And Jesus Stood Still

(Mark 10:46-52) How difficult it is for modern humans to be still! When was the last time you were really still? I don’t mean physically still but still at the centre of your being, deep down at ease with nothingness; a little while ago, a long time ago or never?

 

Riding the train into Melbourne I watched as people sat still, most not talking, most seemingly at rest. Yet this was not the case. Most had the white cords of distraction in their ears, were fiddling with the mobile communication device in their hands and sitting looking down in what appeared to be a permanent hunch, rarely were they in conversation, looking out the window or just sitting without doing anything.

 

When I got to Synod, Cheryl commented on the number of people whose heads were down, a soft blue glow lighting their faces as they stared at their mobile communication devices, reading messages, posting to their Facebook page or, heaven forbid, playing games. The gentleman across the aisle from me sent and received emails all the way through the Eucharist service, automatically responding on cue to the responses in the service!

 

I have written a small book on the experience of leading the students from Lindisfarne on 3-day silent retreats. I spoke to the publisher to see what they thought. The publishers representative said she had read it and it was excellent, but it won’t sell. I asked why? She said the idea of taking middle school students on 3-day retreats is to challenging and frightens people (adults, teachers, clergy).

 

It is sad that that seems to be so.

 

Brett Esaki in his article, ‘Desperately Seeking Silence” suggests that silence is the youth cultures unmet need.  And I would add, society at larges unmet need. He would say that those who wear the white cords in their ears do so to blanket out the noise of the world and to be alone with themselves. The music that they hear becomes a wall protecting them from the sounds of a world which is challenging, frightening and just a little bit foreign. My discussions with teenagers confirms this as the practice of young people in particular, all people in general.

 

Esaki suggests that ‘silence is the space and time to listen, where to listen is to learn, to allow one’s consciousness to transform, or to absorb.’ Silence responds to sound, it is not the absence of sound. Sound creates the environment in which silence can grow and become. Being still in the midst of noise gives permission for us to unshackle ourselves from the noise and note the learning, the message, the insight or reflections present in us and in the world.

 "The day Jesus came to Jericho Bartimaeus was sitting and waiting. All the longing in his heart cried out, and though the disciples couldn’t see past his blind eyes and his beggar’s cup, Jesus heard what was in his heart, stood still and responded.” (With apologies to Nancy Rockwell)

Jesus encounters Bartimeaus in the midst of noise. If we close our eyes and imagine the scene on the road we may imagine Jesus is moving along in the company of some or all of his disciples. They are walking along a busy road on the outskirts of town, a place where you would typically encounter beggars who were seeking support. Not much good sitting on a back road. No traffic. There would have been  any number of beggars on the road into town – the blind, the crippled, lepers, the sick and more.

 

Jesus would have attracted those who were seeking miracles, others watching out for anything sensational and newsworthy, and others wanting to catch him out. It would have been place full of the hustle and bustle of celebrity and the chaos of ordinary folk seeking extraordinary treatment. In the midst of this we encounter the power of stillness.

 

Bartimeaus is sitting still on the side of the road. His blindness makes it almost impossible for him to move without help. To move anywhere requires another to make it possible. After being escorted to his place by the side of the road, he sits. He hears the noise and attempts to sift out the message, the story the sounds tell him about what is happening on the road. Only then does he call out and not before. He calls out of his stillness and silence. It is this place of repose that informs and allows him to encounter with what is going on. He is not distracted by the noise, but is able to discern what is occurring in the noise and make contact with Jesus.

 

Jesus is surrounded by the noise. It is everywhere, people clamouring for his attention and response. But Jesus is so practised in silence and stillness, he takes this with him into every encounter. The Gospels are replete with stories of Jesus retreating into silence, stillness and isolation. He encourages his disciples again and again to follow his example. Silence and stillness are the central spiritual practices of Jesus, and because they are, they define his life in engagement with others.

 

Here he discerns the authentic voice amongst many and ‘stands still’. He does not move toward action, he doesn’t rush to see how he can solve this persons problem, he stands still. In the stillness he calls to the authentic voice who responds and makes his way to Jesus. Jesus avoids the tendency to rush in where angels fear to tread. He stands still, waits, affirms, calls and is responded to. Bartimeaus has so honed his awareness through the many years of sitting and listen that he too can hear the authentic response. They meet and Bartimeaus finds his need met.

