Keeping silent before God

There are different kinds of quiet.

Have you ever noticed how the silence of the hour before dawn is different than that of midnight?

And think of the silences between human beings.

Two people can be silent together, and depending on the circumstance, the silence will be different:

It will be the angry silence that follows a fight, or the nervous silence that discomforts strangers.

It may be the well-worn silence of familiarity or the awkward silence of lovers who can say nothing in the face of the mystery of loving each other.

It may be a bored silence, or a thoughtful one; apathy or contemplation.

Silence can be passive: I have nothing to say, so I say nothing.

Silence also can be active: I am being quiet on purpose, to focus entirely on you.

There is no listening without silence, and no dialogue.

There is no gazing without silence, no attentiveness.

There is no wonder or awe without a deep silence.

With God, there are different kinds of silence, too.

There was that potent silence before God said, "Let there be.. . ."

There was the guilty silence of Adam and Eve when God asked, "Where were you when I called to you?"

There was the utter silence of the Sabbath when Jesus rested in the tomb.

We are silent sometimes before God, ashamed of what we have or haven't done.

We often are silent before God, overtaken by wonder.

We try to be silent before God in order to hear the word and ponder it in our hearts.

Alone and together, we practice silence before God: a silence that begets dialogue, a silence that leads us to listen, a silence that soars like awe and like love.

In the liturgy, we are silent, silent together.

This is not an individual silence, even though each of us—as best as each of us is able— is quiet.

This is not a passive silence, even though we try to be as still as we can be.

We are silent together, actively quiet, purposely still.

We're silent before the liturgy begins, in order to be present to each other and thus find God. God is always present to us; we forget this sometimes and fail to hear God amid our noisy living.

So before we wrestle with God in our rites, we are silent: Be still, and know that I am God.

We are silent at the words "Let us pray."

These words begin the opening prayer and the prayer after communion at Mass, as well as the prayers after the psalms at Morning and Evening Prayer.

At this invitation, we pray, and we pray hard, and we do so together, so that when the priest speaks, all of our prayers are drawn to those words like metal shavings to a magnet.

 One voice breaks the silence with words of prayer, and one mighty voice, spoken from all our throats, seals that prayer: "Amen!"

We are silent after readings of scripture and after the homily.

How else can God speak to us?

How else are we to hear the divine voice, not only echoing from long ago in ancient words brought back to life, but speaking now, in this time, in the quiet that we provide here?

After the readings and the homily, we are silent together because we are listening together for the voice on which our very lives depend, the voice that calls us into being, the voice that bids us to come out of our dumb tombs to live and to love again.

On occasion, instead of singing, we may be silent when the gifts of money are gathered for the poor and for the church, and when the gifts of bread and wine are brought to the altar.

And when all have been fed, when all have drunk from the cup, again we are silent, caught up in the revery of great mystery, standing together wide-eyed and satisfied, breathing quiet gratitude for life breaking out everywhere, enjoying the quiet of this moment before an eternal dawn, when God will be all in all and the final silence will be ruptured with raucous, joyous cries of "Worthy! Worthy! Worthy!"

The liturgy's silences both tax and nourish us.

They tire us because they are active moments, concentrated periods of deliberate, attentive, awe-filled stillness.

But they nourish us as well.

The moments of communal silence in the liturgy plant seeds of peace in our souls, so that in the turmoil of everyday life, we can find a still center inside and hear the voice of God.

So we are going to practice being silent, being silent together.

 We are going to recollect ourselves after greeting each other and taking our seats.

We are going to pause at the invitation, "Let us pray."

We are going to wait on God's word—everybody from usher to choir member, sitting down, sitting still, for a healthy period of silence after each reading from scripture and then after the homily.

And again, after the paschal meal, we will share a communion of quiet, a silence as joyful as our singing during communion was exuberant.

At first, our silence will seem awkward.

Throats will cough, seats will creak, song sheets will rattle.

 But if we stick to it, if we resist the temptation to rush along, eventually our silence will deepen and lengthen.

We will come to appreciate the chance to contemplate together, and the liturgy will become less a torrent of words and more a sacred celebration, an encounter with God that has a rhythm of song and speech and silence, of action and rest.

To do this and to do this well, we need to practice being silent at home, alone and with those with whom we live.

We need to practice turning off the television, the radio and the stereo.

We need to pause for a moment of silence before beginning our prayers.

We need to stop and think for a moment in the heat of an argument or a debate.

We need to greet the words of others with the attentive silence of the good listener before we respond.

And sometimes we need to gaze into each other's eyes, saying nothing, appreciating everything.

If we do these things, if we practice being silent, being silent together, being silent with God, then when death comes, we may be less afraid.

We may fear a little less the terrible silence of the end, perhaps even be able to tentatively welcome it.

For we will know that death's silence is but the momentary hush before the grand singing of the angels and saints in the new Jerusalem, in whose choir of praise we will find our true voice.

And then God will listen, silently as a pleased lover for whom no words will do.

Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10:27-30

April 21, 2013

A sociologist was researching a new book in which he planned to show the burden, misery and cost to society resulting from large families.

He interviewed the mother of 13 children.

After taking down information about their ages, family income, and other data, he asked, "Do you think all children deserve the full, impartial love and attention of a mother?"

"Of course," the woman replied.

Hoping to catch her in a contradiction, the interviewer continued,

"Well, which of your children do you love the most?"

The mother answered, "The one who is sick, until he gets well; and the one who is away, until he gets home."

