rich’s blog

Someone remarked to me that this message was quite “buddhist.”  I can see where the person is coming from; I’d disagree in some pretty critical ways, I think (the way Christianity values silence so that it can more deeply engage with the world in active service, the understanding of God that undergirds a Christians entrance into quiet, etc.)  One thing I do know; all people suffer when we’re not able to be still.  It’s an ideal that we might also, in our stillness, know that God is Lord. 

Prayer:

Pray with me, will you? Father, you are the God who wants to meet us in silence. Even though I am speaking words right now, father, may they lead us into your silence, and may you silence me if I mislead us. In Jesus’ name we pray together. Amen.  

 

Introduction:

So, I was just wondering how the week’s been?  We talked last week about how we need to no longer meet our own needs and wants as quickly as we can, which is what life sort of trains us to do.  

 

Last week we talked about how we are continually being trained by life to meet our own needs and wants as quickly as we can.  We talked about how basically everything about our faith rejects this, and looked at some passages from Paul that call us to train our lives in in other ways, in ways that meet other people’s needs, that don’t care so much about immed

 

Today, we’re talking about silence.  About solitude.  About being quiet; and not “shutting up,” not “not talking,” but being-existing, living, choosing to live quietly.  

 

None of it: 

In the last passage that was just read to us, God says to Israel “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…but you would have none of it.” 

 

Context matters, right?  We’ve learned this buy now, at least.  And this little text has context all around it.  God has just described how Israel was so scared, so needy–they were under siege, under threat of attack from nations around them–that they turned to the very land that formerly enslaved them, that God freed them from, to help them.  They march to Pharaoh with donkeys and camels loaded with cash, so they can ask their former slave master to help them.  And God let’s them know that nothing but “woe” is going to come of this.  That it will lead to their shame; but they go anyway.  God calls them rebellious, obstinate, decietful, unwilling children who don’t want to hear God tell them what’s true.  There’s the image of this camel & donkey train, loaded with treasure, marching to Pharoah, and God’s prophets stand alongside the road saying, “Hey, this is bad news, people. This isn’t what God wants!” And the response of the travelers is great: 

 

“They say to the seers, 

“See no more visions!” 

and to the prophets, 

“Give us no more visions of what is right! 

Tell us pleasant things,

prophesy illusions.

 

Leave this way,

get off this path,

and stop confronting us

with the Holy One of Israel!” 

(Isaiah 30:10,11)

 

Tell us pleasant things!  Tell us what we’re doing is a good idea, seeking out help where we can’t find it, help that will turn on us. And God says finally that the course of action they’ve taken, “relying on oppression and depending on deceit,” turning to the deceit and oppression of Egypt, will end up resulting in their own destruction.  And God’s people, history tells us, find out it’s true.  

 

But then comes our verse.  God has just told them what they are fleeing to will terrorize them; and into this, God says: 

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: 

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…but you would have none of it.” (Isaiah 30:15, tniv)

 

Things follow this.  They say that they aren’t worried; they’ll flee on swift horses if that happens.  No worries, right.  But God tells them that they should worry.  They should.  But as always, God promises that even though they won’t listen to him, he’ll be sure to restore them in the end.  He’ll take care of them, provide them with food and safety, and do what God is best at, which is loving them as much as they’ll allow it.  Hold these things in your mind.

 

What we do: 

Have you ever been afraid?  Have you ever been anxious? Have you ever felt as if something inevitable, and bad, was coming; and you would do anything to get away from that feeling, anything to solve the problem at hand, a problem that seems to overwhelm everything else?  Have you known what it’s like to have your life out of control, and to grasp at whatever promises immediate relief?  

 

Or have you simply known not what to do?  Have you simply been like Peter on the mountain when Jesus’ clothes turned brighter than bleach could make them, when Elijah and Moses show up and they start chatting, and Peter, says this is good, that we’re all here, let’s, let’s build some huts, hunh.  Let’s settle down.  And we read, in Mark 9:6 “He did no know what to say, for they were terrified.”  It was a frightening thing; but he speaks anyway, right? He didn’t know what to say, but he speaks, because speaking is better than being quiet!  The Israelites didn’t know what to do, but they knew they needed to do something, so they went to someone, someplace proven, effective, capable and powerful.

 

But into that feeling, that terror, God says 

 

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: 

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…but you would have none of it.” (Isaiah 30:15, tniv)

 

Why? 

