Silence

A Moment of Silence

[1 minute pause]

Focus Statement

When we practice being silent, we can deepen our connection with God.

Point of Relation

What was that initial silence like for you?

How did the silence make you feel?

Did you find it awesoome or awkward?

Was it to short of a time for you...

or way too long?

Believe it or not, that was a mere 60 seconds.

Personally, I love silence.

I know that may be hard to believe since my job requires me to talk sooooo much.

Deep down, however, I am an introvert at my core and, to be honest, I love to sit in silence.

I have become, as a colleague and friend of mine has said...

A socialized introvert…meaning that I have learned to be sociable and seemingly outgoing...

Even though it drains me to do it…and makes me long for alone time.

So, generally speaking, silence is my comfort zone...

However, I cannot lie that I have not struggled with silence in other ways.

There are times when there is literally nothing to say and yet it feels awkward to say nothing.

For instance, when someone is dying and I need to be there for them…

I wonder what I should say, what words might make it better, what shared thoughts and prayers might be comforting.

In my time as a chaplain, I learned that silent presence is as powerful, if not more powerful, than any word or prayer I might utter.

I have sat bed side with people who were dying and just silently head their hand, letting them know I was with them.

Sure, sometimes words do come to me and, when that happens, I speak them...

But observing silence is a form of praying…of actively listening to God…and often it is in the silence that I hear what is truly needed for me to say.

Things to Consider

We all have a relationship with silence, whether we’ve thought about it or not.

Some of us enjoy silence.

Some of us wish we had more silence in our lives.

Silence makes some of us uncomfortable.

We feel the need to fill our time with “noise” - whether literal or metaphorical.

Moreover, some of us have been unjustly silenced.

Right now, there are people out there that are actively seeking to silence black, brown, Asian and other minorities...

I think the negative reaction of some toward Meghan Markle,

Or the 6 Asian women in Georgia,

Or the suppression of voters’ rights that are largely going to affect people of color and the underprivileged.

What Scripture Says

Many churches care celebrating Palm Sunday today,

but it is also Passion Sunday, when we remember the final period of Jesus’ life, the period of suffering leading to death

(“passion” is from the Latin “patior,” “to suffer, endure, bear”).

In contrast to the loud praises of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem,

the passion story is much quieter and more somber.

Silence played a key role in Jesus’ last days, and his example shows us how it can help us tune into God’s will for our lives.

For instance, in John 14:1-31, Jesus intentionally took time away from all the busyness of the Passover holiday

and tense conversations with his disciples to be in quiet prayer with God.

This was actually a common practice of Jesus,

we might even say a spiritual discipline, throughout the gospels.

For example, in Mark 1:35, it is written that “Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.”

In Mark 6:30-32, we are told that after Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to do ministry, “the apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, ‘Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.’ He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. “

In Matt 14:13, following feeding the five thousand, "...[Jesus} left in a boat to a remote area to be alone.”

Back to today’s passage Mark, Jesus went with his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples.

He asked them to keep watch while he went alone to pray.

In this quiet time, Jesus asked God that, if possible,

could he be spared the suffering that was to come;

however, he then turned it back over to God, “yet not what I want, but what you want” (Mark 14:36).

It was in creating the space and silence to listen for God’s will that Jesus heard and found it.

This practice of listening to God’s will is also the theme of the Old Testament lectionary reading for Passion Sunday.

In Isaiah 50:5,

Isaiah proclaimed, “The Sovereign Lord has spoken to me, and I have listened. I have not rebelled or turned away.”

The truth is that in order to truly listen, we MUST practice being quiet. [Repeat and pause]

Let us now consider contrasting Jesus’ approach to silence with that of his disciples.

Jesus took a few disciples to Gethsemane and asked them to stay awake and keep watch while he prayed.

Every time he returned to them, he found them sleeping.

How often do we tune out or turn our brains off when faced with scary and sad situations?

How often does silence make us uncomfortable?

Instead of using that quiet time away from the other disciples to pray or simply keep watch as asked,

they avoided the silence by falling asleep.

Let’s put this into perspective.

Just moments before, Jesus had predicted his disciples would desert him.

Peter and all the others were extremely quick to say they would not leave him.

They were quick to defend themselves.

But words and actions do not always match up.

Right afterwards, they did begin to desert Jesus, by falling asleep when he asked them to stay awake.

What if, instead of trying to defend themselves, the disciples had just listened to Jesus?

What if they had stayed quiet and let their actions do the talking

and actually stayed awake when they were asked instead of just saying they would?

Friends, sometimes we talk too much – as a way of defending ourselves

or trying to convince ourselves and others that everything is going to be okay.

Practicing silence as a discipline can help us be more in tune with ourselves and with God,

so that we don’t feel so pressured to always say the right thing.

We can learn to be comfortable with silence in hard situations when there are no easy answers or right things to say.

What This Means for You

While Jesus’ disciples deserted him, we do not go into our time of silence alone.

Silence is not the absence of God’s presence;

instead it gives us the opportunity to tune into ourselves and to what God is saying to us.

I want you to consider how you currently observe silence in your lives.

Or perhaps you’ll consider whether you observe it at all.

We all should have quite time, a time where we sit in the silence intentionally.

In fact, that is my challenge for you this week...

I challenge you to intentionally spend 5 minutes a day in silence.

Each week beyond this one, you can build up to more if you wish.

A good way to do this in concert with other disciplines

is to spend five minutes in complete silence following reading your Bible or following praying

allowing God to speak to you through what you just read.

Friends, at the beginning of this Holy Week, how can you create space and silence for God in your daily life?

What This Means for Us

As a church community, we need to incorporate silence and contemplation into what we do.

Think about how many times you’ve observed silence as a congregation…in a small group, a church meeting, or any other function you’ve been to.

This is a discipline we can and should be more intentional about cultivating.

What might we hear God saying to us if we but stopped to be silent and listen?

That is not a rhetorical question, but one I am legitimately asking.

So let us end the way we began and let this be our moment of silent prayer, listening for what God is saying to our church.

[2 minute pause]

AMEN.