 

This afternoon we have Shush Church and on November 7^th we have a silent retreat. I would suppose that these can be seen as challenging activities for those who have not had previous experience of such and wonder what is expected of me if I come along and take part?

 

Silence and stillness are to be practiced with out expectation. Mostly nothing happens. Sometimes something happens. And then nothing happens. It is a place of training where we simply sit with ourselves, being aware of what is or is not happening within us without trying to make something happen with in us. It is about coming into peace with ourselves, recognising the noise that is there and sitting with it so as to hear the authentic voice and response.

 

Silence and stillness is scary because we are in fact letting go of distractions and excuses and becoming open to what is really happening within us. Distractions like loneliness, anger, busyness, gossip, others and their opinions, children and grandchildren disappear as we begin to be comfortable to be with ourselves.

 

It is and does take practice before it becomes our practice. Jesus knew the power of the Psalmist’s plea, “Be still and know I am God” and the Zen koan of  “Be still, be very, very still, and above all else do not wobble”

 

I would encourage each of you to attend this afternoon or to join us at the next silent retreat. They are good places to start. Amen. 

Complacency & Fear - The Saboteurs of Action

Mark 9:38-50

⁴⁹“For everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

 

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How easy is it to slip into that place where we settle for less or where we avoid thinking or talking about the glaringly obvious until it is almost too late? As we saw in last weeks sermon, the first world has become comfortable with the violence being unleashed on many through out the world and only acting when it is almost too late to do anything constructive about the problem.  Climate change, refugees from war zones and places of internal unrest, domestic violence and more only exercise our imaginations when we are forced to deal with the thousands on our boarders, as is the case in Europe.

 

We always believe, ‘She’ll be right, mate”.

 

We have become  immune to what is happening providing it is not disturbing our piece of mind or preventing us from doing the things we like. It is indeed all about us.

 

Pope Francis is a very salty Pope. He rubs salt into the wounds of society so that society becomes conscious of its in built complacency and is forced to act.  It has little to do with politics and a lot to do with the Christian ethos of loving God and loving self. Of being so in tune with the God within that we live out in a way that seasons the world. The Pope does that. Recently he has taken 2 refugee families into Vatican housing. The cynics might say there is room in St Peter’s for a lot more but the fact is that they are there at his invitation. The Archbishop of Canterbury is also opening the doors of Lambeth Castle for refugees. Here are two men putting their faith where their mouth is.

 

And this is the point. Jesus says you need to put your faith where your mouth is. You need to be the difference, the flavouring, the change in the world. You need to do so, so that this world can live in peace.

 

What stops us from doing so? Complacency. She’ll be alright, somebody else will do it. Or it’s ok they (the government, the church, the wardens, the vicar) will make sure we have what we need to survive. William Loader suggests, "It is not so much that salt ceases to be salt but it becomes contaminated by additions over time, dirt, stones, etc, so that it becomes useless. He (Jesus) links salt with peace. In the context salt is an image of integrity and wholeness."

 

The contaminating additions include a sense of impotence (I am only one person, what can I do?), a sense of entitlement (it has always been this way so it will always be this way), an attitude of blame (well, if only they had listened to me we would not be in this situation or it’s all the government, church, wardens or vicars fault) or perhaps it is that we are ensconced in our own world and just let things go by. It is easy to find ourselves here, and on reflection, there is possibly a little bit of this in most of us.

 

This is not just the case for individuals but also for institutions. We become comfortable with who we are, who we spend time with, and with the way things are. It is been this way for sometime and we think it will remain this way for ever. Institutional church is finding it difficult to maintain its place in the world because the world has changed and it has not. The once prominent position churches such the Anglican and Catholic church once had as the setters and regulators of standards of morality and community is a thing of the past. We now are just one voice amongst many.

 

Our buildings are rarely used outside Sundays, except to make money to keep the doors open for Sunday; where once there were large numbers in both church and Sunday school, now there is but a remnant remaining. Many new approaches have been tried but in a world where choice is just another personal choice option they lose out to entertainment, sport, leisure and catching up on the house work.