And I have been thinking of why, thinking of how.  How can repentance and rest be salvation; how can quietness and trust be strength.  What are the mechanics of this.  When Peter suggested they all make camp on the mountain, God interrupted him by saying “This is my beloved son! Listen to him!” Don’t speak Peter; listen.  

 

There is something inherently about quietness that I think draws into trust, something about repentance that draws us into rest; something about listening that keeps us from speaking.  It may be the case that when we most want to move, most want to act, it is most necessary that we retreat into quiet, into rest, into solitude and silence, so that we can discover repentance, so that we can discover trust, so that we can discover all the things–whatever they are that are clouded by noise. 

 

And we live in a world cloudy with noise. 

 

Hazy Air:  

Have you ever been in a fog; the weird kind of fog, that you really can’t see through.  Have you ever seen pictures of places whose air you cannot see through; hazy places, filled with smog and dust and ash and microscopic soot, that fills up the spaces between people, fills up the spaces between the sun and the ground, between buildings.  Sooty, pollution-filled air that closes right over the holes left by people who move, left by cars and bikes and whatever else was in one place, but is now somewhere else. There are no gaps, really, in air polluted like this.  In these sort of places, air itself is pollution, right?  The air itself is hazy, thick, smog air; and to escape it, you have to work.  You have to escape air itself; go somewhere else, hidden, away, where the air itself is different. 

 

Noisy Air: 

Our air, around us, whether or not its hazy, is definitely noisy air.  We live in a noisy world, a wordy world.  Henri Nouwen notes “Words, words, words!  They form the cieling, the floors, the walls of our existence!”  We are surrounded by words, that sound themselves out, and call for our attention.  Radios are on everywhere we go; the television blares out to us from rooms we don’t go in.  And all around us sounds that we have made, that we have pursued, intrude upon us.  

 

Have you ever been in a woods?  Been in a place where the only sounds are those that somehow belong there?  The sounds of birds or rustling grass; places where you step wrong, break a stick, and realize that you have violated something, some rule of silence that is bigger than you, and more important than you, and you should not try to overcome? 

 

But we have cell phones that call out to us, ring out to us to speak and talk.  We have our e-mail that we need to respond to, our voicemail that needs heard and calls that need made, our regular mail that needs sorted through and, so much of it unimportant, so much of needing recycled.  We have our text messages to answer; and buzzes, and pops, bass that rumbles through our houses, air conditioning and fans that whir around us.  Our air is noisy air; and our noisy air closes over the gaps between where we are right now and where we move to, it fits tightly between buildings and people, fills up the spaces between any one of us.  

 

All around us the world constantly says hear this, hear this, hear this!  The noisy air draws our attention away from ourselves, the noisy air intrudes into our quietest moments, saints taking their cell phones into their secret places of prayer.  We are loud and proud and we have become drunkards, addicted to the words that form our existence, addicted to speech, addicted to noise, addicted to being connected.  And like the deepest of alcoholics we have given our lives up to the bottle.  We are addicted to noise, addicted to sound, addicted to intrusions.  We are so addicted that we often will do anything we can to break the silence, anything we can to break our loneliness.  

 

Because we do not realize that without silence we have no relationship with God.  We don’t realize that loneliness, triumphed over, becomes solitude.  What started out as fun & games–a song here or there, a cell phone call, the joy of an instant message–has ruined us.  Society offered us the candy of distracting noise, and we got in its car. 

 

I am not talking about hymns, prayers, and spiritual songs.  I am not talking about whistling in the dark, about lullabuys that we sometimes need to fall asleep, or about family sing-alongs.  

 

I am talking about the air around us, which noisily demands our attention and noisily keeps us from knowing what it’s like to be alone with God.  We live in a world polluted with sounds, and we need to breathe some fresh air.  We are addicts to noise; and we need rehab.

 

Christianity:

And when it comes to this air around us, society’s noise-turned-drug, which we have begun to be users and dealers of, Christianity says–well, let me interrupt myself–that’s what we care about, right?  What Christianity says?  This series of messages, what does Christianity have to say about death and life, drugs and sex–into this noise that we are so accustomed to, like coal miners accustomed to dust, Christianity says–

 

Well, Christianity doesn’t say all that much.  It doesn’t say all that much, and what it says, it says softly.  Because God knows that the only antidote to noise; the only way to clear the noisy air–is silence. 

