Ruth E. Harper - "Listen, The Silence Speaks" (June 25, 1995)
MP3
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| - | Please join with me in the prayer for illumination. | 0:03 |
| Open our hearts and minds, O God, | 0:09 | |
| by the power of Your Holy Spirit | 0:12 | |
| so that as the word is spread and proclaimed | 0:15 | |
| we may hear Your message with joy this day. | 0:19 | |
| Amen. | 0:23 | |
| The Gospel lesson is from Luke chapter 8 | 0:28 | |
| verses 26 through 39 | 0:32 | |
| Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, | 0:38 | |
| which is opposite Galilee. | 0:42 | |
| As he stepped out one day, | 0:45 | |
| a man of the city who had demons met him. | 0:47 | |
| For a long time he had worn no clothes, | 0:51 | |
| and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. | 0:54 | |
| When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him | 0:58 | |
| and shouted at the top of his voice, | 1:01 | |
| "What have you to do with me, Jesus, | 1:03 | |
| "Son of the Most High God? | 1:06 | |
| "I beg you, do not torment me" | 1:08 | |
| for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit | 1:11 | |
| to come out of the man. | 1:14 | |
| For many times it had seized him; | 1:16 | |
| he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, | 1:19 | |
| but he would break the bonds | 1:23 | |
| and be driven by the demon into the wilds. | 1:25 | |
| Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" | 1:29 | |
| He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. | 1:33 | |
| They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. | 1:39 | |
| Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; | 1:43 | |
| and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. | 1:49 | |
| So he gave them permission. | 1:53 | |
| Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, | 1:56 | |
| and the herd rushed down the steep bank | 2:00 | |
| into the lake and was drowned. | 2:02 | |
| When the swineherds saw what had happened, | 2:06 | |
| they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. | 2:08 | |
| Then people came out to see what had happened, | 2:13 | |
| and when they came to Jesus, | 2:16 | |
| they found the man from whom the demons had gone | 2:18 | |
| sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. | 2:21 | |
| And they were afraid. | 2:27 | |
| Those who had seen it told them how the one | 2:30 | |
| who had been possessed by demons had been healed. | 2:33 | |
| Then all the people of the surrounding country | 2:37 | |
| of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; | 2:39 | |
| for they were seized with great fear. | 2:42 | |
| So he got into the boat and returned. | 2:46 | |
| The man from whom the demons had gone | 2:50 | |
| begged that he might be with him; | 2:52 | |
| but Jesus sent him away, saying, | 2:55 | |
| "Return to your home, | 2:57 | |
| "and declare how much God has done for you." | 2:59 | |
| So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city | 3:04 | |
| how much Jesus had done for him. | 3:08 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 3:12 | |
| - | Thanks be to God. | 3:14 |
| - | The Old Testament lesson is from 1 Kings | 3:19 |
| chapter 19 verses 1 through 15a. | 3:23 | |
| Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, | 3:29 | |
| and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. | 3:34 | |
| Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, | 3:38 | |
| "So may the gods do to me, and more also, | 3:42 | |
| "if I do not make your life like the life | 3:46 | |
| "of one of them by this time tomorrow." | 3:49 | |
| Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, | 3:54 | |
| and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; | 3:58 | |
| he left his servant there. | 4:01 | |
| But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, | 4:04 | |
| and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. | 4:08 | |
| He asked that he might die: | 4:12 | |
| "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, | 4:16 | |
| "for I am no better than my ancestors." | 4:20 | |
| Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. | 4:24 | |
| Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, | 4:28 | |
| "Get up and eat." | 4:32 | |
| He looked, and there at his head was a cake | 4:35 | |
| baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. | 4:38 | |
| He ate and drank, and lay down again. | 4:43 | |
