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SERMONS

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
March 2, 2003

I am not a fan of talk shows. I'm not talking about the Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brian type; those are OK. I'm talking about the Sally Jessie Raphael, Montel Williams, Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer, and so on, and so on, and so on, type. The ones that have taken over day-time television. Last night I heard of the consummate show. It seems that one of the hosts had a panel of people who had been guests on television talk shows.

I must be in the minority though. Someone must be watching them to keep them all on the air. The television, and radio, talk shows are perfectly in keeping with the spirit of our age. This is the information age. We are bombarded with information. No matter what your interest, there will be a talk show to cover it. Subscribers to television cable services can sample hundreds of channels. On the news channels I can have a front row view of disasters or wars as they happen, anywhere in the world.

If you are a professional person, it is impossible to keep up with the new information coming out. There are probably at least one or two journals with the latest news in your field, not to mention new books and conferences. It is becoming a full-time job just to keep up.

And all of this is merely a foretaste. The road beds are being laid right now for the information superhighways of the future. Soon it will be possible to receive even more information than we do now, even faster. We are drowning under a sea of words and pictures.

Now information is not a bad thing. It is usually better to know than it is to not know. Ignorance is not bliss. But our frantic craving for more and more information is, I believe, a sign of the anxiety of our age. What do you do when you are anxious? I know what many of us do; we start to talk. We talk about important things or unimportant things. We talk about pertinent things or irrelevant things. We make good suggestions or we make stupid suggestions. But we talk; we talk because we are afraid and we can't be quiet.

Which brings us to today's gospel, Mark's account of the transfiguration. Jesus has gone up on the mountain, taking Peter and James and John with him. While the three stand there watching him, he is transfigured. His clothes become dazzlingly white. With him they see Moses and Elijah. And, Mark tells us, they are terrified.

Peter, the most human of the bunch, begins to talk; he makes a suggestion. "Rabbi,... let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Marks only comment concerning Peter's suggestion is that he did not know what to say. God also comments. He says, "This is my Son, the Beloved: listen to him!" In other words, be quiet.

In today's story of Elijah on Mount Horeb, Elijah is also terrified; so terrified that he has run forty miles to hide in a cave from the wrath of Queen Jezebel. There he experiences a great wind and an earthquake and a great fire. But God is not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire. After the fire there is a sound of sheer silence, what a wonderful phrase. A sound of sheer silence. And in that silence there comes a voice, the voice of the Lord.

We are worried, we are fearful; and we attempt to calm our fears through knowledge. But no amount of knowledge can tell us what we desperately want to know: who we are and why we are here and what we are to do.

That knowledge does not come from talk shows, from cable channel 247, or from the latest magazine. And it will not come through the information superhighway. That knowledge can come only from God. God will speak. But God speaks in the sound of sheer silence. We can hear him only when we become quiet. Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany. Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Lent is about quietness. It is about slowing down. It is about making a place in our lives where we may meet God and listen to God; listen to God's words of love, of comfort, of challenge, of hope, of peace.

God will come; God will speak. My challenge to you is to make space in your lives this Lent so that God may enter. Slow down; be quiet; listen for the Lord.

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi

1 Kings 19.9-18
2 Peter 1.16-21
Mark 9.2-9