 

We are reminded of this today. 

 

We’re reminded that only silence can clear the air around us when we stumble across, in our noisy haze, things like Psalm 131.

 

Quiet Reminders: 

The psalmist whispers, plaintively, quietly so that we can barely hear her, barely hear him: 

 

My heart is not proud, LORD,

my eyes are not haughty; 

I do not concern myself with great matters 

or things too wonderful for me.

 

But I have calmed myself 

and quieted my ambitions. 

I am like a weaned child with its mother; 

like a weaned child I am content.

 

Israel, put your hope in the LORD 

both now and forevermore.

(psalm 131 tniv).  

 

There are a thousand great matters–things wonderful, that want your attention right now, you know.  That want your attention all the time.  There are a thousand noises that you can use; fifths and pints of words, conversations, songs, and sounds that you can drink in to distract yourself from yourself.  

 

And this psalmist, this psalmist who has looked at the world and chosen to live away from ambition and away from pride, says “I have calmed myself and quieted my ambitions.  I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.”  And some of us think, weaned kids, terrible twos, I don’t know how quiet fits in here: but all of us have at least heard rumors of children at rest in their parents care; quiet and engaged and calm.  And this psalmist, with a quiet soul, at rest in the Lord, is able to ask Israel, exhort them “Hide your hope in the Lord, right now and always.”  

 

The Bible reminds us that quiet souls lead to trust; that putting our hope in the Lord comes after we still our souls. 

 

We’re reminded of where our strength, and where our salvation come from when we stumble–tipsy with noises and sounds and buzzes–across passages like Isaiah 30, a passage we’ve already seen,  passages where God tells us that is when his people most want to move, most want to act, that it is most necessary they–we–retreat into quiet, into rest, into solitude and silence, so that we can discover repentance, so that we can discover trust, so that we can discover all the things that are hidden by noise. 

 

We’re reminded of the readiness that noise distracts us from, when our attention is called to passages like the one from Luke that was read to us.  

 

“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Luke 12:35-40 tniv)

 

This passage reminds us that we must be watchful, we followers of Jesus must be people always ready, always prepared and always preparing ourselves for Jesus’ return, and for any good work until then, so that when he does arrive we can be found faithful.  Jesus promises great promises of blessing to us for having prepared ourselves for his return.  In another passage in Luke he muses, as he wonders whether his followers will be people marked by prayer or not, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth.”  We find ourselves in passages like these that ask us if we will be people who are preparing ourselves, people who are praying, people who are ready 

 

And when we find ourselves in passages like these we find ourselves challenged to wonder not simply how we’ll be when Jesus returns; which we can daydream off far away from this moment.  But how are we right now, surrounded as we are with the noisy air around us?  Are we prepared?  Are we in prayer? There is a way we can be, you know?  You might have guessed it by now.

 

It’s silence. 

 

Silence’s Doings:

Because if there is anything that silence does, anything that silence does, is that it purifies the air around us.  Choosing silence over noise takes an incredible amount of self-discipline; it takes the Holy Spirit’s power, it takes a church of people to help us, it takes stumbling over passages in scripture that remind us that we need it.  But quieting ourselves–not simply shutting up, not simply not-talking, but quieting down, settling down, becoming and being still and quiet–well, it positions us to hear God.   

 

Choosing Silence:

Choosing silence–which means, of course, turning off the radio, turning off the television, turning off our phones and our computers. Choosing silence means scheduling our days in such a way that we create moments where we have as few distracting noises as possible.  And that is easier for some of us than others, because of children, pets, space, work, passions & personality–but it is always hard work. 

 

It is always hard work, because if we are used to breathing in dirty air; clean air will choke us.  We aren’t used to silence; we aren’t used to not being distracted.  

 

Uncomfortable with ourselves:

Some of us are uncomfortable with silence because we are uncomfortable with ourselves, and the noise keeps us from having to see what’s in our hearts.  We forget that God already knows what’s in our hearts, and loves us right through that stuff.  We haven’t learned that the noise isn’t a comforter, it’s not a stuffed animal that’s keeping us safe; it’s a chain that binds us, and keeps us from drawing close to the place God first wants to meet us, which is our hearts.  We haven’t learned that if we undertake the hard work of stopping all the noises around us and noises inside us, God is waiting there to say that he is safe, and trustworthy, waiting to teach us what repentance is, waiting to fill us with calm, waiting to fill us with hope.