 

It is interesting Jesus doesn’t condemn the options, the good options available. He says to not condemn those that do good things which reflect my teachings and principles. If what is happening builds community, restores life and empowers others, then it is to be applauded. Our problem is that it is out side the building and structures we have built for the purpose of worshipping and serving God. We are trapped, as the disciples were in the ‘our way or the highway’ exclusivity. We have ownership of the doing of good deeds and they either must stop or join us in the in-crowd.

 

Charlotte Elia writes, "This text invites communities to identify the self-constructed stumbling blocks that prevent flourishing. In other words, are there subtle ways in which the church sabotages its own ministries?"

 

It is not like we are doing no thing about it. We have tried a range of strategies and have more in place, but they seem not to be having the effect we want. We are not growing or changing. This is a difficult place to be and it asks hard questions of us who find ourselves in this place, such as:

• What is our vision for our church? Is it here to look after my spiritual needs or is it the missionary extension of Christ active in the world?
• Why do we come to church and what is my purpose for being here?
• Are we stuck in the ‘that’s the way we have always done it here’ syndrome, or ‘the we tried that once and it didn’t work’ excuse for not trying something new, or the sense that we have been here or apart of one or more activities longer enough to believe we own that part of the church and can act as gatekeeper to any change mooted?
• How have we reached out to bring others in or are we afraid they will not like what we have or that they will change what we have?
• Has our giving kept up with the need? Are we fully aware of the finances needed to fund the vision of the church as outlined in our strategic plan, in our case the Mission Action Plan, and understand that this may ask us to become more involved financially than previously?

 

While societies, governments and churches often want to change situations they often sabotage the attempts because they fear what that change will require of them. Complacency and fear prevents us from taking the initiative and salting our world, our community, our church. Our answers to the questions I posed will be an indicator of just how far people will go to put their faith where their mouth is.

 

St Oswald’s is at an interesting stage in its life as a church. We are getting less in numbers, we want to grow, we are doing lots of new things but we need to be doing more if we are to survive into the future. Without more people we simply will not have the resources to be God’s missionary church in the world. Without sufficient funds we will not be able to reach out effectively to invite new people in. The challenge we have to take up is how do we do both? How do we underpin the Mission Action Plan with sufficient resources to bring new people into our church? Our present level of giving simply doesn’t do that and we may have to revisit our giving. Besides, we are not a rich parish with endless reserves.

 

Jesus asks us to explore the hard questions, to maintain our faith, our saltiness in such a way that we will be exemplars of hope and change. He is not talking academically or hypothetically but practically. Our complacency and fear can rise up against us: she’ll be right mate, it’s ok the way it is; or we can dig deep in to the saltiness of our lives and give more, do more, take risks and step out to be the person, the people the church we are called to be.

 

Jesus, as always, doesn’t mince his words, the future of the world and the church is up to us. We can not outsource it ‘them’. Amen. 

Fear v's Faith - Mark 3: 45 -51

Franklin D Roosevelt is famous for the saying, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”[1]  This is the fourth sentence of his inauguration speech, the speech against which all such speeches are judged. 

It was a speech out of character with his campaign speeches, which were buoyant, optimistic and spiced with humour.  Yet here he takes on an unusually solemn, religious air.  It was 1933 and the Great Depression was making inroads at levels never seen before.  The economy was devastated, unemployment was rising uncontrollably and all that had previously seemed impregnable lay shattered at the feet of what was, by its own peculiar character, an optimistic society.

It was no more.

FDR went on in that speech to reiterate the truth that materialism is fleeting and only a true religious focus lasts; he set directions and sought to turn society around to face their fear, a fear that was both real and unreal, logical and illogical, powerful but weak.

He knew the truth – once we allow fear to generate a life of its own, we have given it a power it has no right to have. We have abdicated our senses and sensibilities, have ceased to think, and retreated into reaction as the only course of action available to us.

In reflection on our own life times, how often has fear been at the roots of all major concerns and conflicts in our society?  Often the fears are unsaid and unspoken.  In the recent swine flu panic it seems its more to do with the old adage, it’s not that you do everything you can, but you must be seen to do so, otherwise someone will sue you.   There is only one pig in Afghanistan, a predominantly Moslem country, and he is in the zoo.  Yet that one solitary pig who was simply minding his own business and doing piggy stuff was quarantined to lessen the spread of swine flu in that country!!  Bizarre. That is not to lessen the seriousness of the situation and we all need to take precautions but to understand that fear often hides within much of what we do.