A parent's love for his/her children mirrors the love of the Good Shepherd for us:

to love fully and totally,

 to love regardless of the cost,

to love without limit or condition,

to love even though such love may not be deserved or appreciated.

Christ calls each one of us to the vocation of being "good shepherds,"

 imitating his image of loving servanthood:

to bring compassion and healing to the sick, the troubled and abused;

to bring back the lost, the scattered and the forgotten;

to enable others to move beyond their fears and doubts to become fully human;

to pay willingly the price for justice and mercy for all members of the "one fold."

Easter Sunday of the Ressurection of the Lord

Luke 24:1-12

March 31, 2013

There's a fascinating detail in John's account of Jesus' resurrection regarding the burial cloths of Jesus.

The evangelist makes a point of where Peter and the other disciple find the wrappings.

The shroud and cloths in which Jesus' body was wrapped and bound are found on the ground;

the cloth that covered Jesus' face was rolled up separately.

It seems very deliberate, planned.

Whatever Mary and Peter and the disciples saw Jesus wearing in his appearances on Easter morning and evening gave no indication of his excruciating passion;

his Easter garb was not the shroud of the dead.

Jesus left the bindings of death behind.

Forever.

On this Easter morning, many of us are wearing new Easter clothes, as well -

new shoes, new dresses, new suits, new ties, new sweaters, new slacks.

After a long winter, we are finally able to leave the old dark colors of winter behind and put on the colors of the long awaited spring.

The custom of wearing new outfits at Easter originated with the early Church.

When the newly-baptized emerged from the pool of water at the Easter Vigil,

they were dressed in new white robes as a sign of their "putting on Christ."

They left behind their old lives in the baptismal waters,

emerging from the pool re-born into the life of the Risen Christ.

Even the Christians who had been baptized in previous years dressed in new clothes at Easter to indicate that they, too, were reborn through the penance and prayer of Lent.

So the new outfit you are wearing today is part of a custom dating back to that first Easter morning:

your new clothes are nothing less than a profession of the faith in the resurrection of Christ.

Our new Easter finery notwithstanding, we do live our lives as if wrapped and bound in burial cloths -

shrouds that we spin for ourselves out of our fears, our doubts, our prejudices, our narrow-mindedness.

We cling to the safe wrappings and things of the "dead,"

afraid or intimidated to "live" the life of God;

we can't seem to put aside the things of the "dead" to take up, instead, the things of God.

Easter, however, calls us to newness:

a newness of attitude, of perspective, of spirit.

The grace and hope of the Risen Jesus enables us to put aside the shrouds of fear and distrust that cover us,

to walk out of the tombs of vengeance and anger that imprison us.

The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

Luke 24:1-12

March 30, 2013

It is night, the dusk of the 20th century.

And every age gets the heroes it deserves.

Or rather, our artists look into our collective soul and give us tales that echo what they see there.

In these days, we no longer tell stories to each other.

Instead, we watch them together.

What models of virtue have our creative types dredged up from the communal yearning?

Who are the heroes that engage our attention these days.

These days and nights that are the dusk of the 20th century?

It's easy to find the answer.

I remember once picking up the Virginia Pilot and checking out the list of the top 20 video rentals in Tidewater.

There's the manic Mel Gibson of the Lethal Weapon series;

the brooding Steven Siegal who is Hard To Kill;

the dark knight of Gotham known as Batman;

and, best of all, a hero who is literally-- while not out of his body-- at least out of his skin.

The appropriately named Darkman, perhaps the most representative icon of the desires that drive us.

Notice: all of these "heroes" are flawed.

What drives them is vengeance.

They are out to right a wrong that has been done to them.

But we cannot approve that entirely because it seems, well, a bit selfish.

We side with their quest for justice even as we hobble them with our disapproval.

So we label them as heroes of the dark, of the night.

By defining them negatively, we keep our distance even as we applaud their exploits.

Did any of you who saw Darkman not secretly hope that he would succeed in ridding the world of the people who had done him in?

Of course not.  Like me, you kept hoping him success all the time knowing it was vengeance-- not justice-- that fired his soul.

These dark heroes.

They are us.

We told our artists, whose antennae are most sensitive to the currents coursing in our souls,

that this is how we would like to see the universe:

One flawed person standing against many enemies and overcoming them through extraordinary endeavors.

It is night, the dusk of the 20th century.

And we have gathered here to listen to the story of a hero who swims against the tide created by these dark knights of our contemporary spirit

Literally, "swims against the tide" because water is such an important element of our gathering.

This Jesus is not Darkman but Lightman!

He is not out of his body but in it-- in it to an extent that will astound us when we ourselves experience it in our personal resurrections from the dead.

It is night, the dusk of the 20th century.

O blessed night in which we celebrate our corporate vengeance over evil!

This is no selfish adventure we share this evening.

There are new heroes here, waiting to be born of the water and the Holy Spirit.

What we do is not for ourselves alone.

Our story will not allow it.

It is never enough to create the good life just for ourselves.

Jesus will not allow it.

We have touched our hero's cloak and life will never be the same.

It is night, the dawning of a new age even as those around us turn out so many lights.

We lit a fire tonight and shared it.

That was not just a symbol.

That is what we are about as co-heroes with Jesus.

We must cast that fire upon the earth and light up the night in which prowl the contemporary Batman and Darkman.

It is night, but we are about to bless water that will bathe bodies with the anointing of life.

It is no longer dark and dangerous.

Our God has led us through the waters into the light.

We may blink but that is to our credit.

Outside this sacred assembly, our eyes are veiled.

Here, we see.

That is why we can say:

It is no longer night.