 

Silence into Solitude:

And if we practice silence; begin to make a habit of it, like we make a habit of having our cell phone with us or turning our radios on in the car, we’ll begin to find that we become accustomed to silence.  It becomes sweet to us, powerful in our lives, because God is sweet to our souls, and powerful to save us, and silence acts for us as a pathway to God and a choice we make against the distractions of the world.  

 

We begin to realize that silence becomes something we don’t just “do,” like reading our Bibles so our pastor will get off our backs, but silence is something we become.  

 

We become quiet people:

We become quiet people; people who may very well be extroverts, and talkative, and go-get-’emmy: but people whose souls are quiet and calm within them no matter what goes on around them.  People who can listen.  Who have learned how to reject noise, and it’s distractions.  We become people who are okay not being connected all the time.  People who may be by themselves sometimes; but not alone.  People who have dealt with loneliness, and all the pains and troubles that happen when we give up a distracting drug like noise, and have found solitude through their silence.  

 

And solitude, of course, is simply the ability to hold quiet inside you and offer it to others, to calm them, guide them to silence, and guide them to the Lord that is waiting to meet them in it.  Solitude isn’t a lonely thing; it’s the ability to talk and sing and take those calls and listen to that radio and turn on the music and love people; but not need all those things, and not need people around us in needy, unhealthy ways, because God becomes increasingly all we need. 

 

Solitude is the ability to freely breathe in our noisy air without coughing on it.  

 

Into Silence:

Does this make sense at all?  If we try to become quiet, reject the noise around us, we will find God in our silence.  We will become people who have calmed and quieted our souls, but exactly because we have done this, we are more ready to engage the noisy world than anyone.  Our attention isn’t dulled and deadened by constant sound; but we are able to notice what God would have us notice.  We are able to listen more thoroughly, trust more completely, and become people who lead others to God–not because we’re loudest, our cleverest, or send the most text messages and reminders, but because people realize that we have somehow been vaccinated against the thousand distractions, and ever-present buzz of noise that the world is sending out around us.   

 

And when Jesus comes back, he will say, “Well done my good and faithful servants.”  He will say, “I have found faith on earth.”  And we will say that we were only doing what we were told, we were only doing what we could to reject the noise around us, so that we could find you, and hope in you, and trust you.  

 

In a moment?

So we’ll leave, and we’ll check our cell phones.  We’ll turn on our radios.  We’ll see if anyone left us messages in any of the thousand places they could have, and we’ll be invited to breathe in the noisy, distracting air we are so used to.

 

But what if, instead, we turned off our phones for a while.  We didn’t turn on TV as soon as we got home, or listen to our radios as soon as we get in the car, didn’t ask “what are you thinking” as soon as someone stopped talking, didn’t invite noisy things into our lives as soon as we didn’t have something to do, or were bored, didn’t do any of the thousand things we do to invite noisy distractions into our days: I mean list, them, right?  The internet, our cell phones, our radios, pdas, ipods, whatever–but instead, we stopped the flow of words into and out of our heads, found a quiet place, and prayed that God would restore to us our ability to be alone with him, would fill us with solitude and streams of living water, would teach us to hope not that someone might call us because we’re bored; but that we would be found faithful when Jesus returns, and until then we would be people who are quieted, who are stilled, who have seen the world and what it offers and chosen a better way.    

 

Try this for minutes; one, even, today.  Try it a week from now, for five; build and build and build; and quiet will be built in you.  Go slow, be deliberate; be quiet, and God will meet us there.  

 

 

Prayer: 

Lord, the world is a noisy world: and God, the evil one likes it that way.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  Lead us not into noise, not until we are able to carry quiet inside our hearts.  Lead us into silence, still places where we can reject the distractions of our noisy world, and be met by you with all your love for us.  Renew our hope, there.  Renew our trust, there.  Renew our strength, and give us the courage to reject our fears and face you, repentantly, and let us be overwhelmed with your love for us.  We need you to do this; the air we breathe is thick with noise, and we confess our inability to say no to it’s distractions from ourselves which we are so addicted to.  Draw us into silence, and your wide open heart for us.  In the name of Jesus, our Lord, our savior and Messiah, who spent hours by himself, but never alone, in your sight, praying for us.  Amen.