I tend to get up early some mornings. Very early. Before the sun has considered rising, I often find a quiet spot in my chair to do work. It was about 2 months ago, when I was up quite early and settled into my chair, writing, when I heard a beep. At first, I thought I might be just imagining it. Until it was about 5 minutes later that I heard the solitary beep again. I got up to check all of the appliances and devices that can talk to me. Not the dishwasher or the kitchen timer, not a phone or kindle, not an alarm or refrigerator – what could it be? I did not hear anything before I went to bed or earlier in the day.
It was not until later that morning, when I asked Steve to investigate that I realized it was the back-up battery for our fios cable. We needed to replace it. When other people were up in my home and going about the daily life, I could not hear and did not know it needed to be changed. It was only in the silence that I could quiet the noise around me and within me to hear a call to attend the battery in the fios back-up. All while our house is filled with children playing, I hear nothing. It is only in the silence that I know there is a need and how it will be taken care of. It is not a mistake that in the silence we hear and focus on that which we pass by in the noise and busyness of life.
Many of us have a love/hate relationship with silence. In silence, we get a reprieve from the hustle and the bustle. The chitter-chatter and the tide of life that urges us on. In silence, we hear ourselves in fear and in pain, in anxiety and desperation. Many of us work hard to make sure it is never too quiet in our hearts and souls, so that we do not need to hear the pain of life. Just keep busy. Just keep swimming. Why should we want silence anyway? Being silent is integral to our faith work, our life with Jesus.
I want to show you why. Take a look.
(Show PowerPoint: Silent to Listen)
It is in silence, that we can listen.
When we are silent, we listen to God.
Silence is the place we notice that we need Jesus.
Silence makes us honest to hear. In silence, we cannot dispute what we need or where we are. In silence, we hear the honesty of fear and anxiety, emptiness, and desperation. Silence makes space for you to hear focus and clarity.
Jesus was in the boat with the disciples and fell asleep. Not just fell asleep, but was sleeping through the storm. We sleep when we feel at peace. We do not sleep when we feel anxious and restless. We toss and turn. The disciples were tossing and turning. Jesus is snoring in the midst of crisis. There are few things more unsettling that when you need someone the most and they fall asleep. While Jesus is asleep here, it will not be too long until the disciples are sleep in the garden of Gethsemane. It was in the silence of the moment, that the disciples realized they needed Jesus. It was in the quiet of the moment, it became crystal clear that without Jesus they would perish.
Do you know we are perishing?
Do you know that the world is falling apart? That young moms become warriors to battle cancer. That children go to bed hungry at night. That chronically ill people struggle under the oppressive weight of decisions between food and healthcare.
In the midst of fear, we do not often think of silence. Most of the time, we think of screaming and panic. We think of working towards solutions and getting something figured out – getting it done. Our storm may not be the sea. Our storm may be the conflict at work that keeps us thinking bitterly when we would rather be being spending time fully with our family in the family. Our storm may be the divide between our siblings that makes gathering awkward and put on. Our storm may be health crisis rocking our whole family. In silence, we find ourselves, saying WOW! Who is this God that even the winds and waves obey?
Frederick Buechner has said:
Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and whatever we do in whatever time we have left, wherever we go, may we in whatever way we can call on him as the fishermen did in their boat to come awake within us and to give us courage, to give us hope, to show us, each one, our way. May he be with us especially when the winds go mad and the waves run wild, as they will for all of us before we’re done, so that even in their midst we may find peace…we may find Christ.1
When we find moments of silence, we come to realize that though we think that Jesus is sleeping through the storms of life, Jesus never left us alone. We need to wake up the Jesus in us. In the moments of silence, we come to know that Jesus is not the one who needs the focus and clarity, it is us!
We have always craved silence. It is not just in the modern day that the noises of life had overwhelmed us. Always have God’s people sought quietude. In the rediscovery of silence, the centering prayer movement moves many. This way of prayer focuses on a phrase or image to focus and quiet the mind. Last week as we began our gathered prayer time, Pastor Shirley invited us to center with the Psalm 46: 10: Be Still and Know I am God.
