First Church in Cambridge, Congregational UCC
31 October 2004
God Is Still Speaking
I saw a New Yorker cartoon awhile back. Original intro for a sermon I know, but this one is good and timely. It pictured a little man dressed in a bathrobe holding a cup coffee. He was standing on his doorstep and sheepishly looking up in the air at a giant, I mean house sized, New York Times arching its ways straight for him.... Does anyone here know the feeling? I mean how could you not feel the weight of the headlines in Boston this past week? "Pigs Can Fly." "Hell Is Frozen Over." "The Red Sox Win the World Series." My friends and I were wondering if just this once the Boston newspapers might resort to even more colorful language! I admit it. I went to the rolling rally. I went to the parade. I took the Red Line to Park Street. Through the misty weather and tickertape, I caught myself a quick glimpse of the team members and of thousands of screaming fans to which I gladly added my voice. Crossing the Salt and Pepper Bridge on the T home, I saw even more fans strewn all along the Charles as they awaited the Duck Boat Flotilla. Dirty water and all, it was good, clean fun. But as swept up as I have been in the jubilation of the Nation this past week, I could not shake the deep anxiety I've been feeling about a decidedly more important headline that is about to befall us in the week ahead. Without even landing yet, the post Election news is already casting large shadows over my doorstep. Does anyone hear know this feeling?
I've decided to spare you any words of wisdom, biblical or otherwise, about how you could more faithfully prepare for your individual roles to the polls. I trust you all know how much is at stake in this election. I trust you will all vote if you are eligible. I trust you will all vote from a prayerful place that is guided by your Christian faith. If I am naïve in all this trusting by all means let me know but I have the distinct impression that this is not a congregation of the apathetic or the undecided. Having conferred a bit with Mary, we both felt a different and we hope more faith filled tack is in order for this Sunday. We wanted to look beyond our particular responsibilities at the voting booths on Tuesdays and instead take a few moments to affirm our faith in God's presence through hard times. If this election is weighing as heavily on your hearts as it is on ours, perhaps we could all use a few reminders that we do not bear this burden alone. God is with us, and God will continue to be with us, regardless of Tuesday's results.
Hear these statements of our faith! In our United Church of Christ Statement of Faith, we affirm God's promise to us for "courage in the struggle for justice and peace". This is not a promise of courage in our positions mind you, but courage in the struggle itself. In our own First Church statement, we affirm with UCC congregations across the country that "God is Still Speaking". You'll hear more about this saying, and its role in our denomination's new identity campaign, later in the service from Mary. In our scripture lesson for today from Paul, we are told that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness". Even when we do not know how to pray as we should, the Spirit "intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Now, we could take all three of these statements and analyze them and parse them out and assess their historical contexts and hold them under the good old light of reason. But, now is not the time for that. Now is the time for us to hear these promises as a community of God's people. Now is that time to hear these affirmations through the ready ears of our anxious hearts. God promises us courage in our struggles through these difficult times. God is still speaking, to us and through us, whether through words of comfort or peace or through a sigh too deep for words and whether we hear them or not. Indeed, the question is: are we listening?
My sermon today will be just a bit shorter than usual because we want to give you a few minutes to do some of this listening—listening in silence—for God's promises, God's speaking, and God's sighs. So my sermon today will end with a time of quiet meditation. First, we have to do a little preparation.
I realize there are some of you who may not care for long silences in church, or who may be uncomfortable with them or just plain fidgety. I wonder though. How else we might so clearly sense the mystery of God's at once transcendent and immanent presence without silence? As the writer Max Picard has said, "Silence stands outside the world of profit and utility. It cannot be exploited for profit, you cannot get anything out of it. It is "unproductive," therefore it is regarded as useless." Perhaps some of us feel this way sometimes. "Yet", he goes on, "there is more help and healing in silence than in all useful things.
