Perhaps you are familiar with the Quakers, and especially
their custom of beginning a meal with a silent grace. A
non-Quaker youth was invited for a meal in a strict Quaker
household. The youngster was NOT familiar with Quaker piety and
in particular, the silent preparation for food. He later
reported his response to it: "There was this embarrassing silence
when we first sat down a the table, and nobody knew what to say,
and everybody looked down, so I told a funny story and that
seemed to break the ice."(1)
Silence. There is not much of it these days, so we do not
deal with it much better than that young man. The TV chatters on
with one silly talk show after another. People haul their boom
boxes to the beach so that they do not have to live in the
silence between the rolling of surf and the crying of gulls. A
cellular phone company currently has an ad campaign running that
proclaims from billboards, "Silence is Weird," as if we need to
talk, talk, talk all the time. When we leave this sanctuary
tonight, the bulletin instructs that we depart in silence - it
will feel strange; it always does. Thirty-five years ago Paul
Simon, in his classic cry over the modern inability to
communicate, wrote
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more,
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share...
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence.
"Fool," said I, "you do not know.
Silence like a cancer grows."...(2)
If silence is viewed as a cancer, no wonder people avoid it.
But then we hear again those few words from the Psalmist: "Be
still...silent...and know that I am God." They are found in the
midst of an ancient hymn celebrating triumph over trouble and the
rock-solid conviction that, no matter what, God is with us and
God is in control. In the hurly-burly of life, we might not
notice that, but in silence, we hear and learn it again.
Silence is, after all, part of the natural order.
"Alternating silence, speech, and silence is the very rhythm of
God as old and deep in the nature of things as creation itself.
According to Genesis, God breaks the cosmic silence with a
creative word but...only during the days. At nightfall and on
the Sabbath, God falls quiet."(3) Between Good Friday and Easter
Sunday, the Bible has silence. Correspondingly, there is for us,
the creatures of God, a natural rhythm not only of work and rest,
but also of sound and silence. "There is a time for everything,"
says Ecclesiastes, "a time to be silent and a time to speak."(4)
Jesus knew which was which. His life reflects a balance of
the two. There were times he was in the midst of the crowd's
hub-bub, precisely where he needed to be; there were other times
when he retreated to the peace and quiet of the wilderness. On
that last night with his disciples, there was the meal together,
then an exit to the quiet of the garden for solitary prayer. In
the silence he would speak with...and listen for...the Heavenly
Father.
As busy a lady as the late Mother Teresa observed, "God
rarely is found in the midst of noise and restlessness; instead,
[God] is the friend of silence."(5) "Be STILL...and know that I am God."
In his book, Born Again, Chuck Colson wrote the following
of Richard Nixon:
As he spoke, Nixon came close to professing his
own commitment..."When I was eight or nine years old, I
asked my grandmother, a very saintly woman, a little
Quaker lady, who had nine children -- I asked her why
it was that Quakers believed in silent prayer.
When we sat down to the table, we always had
silent prayers; and often at church, while we sometimes
had a minister or somebody got up when the spirit moved
him, we often just went there and just sat, and we
prayed...My grandmother spoke to me on this occasion,
as she always did to her grandchildren and children,
with the plain speech. She said, "What thee must
understand, Richard, is that the purpose of prayer is
to listen to God, not to talk to God. The purpose of
prayer is not to tell God what thee wants, but to find
out from God what He wants from thee."(6)
"Be still, and know that I am God." Silence. In the words
of the poet:
Whenever I am troubled and lost in deep despair,
I bundle all my troubles up and go to God in prayer,
I tell Him I am heartsick and lost and lonely too,
That I am deeply burdened and don't know what to do.
But I know He stilled the tempest and calmed the angry sea,
And I humbly ask if in His love He'll do the same for me.
Then I just keep quiet and think on thoughts of peace,
And as I abide in stillness my restless murmurings cease.(7)
Be still...silent...and know...
Amen.
1. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., "Background Noise," Christianity Today, July 17, 1995, p. 42
2. Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence," 1964, BMI
3. Plantinga
4. Ecclesiastes 3:7
5. Plantinga
6. ibid.
7. Helen Steiner Rice quoted in Bible Illustrator for Windows
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