God's Silence and Speech

Back in the days when Anne was still able to come to church, and it was time to greet Bob and Anne at the door on the way out, I would move around in order try to make eye contact with her and try to elicit one of her famous smiles.

Sometimes it worked.

But as the months and years went on, gradually the smiles faded behind the mask of this terrible disease, and there was silence of words, and then the silence of so much more.

It has been heartbreakingly sad for Bob and indeed for everyone surrounding this situation with Anne for the past 14 years.

Anne was one of the first assignments made to one in our first group of Stephen Ministers.

And Connie has maintained that regular contact through all of these years, rather than giving up when the silence descended and conversation was no longer possible.

And so in this sorrowful silence we pick up the scriptures, and make some discoveries.

Some before us have faced times of personal silence.

And it seems sometimes that our God who is Word is silent to us.

That can be a terrifying 1-2 combination.

[I remember reading years ago the account of Admiral Byrd who spent a winter alone in Antarctica.

The silence and the loneliness nearly drove him mad; he barely made it through the winter.]

So the troubles pile up inside of us and all around us.

What are we to do?

“Take it to the Lord in prayer,” the old hymn counsels us.

But just because we do that does not guarantee an immediate response, or the kind of response we may desire to hear.

God will respond,

but on his schedule, not ours;

in his way, and not according to our desires;

fitting his plans, not necessarily ours.

In our First Lesson today,

Job wrestles with this,

but recognizes that God

...does great things beyond understanding and marvelous things without number.

He passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

That silence of God....

It is hard to take.

At least in these past many months, Bob had the daily tasks of caring for Anne.

There were always things to be done, more and more things to be done, and finally, everything had to be done for her.

That made up a little bit for the silence, but only a little.

And now there is not even that, and the house is even more silent.

But we have a word of comfort in the two verses from Romans we heard.

Paul reminds us that it is the job of the Holy Spirit to help us,

to speak for us as our advocate,

...with sighs too deep for words...Paul says.

The Spirit knows the depths of our sorrows and troubles,

and the Spirit also knows the fullness of the purposes of God.

At the right time and in the right measure, the Spirit will shine the light of God's purpose and promise on the darkness of our trouble and sorrow.

The silence we know now is not forever.

We learn that at Christmastime, don't we?

The silence of that lonely night out on the hills tending the sheep is broken by the messengers of God with the best news of all: To you is born this day... and followed by the great song Glory to God in the highest....

We learn it again at Eastertime, too.

The silence of grief and sorrow is broken by the messengers of God telling the first witnesses that Christ is risen,

and soon they are able to sputter “He is risen indeed!” and rush off to tell others.

We come into church each week with many burdens.

Some of them are our own doing, the things of which we are not so proud, and the things which we have not been able to accomplish but should have done.

That is one kind of weight.

Then there are the weights that others have heaped upon our shoulders;

unrealistic expectations, inappropriate guilt, thoughtlessness, or sheer meanness....

In addition there are the griefs and sorrows of many kinds.

If we have a few silent moments for reflectiveness after rushing to get here, those burdens may catch up with us and weigh heavily upon us.

But neither on this day, nor on any Sunday when we gather here are we left to face those crushing burdens alone.

That Spirit which is promised to speak with us and for us begins his work

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

in remembrance of our Baptism,

that time when Jesus promised

never to abandon us,

never to give us over to the powers of evil and death,

never to leave us utterly alone.

In the Confessional office we hear words of forgiveness and reconciliation offered by the Lord Jesus to us,

his free gift despite whatever has gone wrong in our lives.

In lessons and sermon we hear how this promise has been offered and worked out in the lives of God's people in centuries past, and how the same offer continues to be made available to us.

In the Holy Communion we hear and act out the promise and first course of the great and final banquet.

Is God speaking? Oh, yes!

Is it all that we would like to hear?

No. We still have all sorts of why? what if? and what about? kinds of questions for which we don't have answers that satisfy us.

But we have enough.

When we are too sad or too frightened or to overwhelmed to speak or to pray, we can remember a hymn like the next one that we will use,

and remember that our painful silence is broken by the messengers of God who invite us to join with them in praising the God who promises never to forget us or abandon us.

And the refrain of the hymn they sing is this: Alleluia, Lord, Most High!

May their voices carry along Bob and strengthen all who grieve, until we can with full voice join in their hymn:

Alleluia, Lord, Most High!

Amen

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Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.