| The angel of the Lord came a second time, | 4:46 | |
| touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, | 4:49 | |
| "otherwise the journey will be too much for you." | 4:52 | |
| He got up, and ate and drank; | 4:56 | |
| then he went in the strength of that food 40 days | 4:59 | |
| and 40 nights to Horeb the mount of God. | 5:02 | |
| At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. | 5:07 | |
| Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, | 5:12 | |
| "What are you doing here, Elijah?" | 5:15 | |
| He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, | 5:18 | |
| "the God of hosts; | 5:21 | |
| "for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, | 5:23 | |
| "thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets | 5:26 | |
| "with the sword. | 5:29 | |
| "I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, | 5:30 | |
| "to take it away." | 5:33 | |
| He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, | 5:35 | |
| "for the Lord is about to pass by." | 5:41 | |
| Now there was a great wind, | 5:45 | |
| so strong that it was splitting mountains | 5:47 | |
| and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, | 5:50 | |
| but the Lord was not in the wind; | 5:53 | |
| and after the wind an earthquake, | 5:56 | |
| but the Lord was not in the earthquake; | 5:59 | |
| and after the earthquake a fire, | 6:01 | |
| but the Lord was not in the fire; | 6:04 | |
| and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. | 6:07 | |
| When Elijah heard it, | 6:12 | |
| he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out | 6:14 | |
| and stood at the entrance of the cave. | 6:17 | |
| Then there came a voice to him that said, | 6:20 | |
| "What are you doing here, Elijah?" | 6:23 | |
| He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, | 6:26 | |
| "the God of hosts; for the Israelites | 6:29 | |
| "have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, | 6:31 | |
| "and killed your prophets with the sword. | 6:34 | |
| "I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, | 6:37 | |
| "to take it away." | 6:40 | |
| Then the Lord said to him, | 6:42 | |
| "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus." | 6:44 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 6:50 | |
| - | Thanks be to God. | 6:53 |
| - | Will you join me in the spirit of prayer? | 7:04 |
| May the words of my mouth and the meditations | 7:12 | |
| of our collective hearts | 7:15 | |
| be acceptable, O God, our rock and our salvation. | 7:17 | |
| Amen. | 7:22 | |
| The phone rang. | 7:25 | |
| Immediately I sense that this was not | 7:27 | |
| the typical voice of my 14-year-old | 7:30 | |
| I-love-life-boarding-school son. | 7:33 | |
| Now for the record, we are not rich | 7:36 | |
| and Nathan is not bad. | 7:39 | |
| Nevertheless, every fall he is boxed up | 7:41 | |
| and shipped off to a New Jersey boarding school. | 7:45 | |
| Nathan's conversation didn't begin | 7:49 | |
| with the normal pleasantries. | 7:51 | |
| Hi, mom. | 7:53 | |
| How are you? | 7:54 | |
| What you been up to lately? | 7:55 | |
| No, instead Nathan launched into this lament | 7:57 | |
| about a created short story he had written | 8:01 | |
| for English class. | 8:04 | |
| He said to me in a rather abrupt way, | 8:07 | |
| I am going to read this to you | 8:10 | |
| and I want you to listen and you tell me what grade | 8:12 | |
| you think I should have made on this paper. | 8:17 | |
| Well, as I listened I tried to do so objectively. | 8:22 | |
| I tried to forget that I am Nathan's proud parent. | 8:25 | |
| I wanted to give this English professor the credit due | 8:31 | |
| a teacher in a nationally acclaimed prep school. | 8:34 | |
| Well, Nathan began to read. | 8:39 | |
| And honestly as he read I tried, honestly I did, | 8:41 | |
| I tried to convince myself that this wonderful paper | 8:45 | |
| that he was reading must have received low marks | 8:49 | |
| because without a doubt it was filled | 8:52 | |
| with misspellings and punctuation errors | 8:55 | |
| and all these things that I could not see | 8:58 | |
| through the hearing of it. | 9:01 | |
| And then Nathan read on. | 9:05 | |
| And he rather artfully described this wonderful scene | 9:08 | |
| of an elderly hermit who lived | 9:13 | |
| in a bleak winter forest. | 9:16 | |
| And I was sort of taken into this whole story. | 9:19 | |
