This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him.

May I speak in the name of the living God, who is our creator, sustainer and redeemer. Amen

What would it take for us to truly listen to God?

Not to hear words we already agree with. Not to have our preferences baptised or our fears soothed. But to listen – deeply, dangerously, to the very core of our being, in a way that might truly unsettle us, change us. To listen in such a way that it might well cost us something.

This very question hangs over today, the Sunday before Lent, like the cloud on the mountain in today’s Gospel. It is the question that draws together both of our readings, and it is the question the Church must face before it dares to enter the wilderness of Lent.

Peter, writing later in his life, is at pains to insist that what he proclaims is not a clever construction, nor a persuasive story, nor a religious myth designed to inspire loyalty. “We did not follow cleverly devised myths,” he writes. “We were eyewitnesses.” In other words: this faith was not invented to be useful. This faith was encountered. It interrupted real lives. It left real marks.

And yet we might wonder why Peter feels the need to insist so strongly. Perhaps it is because even in the early Church there were doubts. Perhaps it is because the temptation to reshape God into something manageable was as present then as it is now. Perhaps it is because listening to God is never straightforward – even when God speaks plainly.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Peter appears again, this time on the mountain. Jesus is transfigured before him. Moses and Elijah appear. Heaven seems suddenly close. And Peter, understandably overwhelmed, does what so many of us would be tempted to do: he tries to fix the moment. “Let us make three dwellings.” It is the first century equivalent of a theological selfie. Let us capture this. Preserve it. Institutionalise it. Keep it safe.

There is something deeply human about that instinct. We pull towards clarity. We yearn for certainties. We prefer moments where God feels obvious, radiant, undeniable. We build churches, liturgies, doctrines, and habits around those moments. None of that is wrong. But it carries a risk: that we tempted to listen only for the God we already recognise.

Because the voice that comes from the cloud does not say, “This is what you must believe.” It does not say, “Stay here.” It does not say, “You’ve understood everything.” It says: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.”

And suddenly listening becomes the most demanding task of all.

Listening is so much harder than believing. So much harder than worshipping. So much harder than obeying. Because listening requires us to relinquish control over what we will hear. It opens us up to surprise. To challenge. To contradiction. To the possibility that God may speak in ways that disrupt our certainties rather than confirm them.

There is a version of faith – popular in every age – that treats God as a source of affirmation. God agrees with us. God validates us. God reinforces what we already think. That kind of faith is attractive, comforting, and ultimately shallow. It produces confidence without transformation.

But the God revealed in Jesus Christ is not a projection of our best ideas. The God of the Transfiguration is revealed precisely in the one who will shortly speak of suffering, rejection, and the cross. The dazzling light on the mountain cannot be separated from the hard road to Jerusalem. To listen to Jesus is to listen not only to words of glory, but to words that unsettle our fantasies of strength, success, and control.

Peter, writing years later, understands this in a way his younger self could not. He has learnt the hard way. He writes from costly lived experience. When he speaks of the “majestic glory” and the voice from heaven, he is not inviting the Church to chase spiritual experiences. He is grounding faith in a truth that has endured testing, failure, and fear. Peter knows now that listening to God did not spare him suffering – but it did sustain him through it.

So what does it mean for us, here and now, to listen?

In a culture saturated with noise – opinion, outrage, binary certainties – listening is countercultural. We curate what we hear. We choose the voices that reassure us. We mute that which makes us uncomfortable. Even in the Church, we can turn listening into a performance: nodding politely while already preparing our reply.

Yet the voice from the cloud is not inviting us into debate. It is not asking us to balance perspectives or manage tensions. It is commanding something far simpler and harder: listen to him. Not listen to our fears. Not listen to our prejudices. Not listen to the loudest voices or the most powerful interests. Listen to Christ.

And Christ speaks in ways that resist capture. He speaks through scripture, yes – but Christ speaks also through the poor, through the excluded, through the wounded. He speaks in the quiet persistence of prayer and in the discomfort of unanswered questions. He speaks not only in moments of radiance, but in the shadowed places where certainty fails.

That is why the Transfiguration is offered on this Sunday, on the threshold of Lent. Before the Church enters a season of repentance and self-examination, we are offered a vision of glory – not to escape the journey ahead, but to endure it. The disciples are not allowed to stay on the mountain. They must come down and we too must come down. Listening always leads us back into the world, not away from it.

And here is the hardest truth of all: listening to God does not guarantee clarity. It does not remove disagreement. It does not protect us from misunderstanding one another. What it does is reorient us. It places Christ, not our certainties, at the centre. It teaches us to live faithfully without complete resolution.

Which brings us back to the question we began with.

What would it take for us to truly listen to God?

Not more certainty.

Not better arguments.

Not stronger control.

What it takes is graceful, generous humility. The willingness to be addressed rather than affirmed. The courage to follow Christ down the mountain as well as up it and the patience to trust that God’s word is trustworthy even when it unsettles and disrupts us.

The answer, finally, is this:

To truly listen to God is to allow ourselves to be changed by Christ – not only in moments of light, but in the long obedience of the road that leads us through the valley of the shadow of death, towards resurrection.

And Lent begins by asking us, are we really, truly willing to listen that deeply. Well, are we?

Amen.