Lent 2 listen to Jesus

The Transfiguration Lent 2nd week

I was once at Bills Restaurant in Chichester when I witnessed this couple coming into the place hand in hand. They were clearly very happy to be together. They then sat down and then proceeded to text there friends where they were. They never actually looked up. When the food came they took pictures of it. They were not present to each other. 

On another occasion I was sitting on the train when I heard a person talking to their friend. " You just don't listen to me" they said. It seems to me that we have forgotten to listen attentively to another person.  We are surrounded by noise. Every munite of every day there seems to be noise. As soon as we get up in the morning with the noise of the radio to the car alarms constant going outside to the hustle and bustle of people everywhere there is noise both natural but most of the time unnatural. Being surrounded by noise it is very hard then to actually find the time and the space to listen. That is why you may find in the bible that many times people try and find God and do find God on top of mountains. Think of Moses, and Elijah in the Old Testament and today we have Jesus with Peter and James and John. Jesus revels himself to his disciples and what they asked to do is listen to him. 

I once read a good book called the lost art of listening. The book lamented that we are often so caught up with so much noise that we have lost the art of really listening to others. I love listening to music but often I am caught up in the music and I stop and really listen to what is being played. I realise that when. I do this it means that I have to stop sometimes just sit down and then really listen hard.  It means that when we listen we are truly actively there with the person. When we do this we can hear sometimes things that we have never heard before. We are sometimes surprised at what we have heard and next time we listen to the piece we may hear it again. I often smile at this point and get excited when I have heard it. 

Often though, and I am guilty of this too, is that I listen with one eye on someone or something else. I look over the persons shoulder to see what is happening thinking that something over there is decidedly more interesting than the person in front of me. Don’t worry I don’t do it all the time. 

But, to really listen and to listen hard is to hear the people about you it takes effort and sometimes what we hear is hard to listen too. 

This happens in prayer. When we really listen to the Lord when we really hear his voice sometimes it is hard to hear because when we listen we are transformed when we really follow his ways and put our trust in him it is life changing. It frees us to become more ourselves. The disciples today wanted to hold on to this feeling they were over struck by the glory of God and the glory of Jesus. Of course they wanted to tell everyone what they had seen and what they had heard. It must have been really difficult for them to not to say anything. It brings out for me another dimension of listening. I call it Holy Listening it is when we hear things that are to be held sacred between you and the other person. To really Listen to be actively there with the person takes a lot of courage and time this person Jesus is the most important person at that moment.