In our word weary world, especially in this election week where many of us have grown sick of hearing candidates and pundits and sometimes even ourselves talk, talk, talk about this election, I hope silence does offer some healing to whatever has been ailing us. From all sides, we have heard plans and strategies. We have heard attacks. We have heard lies and excuses and we have heard truths. We have heard reasons to despair, and we have heard reasons to hope for a better future. And through it all, our culture has become increasingly programmed to use political labels as a means of identifying others and ourselves. Republicans. Democrats. Independents. Conservatives. Liberals. Progressives. Hawks and Doves, with wings both right and left. We have even heard the labels of "good" and "evil". And we have had precious few opportunities to see through these divisive labels where we might come to know our neighbors and ourselves more simply as the children of God that we all are, and as the broken vessels that we all are, regardless of our politics.
Having said that, I'd like to offer you a few ideas of how you might approach what I expect will be a good 4 or 5 minutes of silence. Please don't feel like you have to remember all these hints. They are merely suggestions and they are far from exhaustive. If you find that one of these suggestions might meet you where you are right now, then give it a try. If you have your own idea of how to use this silence, by all means, do so. I only ask you that you keep our upcoming election somewhere near the center of this prayerful time. As Paul says, "the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought". None of us knows exactly how to pray, but we can let that very Spirit teach us, and intercede, and even pray through us. So, a few ideas for how to approach this silence:
In silence before God, we might pause to humble ourselves away from the places of self-righteousness, of cynicism, and despair. We might learn to trust God's promise for courage in the struggle for justice and peace, regardless of the outcome. We can remember the words of Jesus who said, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone?" Realizing this, we shouldn't merely pray for others to be enlightened to our ways of thinking and knowing and loving the world. Let us instead pray for ourselves, with open hearts, that we may be enlightened to God's way of thinking and knowing and loving the world. When we remember that God is still speaking, we can find hope therein. In silence, let us listen for God's hope.
Similarly, in silence before God, we might hear the call in a new and deeper way to love our enemies, and to reach out to people whose politics are different from our own. Easy or divisive labels have no place in prayer or silence. What does have a place in our prayers is claiming our nature as a beloved child of God, and cultivating the desire to respect and to love every other human being who is also a child of God regardless of their politics for this election. Remember, God may well still be speaking even just a few words, through each and every person. In silence then, let us listen for God's word of love for our neighbors and for ourselves.
In silence before God, we can make known our hopes and fears about the week ahead specific and we can know that we are not alone. If you need to tell God, as I know I do, that I'm scared, and I mean really scared, or that I'm angry, or that I'm frustrated, let God listen. God can handle it. If you have a story about why you are hopeful or why you scared, about what impact this election might have on your family, on your job, on your life, on this community, share it with God. If you have no words, let God hear whatever lies on your heart and let God's presence surround you and enfold you. Remember, God is still speaking. In silence, let us listen for God's comfort and companionship, through all our hopes and fears?
Finally, in silence before God, we might come to discern a word or phrase that is something we need to hear right now. If you are not sure what you are most needful of, take a part of the time to ask yourself the question, "what do I need now?" and the rest of the time, just listen. In silence, let us listen for God's grace to fulfill our deepest yearnings.
Now, please remember you don't have to listen for all these things. One will do, whether it is listening for God's hope, love, companionship, grace or something else that is of God that I have not mentioned. Just a few more comments before we enter in. If you are having trouble keeping still, and are having a hard time quieting down and focusing your mind, you may find it helpful to focus on the physical act of your breathing. You might want to take a few deep breaths to start off before settling into more of a rhythm. If nothing else, perhaps you can try to be aware for even a few moments of God's spirit that is coursing through your every breath. After a few minutes, I'll close with a brief word prayer. For now, close your eyes, relax and listen to the God that is still speaking, and that is ever breathing and ever praying in you and through you. Beloved of God, in this troubled time, and as we head into this election week, let us listen. Let us simply be. Let us pray.
© 2004, Daniel Smith