QUIET TIMES

 

A Sermon by Rev. James D. Brown

Market Square Presbyterian Church

May 25, 2008

Scripture:  Isaiah 49:8-16 and Matthew 6:24-34

 

 

Memorial Day weekend, compared let’s say with the 4^th of July, is a quiet time.  Families go to cemeteries and remember loved ones, especially those who have served their country is times of war.  Tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon we are all invited to enter into a few moments of silent prayer in remembrance of those who have given their lives for us.  

 

This morning I glanced at the television in our bedroom and happened to catch the numbers scrolling across the screen of the numbers of American soldiers who died in action beginning with over 400,000 in WW II, 50,000+ in Korean, 50,000 in Viet Nam, all the way up to 4000+ in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Think of it—over half a million lives sacrificed in war.  And we cannot forget that 50 million lives were ended in violence around the world in the 20^th century alone.  This has to make our hearts ache and lead us into reverent silence.

 

Today’s lesson from the Sermon on the Mount is one that serves as a good focus for such quiet reflection and meditation.  Let’s ponder a teaching of Jesus that at first sounds a bit cynical but after some reflection is right on target:

 

                        So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring

                        worries of its own.  Today’s trouble is enough for today.

 

All this comes after Jesus paints a picture drawn from nature.  The birds of the air find food find food supplied to them by God and the lilies of the field are arrayed in beauty that is God’s doing.  Jesus teaches that we should quit our endless worrying and awake each day with cries of thanksgiving and go to bed each night offering God a heartfelt Amen for the wonders of the day that is drawing to a close.

 

In this regard I suggest that we would do well to find some quiet time this weekend to ponder and prayer about why it is that we find it so difficult to put aside our worry beads and take our days as they come.  What is there that makes  it so hard to listen to the silence in our hearts and let go of our worries?

 

Henri Nouwen deals with this question in his probing book on prayer, With Open Hands.

He says flat out that silence can often by frightening.  He quotes a student who had thought deeply about the place of silence in his life:

 

Silence is night

and just as there are nights

when you’re all alone

totally alone

when you’ve cursed

when you’ve become a nothing

which no one needs—

so there are silences

which are also threatening

because there is nothing except

the silence.

Even if you open your ears

and your eyes

it keeps going on

without hope or relief.

Night with no light, no hope

I am alone

in my guilt

without forgiveness

without love.

Then, desperately, I go looking

for friends

then I walk the streets

a body

a sign

a sound

for nothing.[i]

 

Silence can threaten us.  We are more comfortable with noise—even the noise of worship.  One the things we are always aware of here at Market Square Church is that we are “on the air” over AM 960.  This is, of course, a great blessing for us.  Last week I was at a meeting at which one of our radio worshippers told me how much they appreciated our Pentecost service that was led by Kelly and our youth, and not so long ago a retired minister who often listens on Sundays wrote me a note thanking me and Market Square Church for grappling with issues that really matter in our daily lives. 

 

But being on the air causes us to fear “dead time” when there is no music, no preacher talking, no prayers being offered up.  I don’t know if you always notice, but one of pastors always stays seated during the Sharing of the Peace and talks quietly into a mike that connects to our radio worshippers.  It’s as if we fear that silence might cause those listening at home to change the station!

 

Let’s test this out.  For the next 30 seconds I’m not going to say anything.  I invite you to think about the place of silence in your life.  How comfortable are you with dead silence?

 

Nouwen observes that for many of us silence is truly threatening.  He says that there “was a time when silence was normal and a lot of racket disturbed us.  But today, noise is the normal fare, and silence, strange as it may seem, has become the real disturbance.”[ii]

 

It’s not hard to figure out at least part of the reason for this.  Our daily patterns addict us to noise.  A number of years ago the Catholic writer, Morton Kelsey, pinpointed our obsession with noise and made the claim that modern life is marked by a “studied attempt to avoid ever being alone.”  He describes the day of an average man who is awakened by a disk jockey, then listens to music while shaving.  “He gets his breakfast in between skeins of words—headlines, box scores, [and] political phrases….He drives to work joined to the radio again, and switching over to concentration on a job even requires the help of pipeline music.  Only when he drops into bed, too tired even to dream, do the conscious lines stop radiating, and if he cannot sleep there is the ever present sleeping pill or tranquilizer to remove the necessity of a night-time encounter with silence.  The next day the routine starts over….”[iii]

 

It’s no wonder we worry so much about so many things.  We’ve lost the ability to find and maintain our bearings, to be still, to cling to words of hope like those Jesus offered to his own followers.  Picture the birds of the air.  Picture the flowers of the field. Be still and let God’s Spirit fill you up.

