Scripture Lesson

From the book of 1 Kings, Chapter 19:

¹¹ He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; ¹²and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. ¹³When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

From the book of Psalms, Chapter 46:

¹⁰‘Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.’

"Encountering Christ in Silence"

A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

[Wait two minutes before going to pulpit.]

In case you are wondering, that period of silence was intentional. No, I didn’t fall asleep or lose my place or miss my cue.

I know that that period of silence probably made some of you uncomfortable. In fact, I forewarned my husband Peter as well as Steve and Al and some of the choir members ahead of time that I would be doing it, so they wouldn’t be waving frantically at me or giving me puzzled looks, thinking that I had totally lost it.

Silence – sweet, scary silence. We want it -- but we don't want it. We crave it, but we're afraid of it. Silence makes us uncomfortable. Maybe that’s because we just aren’t used to it. We don’t get much silence, because life is noisy.

I know there is some kind of noise going on in the background of my life practically every waking minute. Some of the noise I put into my life by choice – such as the radio I listen to as I get ready for work and drive here, and the CDs I play while I’m in the office. And much of the noise in my life is welcome -- the bark of my dogs when I arrive home, the conversation with my husband and my son as we catch up on the day; Jerry Remy or Joe Castiglione calling the play-by-play of the Red Sox game.

But some of the noise in my life is uncontrollable – the ring of the telephone, the horn of the commuter train, the scream of a siren. And how many times have I been stopped at a red light and heard the pulsing and vibrating of the radio in the car behind or me??!!

And noise isn’t just the things we hear; it’s also what we do. Whether it’s downing a Big Mac or talking on the cell phone while driving, we don't want to waste time a moment of our time. It seems that we’re always running, always trying to get things done. And all this activity makes life noisy, too.

And it’s not just a 21st century problem. Life could be noisy back in the days of the prophet Elijah, too. In our scripture lesson this morning from First Kings, he has been going and doing and running, and he ends up so stressed out that he’s ready to give up on life. He knows he needs God, and so he heads to the mountains and waits for God to speak to him in a big voice, to give him some spectacular sign, the way God had done to the Hebrew people. God had led the Hebrews to the promised land veiled in a mysterious cloud. God had also come to the Hebrews as a powerful pillar of fire which parted the Red Sea. And God’s mighty power was revealed in the plagues that were brought upon Egypt.

As Elijah waits for God’s big sign, God calls him out from the cave where he is hiding, and while he is standing there, God sends a tremendous wind, a cyclone, that rips through the mountain. But God is not in the wind. Then God sends an earthquake that shakes the whole mountain. But God is not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, God sends fire and lightning, but God is not in the fire. And then there comes a still, small voice, a whisper, through which God speaks to Elijah.

We might think that silence is a void, an absence, an emptiness. But silence can also be the presence of God; silence is the sound of God’s voice in our hearts when we intentionally seek God’s presence. Elijah has to stop running and slow down in order to hear God.

And so do we. When was the last time you slowed things down and just took a deep breath? What would happen if you stopped running and quieted your soul? How much easier would it then be to feel God’s presence, to encounter Christ, to have your life transformed?

How long has it been since you had peace in your heart? How long since you’ve felt near to God?

God says to us through the scriptures, “Be still and know that I am God,” and yet so many of us are frazzled and exhausted, trying to do more and more, that we have a hard time finding God.

If you’ve been running around trying to find God, and haven’t felt God’s presence or heard God’s voice, maybe it’s because you’ve been searching in the wind and the earthquake and the fire -- and God is waiting to speak to you in the silence.

Sister Joan Chittister writes, “Silence … is the void in which God and I meet in the center of my soul. It is the cave through which the soul must travel, clearing out the dissonance of life as we go, so the God who is waiting there for us to notice can fill us.”

This fall, we will be offering you an opportunity to find God in the silence. Every month beginning Monday, September 29, we will be holding an evening prayer service in the style of the Taizé community in France. Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community which seeks God through the ancient Christian practice of contemplative prayer. This prayer form is expressed without words. It is simply a silent resting in God's presence. We hope you will be able to join us. And to give you a foretaste, we are going to spend a few minutes in silence right now.

I invite you to get comfortable in your seat and close your eyes. Take a deep breath in and blow it out. Once again, take a deep breath in and blow it out. Let’s take five minutes to be still and know that God is God.

Holy God, calm our souls, quiet our minds, soothe our hearts, that we might feel you here in these moments…[Five minutes of silence.]

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

¹This imagery is adapted from Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), p. 71ff.