talking about.

I know that, for myself, when I’m in a conversation it is extremely tempting to spend the time that I’m listening to the other person formulating what I’m going to say in response. They are talking, but rather than really hearing what they’re saying, I can easily catch myself focusing on what I have to say back to them. Do any of you struggle with that, too? But if we value the other person enough to be in a conversation with them, then we should value what they have to say enough to actually listen to it, rather than formulating our response while they talk. Maybe it’s because of the contentious nature of our national discourse, but it often feels like we’ve confused the art of conversation with the rules of debate, and somehow come to believe that we have to be ready with our remarks the moment there is a pause in the talking, so we can get a word in edge-wise. But as Christians, our speech is a tool for holiness, for building one another up and expressing kindness and compassion, and in the upside down, inside-out way of the Kingdom of God, it actually turns out that our speech becomes holier and more compassionate the less we say and the more we listen.

Here’s another example. In our social media age, many of us are thinking about how we will share about our experiences even while we’re having them. We are posting from the mountaintop or the concert, rather than simply enjoying the moment for the moment’s sake. It’s like it somehow it hasn’t happened unless we tell other people about it. As a parent, I know this pattern all too well. We are always trying to figure out how a moment with our girls becomes a Facebook post or something we can share with others. But the truth is that God really does intend some beautiful moments in life to be gifts just for us to experience and enjoy.

Lent begins this Wednesday, so I want to invite you to consider a Lenten discipline of quiet. Monks and nuns practice this discipline in their lives, observing what are known as the lesser and greater quiets in the course of their day. The greater quiet is the silence that stretches between Compline and Morning Prayer, when they speak no words to each other. The lesser quiet is that which stretches throughout the whole day, when they speak only when it is necessary and essential. They speak graciously and kindly, they tell stories and share joy, but they also appreciate the beauty of the quiet between words, and the holy truth that not everything that could be said to someone else actually needs to be said. Sometimes more can be communicated with less.

This Lent, I invite you into this reflective, careful quiet. When you are in a group, consider what it might be like to not try and get a word in every single time. When you are in a conversation, consider what it might be like to ask more questions rather than make more statements. When you are perusing articles or content online, consider not posting or commenting at all, or at least make a personal policy of not clicking submit for at least an hour, to make sure your words are good and necessary and above all kind.

Now I get the irony that we’re sharing in a Fellowship Breakfast today, and there will be a lot of great talking in Roper Hall between services. But we can still start thinking about it, how we can say less and listen more, how we can resist all the compulsive speech filling our world and show more care with our words. Even in the midst of conversation we can make room for quiet, in ourselves and in the world: trying to experience our lives, rather than comment on them; trying to listen both to God and one another, rather than speak; trying to be attentive to where God is present in our midst, rather than filling the space with noise. God has come and is coming among us, appearing in our midst as his well-beloved Son. Let’s listen to him.

[1] Flannery O’Connor, “Living with Peacocks,” https://holidaymag.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/living-with-a-peacock-by-flannery-oconnor-september-1961/