| And then all of a sudden a sentence came | 9:22 | |
| that shattered my objectivity. | 9:25 | |
| In the midst of his description, | 9:29 | |
| when he talks about | 9:32 | |
| this austere yet peaceful environment, | 9:33 | |
| he says, | 9:38 | |
| the silence echoed. | 9:41 | |
| Well, I guess I must have let out this sigh | 9:45 | |
| of appreciation for the rich symbolic imagery, | 9:49 | |
| and Nathan stopped me short. | 9:53 | |
| And he said, "You like that?" | 9:55 | |
| Before I could even answer he went on and he said, | 9:58 | |
| "You know what my teacher wrote about that | 10:00 | |
| "on my paper? | 10:03 | |
| "He wrote 'not possible'. | 10:05 | |
| "And when I asked him after class why not | 10:09 | |
| "he said, 'How can silence echo | 10:13 | |
| "'when it doesn't make a sound?'" | 10:16 | |
| Well, so much for my objective analysis. | 10:20 | |
| All I could think of throughout the reading | 10:24 | |
| of the remainder of the paper was how little | 10:26 | |
| this English professor knew a bout silence. | 10:28 | |
| I know silence echoes. | 10:33 | |
| I've heard it. | 10:37 | |
| I mean, having lost a child to boarding school | 10:40 | |
| and another son to Duke University, | 10:44 | |
| and a husband to cancer, | 10:48 | |
| I know something about the sound of silence. | 10:50 | |
| Now clearly I don't know everything. | 10:56 | |
| I don't know as much as the prisoner incarcerated | 10:58 | |
| on death row. | 11:02 | |
| I don't know as much as the patient | 11:04 | |
| awaiting test results. | 11:07 | |
| I don't know as much as the lonely elderly | 11:09 | |
| in the nursing facility. | 11:13 | |
| But I do know enough to know | 11:16 | |
| that silence has the capacity to echo. | 11:19 | |
| And now you see why out of those lectionary verses | 11:24 | |
| that were read today, I was grabbed | 11:27 | |
| by Elijah's encounter with the divine stillness. | 11:30 | |
| I nearly laughed in solidarity with my poetic son | 11:35 | |
| when I read these two phrases back to back. | 11:39 | |
| The sound of sheer silence, period. | 11:43 | |
| When Elijah heard it. | 11:46 | |
| Mr. English professor, you may have a string of degrees | 11:49 | |
| behind your name, but you sure don't know | 11:53 | |
| much about silence. | 11:56 | |
| Trust me, it can be heard. | 11:58 | |
| So what does it take to hear it? | 12:02 | |
| To some it takes going to hell and back. | 12:05 | |
| Look at poor Elijah. | 12:09 | |
| Bless his heart, he has just stood before King Ahab | 12:12 | |
| and confronted him with his apostasy. | 12:15 | |
| He has challenged queen Jezebel's Baal prophets | 12:18 | |
| to a contest. | 12:22 | |
| The deal is this. | 12:24 | |
| Both sides will build altars on Mt. Carmel | 12:26 | |
| and then they will ask God to send fire upon the altar. | 12:30 | |
| And the god who complies will be considered | 12:34 | |
| the real bonafide, authentic, legitimate God. | 12:37 | |
| Now to add drama to the challenge, | 12:42 | |
| Elijah pours water on his altar. | 12:46 | |
| A big show off. | 12:49 | |
| Need I tell you who wins? | 12:51 | |
| I didn't think so. | 12:54 | |
| Elijah then has the 450 prophets of Baal | 12:56 | |
| slaughtered | 13:00 | |
| and Jezebel in retaliation says to him, | 13:01 | |
| "You're next, bud." | 13:05 | |
| Well then of course Elijah is fearing for his life, | 13:07 | |
| runs away, goes to Beersheba. | 13:10 | |
| He is going as far south as he can | 13:13 | |
| and still be in the settled cultivated land. | 13:16 | |
| But that's not far enough. | 13:19 | |
| He lives his servant there and travels yet a day further | 13:21 | |
| into the wilderness. | 13:25 | |
| And there we find him under an isolated broom tree | 13:27 | |
| praying for death | 13:32 | |
| and then falling asleep. | 13:34 | |
| Clearly the work of a prophet is frustrating | 13:37 | |
| and exhausting business. | 13:40 | |
| God seems to understand. | 13:43 | |
| God lets him rest and gives him food, | 13:46 | |
| enough nourishment to last him for his long journey | 13:48 | |
| all the way to Mt. Horeb. | 13:51 | |
| And at this point Elijah then | 13:54 | |
| makes his residence in a cave. | 13:56 | |
| Now, I've always thought it was rather ironic | 13:59 | |
| that this ninth century BC | 14:02 | |
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | 14:06 | |
| who has just blown away 450 Baal prophets, | 14:08 | |