It is interesting in our gospel reading today that the disciples, and those in the other boats around them, were more interested in waking Jesus and castigating him in the tone of the Old Testament Lamentations – “How long will you forget us?” – than sailing the boat.  They were fishermen.  This would not have been the first catastrophic storm they had encountered. The area where they were sailing was well known for them. They had survived before because they took actions appropriate to the situations they found themselves in.  They hadn’t drowned then and, if they had looked at the situation logically, probably wouldn’t now.

Yet we are told nothing about what they were doing just where they were looking, where they were going to sheet home the blame if the storm didn’t stop.  It wasn’t just the half-dozen in Jesus’ boat, it was the whole flotilla, standing on the rails of their vessels and pleading to Jesus to fix it.  Admirable faith but…… faith without works is not worth a crumpet.

When Jesus is woken he is angry, his tone is one of, why have you woken me for this? He dismisses the storm and turns toward them, sleep still in his eyes, and glares “Why are you afraid?” why did you wake me up?, “Have you no faith?”

They would have probably answered, ‘We do have faith, that’s why we woke you! We knew you would fix it!’ And this way of thinking is not illogical and in a sense is true, but Jesus was pointing at something else.  He was pointing at:

·      Faith in ourselves to deal with the situation.  There is no faith unless it increases our capabilities to live.  If all our faith is, is a constant begging for Jesus to solve our problems then our faith has some way to go.  Jesus, by his death and resurrection, his presence, provides the inspiration to be more, to cope with more, to overcome more than we could ever do on our own.

 

·      Faith that we are never abandoned, even tho it sometimes feels like it.  Right there in the middle of the storm they felt abandoned by Jesus, he was asleep for goodness sake, what was he thinking?  His response was he was a sleep for goodness sake and what were they thinking?   He was with them so he was in the storm as well as they were, and he had faith in their ability to negotiate the storm.  He was asleep because he had so much faith in them, yet they perceived that as disinterest and were overcome with fear. 

A great lesson for me was to understand just how much faith God had/has in me, he trusted me to accept the life and death of Jesus just for me, he trusted me to make the step toward him and then with him toward the world, he trusted me with the daunting task of living and doing it everyday; to put it bluntly he trusted me with a depth and a freedom I definitely do not trust myself with, and only rarely do I trust Him in the same way.

 

Jesus believed in those in the flotilla of boats around him in a way they simply could not see at the time.  There was indeed nothing to fear but fear itself for they had all they needed to survive that passing storm.

 

·      If you take a short moment later to reflect on the path you have journeyed with Jesus you will find this to be true, and like the Psalmist can say,

“But I put my trust in your steadfast love; 

my heart will rejoice in your salvation.
  

I will sing to the Lord, 

for he has dealt so bountifully with me.[2]

And these are lessons for us, Jesus is not a magician who rescues us from the life as a human being, he asks us to find the faith to grow through the never-ending list of daily difficulties that seem to line up at our door waiting their turn to annoy us.  Our faith in Jesus is only real when it becomes a faith in ourselves.  Jesus is not an out there deity who shoots bolts of lightening to destroy our enemies, he is not Superman who flies in and beats back the baddies, Jesus lives and resides in us and it is within us we find what is necessary to persevere, to overcome, to keep on keeping on when it would be fair easier if we could just wake the Jesus asleep in the bottom of our boat.

He is already awake and living in us through his Holy Spirit and we simply have to accept that reality and wade into life confident that we are not alone. This confidence is not a proud self-confidence but a humble sense of the righteousness God gives us through Jesus, it is a rightful understanding of in whose power we stand and whose presence we live.

Jesus may have been asleep but he was present and in his presence there is not final harm to be had. The final harm for the Hebraic mind was death, but the fear of death no longer is real, for Jesus has dealt with that for us and now lives within us to continue our journey without any sense of final harm.

Yes we will encounter great difficulties, awful tragedies, enduring suffering but not alone, and not without the capabilities to ride them out.

It is interesting that the words Jesus spoke are noted as being to the sea, ‘“Peace! Be still!” 

I wonder if they were meant equally for those listening, and for us today.  Be still, have faith and you will find peace where once there was fear.

I just wonder.

 

 

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[1] Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York: Random House, 1938), 11–16.

[2] Psalm 13:5-6