Sermon: Taking a Silence break
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Taking a Silence break: 21 February 2010: pm: The Very Revd Frank Nelson
- Psalm 119: 81 - 88
- Joshua 3
- Luke 18: 9 - 14
Every so often a particular word or concept leaps out at me. In this particularly busy period in the Cathedral the concept of silence and stillness is catching my attention – not that there is too much of it. I wrote this in the early hours of this morning – when one expects the world to be quiet. Perhaps that is too much to ask when you live in a city suburb like Thorndon where the longed-for silence seems all too often to be invaded by passing traffic, the street-sweeper, the hum of the air-conditioners, the noise of cranes working on the dockside, the occasional siren or the overly loud conversation of two or three people making their way home after a Saturday night out.
Archbishop John Dew, speaking at last week’s Ash Wednesday service, began his address with the words, “Only the silent celebrate deeply”. He went on to say that we are invited in Lent into Silence.
One of the news stories you may have seen in recent days is the call and challenge by the Bishops of London and Liverpool to have a carbon free day- among other things, suggesting people put away their ipods for Lent. The author of the news story I read wondered how many of his readers would be able to do that – even for one day!
At a training session yesterday I played ten minutes of the film we will be showing here next Sunday as part of our Lent programme. The title is “Into Great Silence” and is a documentary shot in the confines of an enclosed order of monks who embrace silence as part of their way of life. While twelve of us were trying to feel something of what it might be like to live in a world of silence and intentional stillness, the Farmers’ Market was in full swing outside the Loaves and Fishes, not only with the sounds of people transacting their business, but also those of saxaphone and electronic piano amplified across the car-park. A scene in the film jumps from a monk kneeling at his prayer desk to a clear sky with the speck of an aeroplane flying ‘silently’ across the screen – at which point a plane taking of from Wellington airport roared across all the other noise we had to contend with. The fact that I got the title of the film wrong when writing the notes for the Today Sheet suggests something about the busyness and lack of stillness in my life at present.
Noise is so much part of our lives today, silence can be quite terrifying – yet it is something many of us long for. There’s an anomaly here too. While we might long for silence, because we have so little of it, silence can be quite threatening. When we do stop our busyness, take off the headphones, turn off the computer screens, our own lives come out to face us. That is not always very comfortable.
We are so busy. We are so much people of action. We don’t have time to be – just to be. The question is: If we are so busy, and there is so little silence and quietness in our lives, how will we ever hear God speaking to us?
Even our churches are busy. We fill every moment of our services with sound and action. People get uncomfortable and think something is wrong if there is more than a two second silence in the course of a service. Years ago we were taught to come into church and kneel down in silent prayer, preparing ourselves to worship God.
The Quakers are one religious group who intentionally seek after and value silence. 19th century Quaker John Whittier wrote a poem called “The Brewing of Soma” – using a Hindu practice of brewing a drink that was both intoxicating and possibly hallucinogenic for use in cultic festivals. He is critical of the false religious fervour he perceived to be whipped up.
Some fever of the blood and brain, Some self-exalting spell, The scourger’s keen delight of pain, the Dervish dance, the Orphic strain, The wild-haired Bacchant’s yell,—
The desert’s hair-grown hermit sunk The saner brute below; The naked Santon, hashish-drunk, The cloister madness of the monk, The fakir’s torture show!
As the poem progresses you suddenly realize Whittier is actually criticizing the Christian religious practices of his day – as being too busy and noisy. It is said he had a particular aversion to the pomp associated with incense, and no time for music in church.
And then, and here is the lovely irony that so often happens, come the last six verses.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise.
Yes, believe it or not, the hymn voted the No 2 favourite by listeners to the BBC is a reaction to the noise and busyness with which we all too easily surround ourselves – even, especially, in our worship of God.
We sang this hymn here on Ash Wednesday; we will sing it again tonight. When we do, notice just how often the idea of silence, stillness, comes up. There are some quite beautiful words which we could do well to dwell on – not only tonight, but through the week.
The silence of eternity interpreted by love …
Take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace…
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still small voice of calm … O still small voice of calm.
Here’s a challenge to those of us surrounded most of our lives by noise. Take a regular ‘silence’ break. Be intentional about stopping. Just for a minute, maybe two. Do nothing. Just be.
Let’s do that now.
