St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for The Fourth Sunday After Pentecost (July 2, 2006)
Liturgical Color: Green
Reverend Dr. Lyle E. McKee
"Silent Thoughts"
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in the loving presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A few years ago a rather unusual protest took place in New Jersey. Four nuns locked themselves in a tiny second-floor infirmary and took a vow of "near silence." They were protesting new rules established by their new prioress, Mother Theresa Hewitt. She had introduced television, secular videos, recorded music, bright lights, and (horror of horrors) daily "sweets" into the convent. The sweets consisted of a tin of candy which was passed around each day and each nun was supposed to indulge. In the words of one of the protesting nuns (who was among the younger nuns in the order, by the way) the new prioress was turning monastic life into "one big party." They locked themselves away and kept silence to express their revulsion of these ungodly changes.
The passage from Lamentations invites us to continue the theme begun last week of prayerful silence.
The Lord is good to those who are patient, to the soul that seeks after God.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth,
to sit alone in silence...
As ridiculous as the behavior of those New Jersey nuns may sound, there is much in this world that serves to direct our attention away from the Spirit and the spiritual in life. We may sympathize with the sisters and with the writer of Lamentations. We live in a world of noise, confusion, and distraction; there is no permanent retreat.
I read a story about a salesman in Fort Lauderdale, Florida who realized each time he drove through a certain highway tunnel there that his radio would go dead. He convinced the authorities to have the tunnel wired, and it now broadcasts commercials and public service announcements. I suppose he figured that people prefer any kind of noise to silence. He may be right; have you heard the music our teens seem to enjoy?!
There seems to be no escape from noise in our society. It's not only in our automobiles. On the streets, traffic, sirens, and children at play crowd our senses. At home, if it's not the television or radio, it's the sound of computer games or of yelling at one another or of everyday conversation. Even when we attempt to "get away from it all" on vacation, we're interrupted by the sound of motor boats or jet planes or the electronic devices we just have to bring along—as if we can't live without them.
Concern grows over noise pollution and of our rearing generations of deaf people, the result of years of rock concerts, blaring iPods, and other forms of noise pollution. So much sound; so little communication.
The poetic author of Lamentations provides the wisdom we so greatly need. "It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."
Sitting in silent waiting upon the Lord stands in stark contrast to the sense of meaningless sound portrayed in the song I still listen to today by Paul Simon, formerly of "Simon and Garfunkel." Written in 1964, the words of the song "The Sound of Silence" are at least as true today as they were then. For Simon, the Sound of Silence is another way of saying "meaningless noise," sound without intent, words without communication. Here are the lyrics:
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.
Simon's despair grows out of a vision of the peculiar inability of human beings to communicate effectively with one another. He finds in his dream that relationships are manipulative, superficial, and unfulfilling:
In restless dreams I walked along narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night and touched the Sound of Silence.
And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening,
And no one dared disturb the Sound of Silence.
"Fools!" said I, "You do not know silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed in the wells of silence.
And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning in the words that it was forming,
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls"
And whispered in the Sounds of Silence.
It is indeed risky and foolish to challenge the noise-filled sound of silence that deafens us all to effective communication. But the gospel, as Paul says in First Corinthians, seems folly to those who do not understand. The gospel would have us learn the true sound of silence—not meaningless noise, but silent listening to the God who speaks to those who wait quietly for a word.
One recalls that many of the major events of Jesus' life took place in solitude and silence. He spends forty days silently preparing himself for public ministry. After his ministry begins, he goes repeatedly to a silent and solitary place to pray to and listen to God, gathering strength for his mission. Gethsemane is among the most poignant examples.
This week's text from Lamentations permits a reprise on the theme that silent prayer is something we need to revive for the benefit of our spiritual lives. Our liturgy, often given to filling time with words and music, has specific notes on when silence might be kept. That pause prior to the confession is an appropriate time for silence, for self-examination and individual confession to God. It is intentional. Such times remind us of or familiarize us with the power of silent prayer.
Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest and one of my professors, has observed:
"For many, silence is threatening. They don't know what to do with it. If they leave the noise of the city behind and come upon a place where no cars are roaring, no ships are tooting, no trains rumbling, where there is no hum of radio or television, where no records or tapes are playing, they feel their entire body gripped by an intense unrest...There are some students who can't study without a solid wall of music surrounding them. If they are forced to sit in a room without the constant flow of sound, they grow very nervous.
"Thus for many of us, silence has become a real disturbance. 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.
"(The result is) we have become alienated from silence. If we go to
the beach, or on a picnic in the woods, the... radio [or today, the
iPod] is often our most important companion. Perhaps we should say
that we can't stand the sound of silence." (With Open Hands, p. 36)
Perhaps it is as Frederick Buechner suggests: "We are none of us very good at silence, it says too much." For Paul Simon and for many of us, silence says too many things we do not wish to hear. The text this morning, nonetheless, offers silence as a source of hope, comfort, and salvation.
As I indicated last week, I see prayer much as I do conversation. Using that image, consider the encounters between a father and his son. What if they spoke only once a day or once a week? What if the conversation went something like this: "Father, I want you to do the following things for me"? Then the list is read off. What if, after a few cursory words of thanks and a quick affirmation of the deep love of son for father, the son goes on his way, out of the father's presence, until the next need arises?
The father would, no doubt, be disappointed, irritated, or frustrated. And yet, being a loving father, he would grant those requests in the best interest of the son. But only a minimum of communication would have taken place, after the manner of a monologue. No conversation, no dialogue.
This is much the way we too frequently treat our God.
Prayer is a dialogue; its intent is to improve the quality of our relationship with God, not principally to get what we want. As such, the wisdom of Lamentations to wait silently is helpful counsel. In prayer, we need to hear as much, if not more, than we speak. We need to listen in reflective thought, in the words and actions of others, in scripture, for the voice of our Lord who is our portion and our hope.
T.S. Eliot includes these lines in his poem "Ash Wednesday":
Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound?
Not here, there is not enough silence.
Thomas Merton once said: "My life is a listening. (God's) is a speaking. My salvation is to hear and respond. For this my life must be silent. Hence, my silence is my salvation."
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, the mercies of God never come to an end;
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore in the Lord I will hope."
The Lord is good to those who are patient, to the soul that seeks after God.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth, to sit alone in silence..." Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and
minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal
life. Amen.