This model of prayer has been shared in our time by Father Thomas Keating, a Cistercian priest and founder of the centering prayer movement. With deep calls to go deep with words or imagery, he invites pray-ers into silence to know God. Keating says, “Silence is God’s first language, everything else is a poor translation.” 2
Keating stands on the shoulders of prayer mystics who gone before, inviting us into silence. It was Teresa of Avila, who called her devotees to the prayer of quiet. A quiet that was not just the absence of external noise, but the presence inner still and calm.
Communal moments of silence do not always feel divinely inspired and full of insight and grace. In our vernacular, we have the phrases: pregnant pause, awkward silence, and tumbleweed moment. Instead of listening for God, we try to fill the silence. We share and over share. We talk and talk over one another. Instead of those phrases, let me introduce you to another. In the French understanding, when you gather with others and silence passes between you, the phrase is un ange passes. An angel passes over. There is a blessing in the silence that passes between those who are gathered.
This is closer to Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul describes a wordless prayer – the kind where only groaning is heard. The labor pains of all of creation are said to echo the waiting and expectation that accompanies the birth of a child. In silence, we are reminded that the Holy Spirit groans for us, when we have no words left to say. For when we might wish to be eloquent and articulate or calmly peace-filled, but hear the wouldas and couldas, and shouldas swing in our minds like monkeys.
We wait in the silence for God to be known to us. It is not because God cannot be known in the whirl and the swirl of life. It is because we cannot be sure it is God in the whirl and swirl of life. We might begin to think it is ourselves. Silence gives us the space to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who will nudge and encourage us, convict when we have done the things we shouldn’t have and not done the thing we should.
Silence in God’s presence is our most fertile time. There is that point in the argument, when you have no words left. You still have frustration. You are still mad. But you are exhausted of more accusations to throw, you are worn out of screaming, you do not have any more venom to spew. You are willing to stop trying to solve all of your troubles on your own and turn to God (almost as a last resort).
So, turn to God this morning. Wait on the Lord. Even now. Let us be in silence as we wait on God. If your to-do list, resistance, or the grocery shopping list, pop in your head, just acknowledge and move it along. Let us listen for the Lord.
(Silence)
Loving God, who is never far from us, to you, we pray. Let us know you more. In our commitment to silence, let us listen to you. Amen.
1 Frederick Buechner, “A 250th Birthday Prayer,” Secrets in the Dark
2 50 Ways to Pray: Practices from Many traditions and time by Tereasa Blythe
New Testament Lesson: Romans 8: 18-27
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for option, the redemption of our bodies. For in* hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes* for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes* with sighs too deep for words. And God,* who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit* intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.*
Gospel Lesson: Mark 4: 35-41
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’
Meditations For Your Week
Sunday, March 19~ Saturday, March 25
Sunday: “On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.” Mark 4:35-36. Jesus spent time with those in need AND also left the crowd behind. Where are you finding solitude and rest by leaving the crowd behind?
Monday: “A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’” Mark 4: 37-38. Even though Jesus was in the boat with them, they panicked! In the midst of your storms of life, Jesus is right in the boat with you! Have you awoken Jesus?
Tuesday: “He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.” Mark 4: 39. When we listen for the words of Christ, they are definitive and final. Spend time today in silence.
Wednesday: “He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’ Mark 4: 40-41. Jesus, who is our brother and friend, is also master, savior, redeemer. Pray today on the power that Jesus offers if we would believe.
Thursday: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Romans 8:19-21. All of creation waits for God. We wait for God and all around us as well. Find moments of silence to look and know God.
Friday: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8: 22-23. All of the pain we know points to groaning and labor pains for the kingdom of God. Prayerfully offer your challenges to God that they might be redeemed.
Saturday: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Romans 8: 26-27. We need times where we pray in silence. We do not need to even form the words. The Holy Spirit will intercede, will pray on our behalf. Be still and know.