Matthew 17:1-8
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
February 15, 2026
A while ago, The New York Times published a piece by Seth Horowitz entitled “The Science and Art of Listening”. He began by noting that hearing is “a vastly underrated sense” and citing studies showing it to be a “quantitatively faster” sense than sight. While it might take a full second to notice something out of the corner of our eye, turn our head, recognize it and respond to it, reacting to a new or sudden sound takes 90% less time and no thought at all. Hearing the sound instantly elevates our heart rate and puts our body on read alert to jump into action.
Seth went on to observe, however, that hearing is one thing and listening quite another. Hearing is easy, but listening is hard – especially with the distractions of today’s constant digital chatter and information overload. Unless we’re growing deaf, we hear without trying; but, even with the best of hearing, we must train ourselves to listen, for listening it takes paying attention with disciplined focus. Learning to listen well is an accomplishment.
Some of us have learned to listen well to our dog’s whines and barks, a friend’s tone and volume of voice, or our spouse’s under-the-breath muttering. But the most important listening skill to develop is that for listening to God!
While our eyes readily take in dazzling sights, our ears need to be deliberately attuned to take in the easy-to-miss messages God and loved ones send our way.
For months blogger Rhea Zakich had to refrain from talking, and to communicate only in writing, as she recovered from vocal cord surgery. The restrictions motivated her to prioritize listening well to others.
One day her son Dean stormed home from school shouting, “I hate my teacher. I’m never going to school again!” Rhea writes, “Before my vocal-cord problems, I would’ve responded with my own outburst: ‘Of course you are, if I have to drag you there myself.’” But she had learned to hold her tongue and carefully listen first while giving the person all the time they need. Eventually, her angry son put his head in her lap and poured out his anguish, saying, “Mom, I had to give a report and I said a word wrong. The teacher corrected me and the kids laughed. I was so embarrassed.” Rhea said nothing in reply. She just put her arms around Dean and let him lie quiet on her lap a while. Then he suddenly sprang up, cried out, “I got to meet Jimmy! Thanks, Mom!” and scampered off happily.
Having practiced silence, Rhea had learned to attune her ears to hear a person’s heart and to listen with focused, patient attention. That enabled Dean to find his voice and find himself again. He didn’t need advice or exhortation from her. He only needed her to hear him out. And that’s often all the Son of God wants from us!
In the verses right before today’s, we read that Jesus had just broken the news to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to be tortured, killed and then raised. It was a stunning and bewildering announcement that would take a long time for the twelve to get their heads around – especially since Jesus had also just told them they must bear their own cross, suffer for the sake of love and lose their life in order to find it and to see Jesus’ “coming in His kingdom”. To help them deal with His imminent gory execution – and their own costly discipleship– an immediate revelation of His great glory was in order.
So, a few days after Jesus dropped these two bombshells, He took the three disciples closest to Him up a high mountain to a solitary place where He’d pray with God the Father one-on-one, with them nearby watching and waiting – just as, later on, right before His arrest, He’d take the same three into a solitary place in the Garden of Gethsemane where they, nearby, might watch and wait while He prayed with God the Father by Himself.
Weeks before the crucifixion, on the Mount of Transfiguration, it was the same. Luke tells us that Jesus “went up on the mountain to pray” and that His Transfiguration occurred “while he was praying”. Jesus had sought uninterrupted, one-on-one conversation with His Father as He struggled with the prospect of suffering unimaginable agony. He needed to hear from God one more confirmation that He was on the right track in letting that horror happen to Him. Because Jesus loved His Father and wanted more than anything to please Him by fulfilling His will, Jesus prayed to receive reassurance that His crucifixion was the Father’s will. If Jesus could hold on to the truth that enduring that nightmare was His way to love His Father – as well as love us – it would bolster His resolve to go through with it when He could have opted out of it.
The dread of enduring that ghastly death would not quickly leave Jesus. That’s why later, at Gethsemane, He sought the same confirmation. In that garden he prayed to the Father, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” Jesus was imploring the Father to reiterate what had to happen for the love of God and humanity. Bearing in mind that He was serving them both would sustain Jesus in submitting to the hell of His appalling self-sacrifice.
This means Jesus climbed the Mount of Transfiguration to shore up both His disciples for their coming challenge and Himself for His own. In prayer there He attuned His ear to listen to the Father and hear Him reaffirm His will.
The Transfiguration came about as Jesus was praying. Out of His dialogue with His Father, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that His radiant majesty, until then hidden, would be brought out into the open and made visible. His face and clothes burned bright with dazzling, divine light.
While that was occurring, Moses, the great law-giver, and Elijah, the great prophet, were “talking to Jesus”. Luke alone gives a crucial detail about their conversation: they were “speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem”. The departure He accomplished there was one from mortal life into immortal, everlasting resurrection life.
Despite their drowsiness, the disciples awoke to the magnificence of the moment; and Peter relished it so much he wanted to extend its time; but a cloud overshadowed and enveloped them – the sign by which the Bible indicates God’s powerful presence – and a voice from heaven pronounced a statement of fact followed by a command. The statement was verbatim the same statement the voice from heaven pronounced at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased!” but the command was now especially pertinent: “Listen to him!” – that is, before all else, hear Jesus out and heed what He says.
When the disciples once more opened their eyes after nearly fainting from fear, the vision was gone and the heavens were silent – and it was just Jesus again, Jesus who had much yet to say to them, Jesus whom they could best love by attuning their ears to take in His commands and readying their hearts to obey Him.
Jesus addresses His followers now as much as He did back then; but how often do we hear Him? Listening to Him requires our quieting other voices clamoring for our attention and turning our ears to pick up His messages sent through scripture, the Spirit, other people (both in the church and outside it), our life experiences, the study of our world and our reflection on it.
Let us honor Jesus in His dazzling glory by attuning our ears to listen to Him this day and every day!
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