 

Quite simply, we’re out of practice.  And even when we are practicing, it’s so easy to be distracted.  To be fair to us, this has always been so, else why would Jesus have taken such care to tell his followers to loosen up and let the troubles of the day suffice.  Morton Kelsey recounts St. Teresa’s confession that one day while trying to quiet her soul in an empty chapel, she noticed that the altar hangings were crooked.  “How careless the sacristan is!” she said to herself.  “I must…”  Then she remembered she had come to pray, to be quiet with God.[iv]  Who among us can’t relate to St. Teresa’s honest admission?

 

Let’s talk a bit more about silence. It too is full of noise, but of a different sort than what Kelsey attributed to the day in the life of an average person. Let me take you back to Nouwen’s young student who talked about the scary side of silence that we run from.

 

There’s another side which calls to us if we will but listen:

 

But there are also nights

with stars

and a full moon

with the light from a house

in the distance

and silences which are peaceful

and reflective

the noise of a sparrow

in a large empty church

when my heart wants to sing out

with joy

when I feel that I’m not alone

when I’m expecting

friends

 

or remember

a couple words

from a poem I read lately

when I lose myself in a

Hail Mary

or the somber voice of a psalm

when I am me

and you are you

when we aren’t afraid of

each other

when we leave all talk to

the angel

who brought us the silence

and peace.[v]

 

The words of a song from the 60’s come drifting out of the past:

 

Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again.

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.

                                     

The vision planted in Simon and Garfunkle’s brains had to do with a neon God, with a sense of dis-placement where people talked without speaking and heard without listening—like sleepwalkers in the dark of night.

 

It’s clear that we really do need to come up with a plan for what happens in our lives as we listen to the sounds of silence.  Today’s lesson is not a bad place to begin if we are among those who worry incessantly about what’s going to happen to us personally and as inhabitants of the world.

 

When Jesus tells us not to worry, he is assuming that we got his point about striving for the righteousness of the Kingdom all our days.  He’s assuming that we will meditate on his words about birds and lilies.  He wants us to live in the confidence that the One he calls Abba, Father is holding both our lives and the life of the world in a saving embrace.

 

Jesus is not giving us a free pass in telling us not to worry.  This is not a strategy leading to a safe landing each and every day.  It is a call to live lives rooted in the Gospel—one day at a time.

 

I’ll close with a story told at the quiet beginning of our Session meeting this past week.  Half our elders couldn’t be present for a variety of reasons.  Bob Ormsbee gave the opening devotion for the dozen or so of us scattered around tables in Fellowship Hall.  Much to my surprise, his message filled my silence right up until I fell asleep that night—and gave me a sense of clarity about what I should be about the next morning.

 

It was a cute story about a nine-year old who wets his pants in class one day.  Joey’s heart sinks, for he knows that when the boys in the class discover what’s happened he’ll never hear the end of it, and the girls will write him off for good.

 

Joey believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays:  “Dear God, this in an emergency.  I need your help now!”  He glances up from his prayer and sees the teacher coming down the aisle toward him.  The look in her eyes tells him that she knows what’s happened.

 

At that very moment he sees a classmate named Susie heading his way with a goldfish bowl filled with water.  Just as Susie reaches his desk she trips and dumps the fishbowl of water right into Joey’s lap.

 

His prayer has been answered.  “Thank you Lord, thank you!”  Now all of a sudden instead of being the object of ridicule he is the object of sympathy.  The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out.  Other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk.  The only sad note is that the ridicule has been transferred to Susie.  One of the boys shouts at her as she tries to help with the cleanup, “Get out of the way, you klutz.”

 

At the end of the day Joey and Susie are waiting for the bus.  He walks over to her and whispers, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”  Susie whispers back, “I wet my pants once too.”

 

Here’s the golden thought that our elders took to bed with them that night after hearing this story:  “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”  This is the stuff that makes our quiet times so important as we sift and sort and get ourselves ready to take part in the Kingdom of God that is always coming into the world.  Strive to love a righteous God and your neighbor as yourself, says Jesus.  If this becomes the theme of our quiet time, we really might be able to handle our worries one day at a time.

 

 

MARKET SQUARE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Quiet Times