| runs and hides at the threat of a woman. | 14:12 | |
| Maybe it's true, hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn. | 14:15 | |
| My late husband used to describe me by modifying | 14:20 | |
| the words of David Banner right before | 14:24 | |
| he turned into the Incredible Hulk. | 14:26 | |
| You remember that? | 14:29 | |
| He used to say, and my husband would say of me, | 14:30 | |
| "Don't make her angry. | 14:32 | |
| "You wouldn't like her when she's angry." | 14:34 | |
| Well, to say that Elijah was did not like | 14:38 | |
| Jezebel when she was angry would be a gross understatement. | 14:42 | |
| In fact he was terrified of her. | 14:46 | |
| So here's Elijah holed up in a cave | 14:49 | |
| when all of a sudden he's told to go out | 14:52 | |
| and to wait for the passing by of the Lord God. | 14:54 | |
| Now I don't know what you would expect | 14:59 | |
| if someone told you to go out and wait for God to pass by. | 15:01 | |
| I don't know what you would expect. | 15:04 | |
| But we aren't told, but I think clearly | 15:06 | |
| it would be accurate to say | 15:10 | |
| that earthquake, wind and fire would just about sum it up. | 15:11 | |
| If you look at the expectation of the prophet Isaiah, | 15:16 | |
| you can get a clue. | 15:20 | |
| Hear Isaiah's words. | 15:22 | |
| And in an instant suddenly | 15:25 | |
| you will be visited by the Lord of Hosts | 15:27 | |
| with thunder and earthquake and great noise | 15:30 | |
| with whirlwind and tempest | 15:34 | |
| and the flame of a devouring fire. | 15:37 | |
| That's the way theophanies, divine appearances, occur. | 15:42 | |
| God appears to David on the wings of the wind. | 15:46 | |
| God appears to Moses in the burning bush. | 15:49 | |
| And don't forget God has just appeared | 15:52 | |
| to Elijah by igniting a very wet altar. | 15:54 | |
| Clearly, Elijah would have anticipated God | 15:58 | |
| to be in the earthquake, wind and fire. | 16:01 | |
| But God is in none of it. | 16:04 | |
| God is in the sound of sheer silence. | 16:07 | |
| The still small voice. | 16:11 | |
| The low murmuring sound. | 16:14 | |
| Or to put it in the words of poet John Keats, | 16:17 | |
| "And then there crept a little noiseless noise | 16:21 | |
| "among the leaves born of the very sigh | 16:24 | |
| "that silence heaves." | 16:29 | |
| Fortunately Elijah didn't live at the end | 16:34 | |
| of the 20th century. | 16:36 | |
| Today, competing voices drown out | 16:39 | |
| the voice of silence. | 16:42 | |
| They are many and their name is Legion, | 16:45 | |
| and like those that possess the Gerasene demoniac, | 16:47 | |
| they plead against annihilation. | 16:50 | |
| They con us into believing that truth | 16:54 | |
| can be found in those things that make | 16:57 | |
| the biggest show and possess the greatest noise. | 16:59 | |
| Last week I discussed this sermon with one | 17:04 | |
| of the ministers in the Wilmington District | 17:06 | |
| and he asked me, | 17:09 | |
| "Have you seen 'The Wizard of Oz' lately?" | 17:11 | |
| Well, it's been a long time. | 17:14 | |
| So I went straight to Blockbuster, | 17:16 | |
| rented the colorized version of the 1939 movie. | 17:18 | |
| To watch the "The Wizard of Oz" during office hours | 17:24 | |
| legitimately | 17:28 | |
| must be akin to Elijah napping and eating cake | 17:30 | |
| in the middle of the day with God's blessing. | 17:34 | |
| What a treat. | 17:37 | |
| As I watched, I got the point. | 17:39 | |
| Dorothy and her companions are fooled by wizardry. | 17:42 | |
| They believe in the smoke and the fire | 17:47 | |
| and the electronic voice. | 17:51 | |
| That voice by the way reminds me a lot | 17:53 | |
| of the voice that you can create here in Duke chapel. | 17:55 | |
| It's powerful. | 17:58 | |
| In fact, their belief in the wizard to bring wholeness | 18:01 | |
| depends on these very apparitions. | 18:04 | |
| And then suddenly everything changes. | 18:08 | |
| Dorothy's little dog Toto goes over | 18:11 | |
| and with his teeth grabs the curtain and opens the curtain | 18:14 | |
| and truth is exposed. | 18:17 | |
| Behind the curtain standing, manipulating the controls | 18:20 | |
| is a powerless little man. | 18:24 | |
| And when he realizes that he has been seen, | 18:27 | |
| he quickly closes the curtain. | 18:29 | |
| And in one vain attempt to maintain | 18:31 | |
| the illusion of power, | 18:35 | |
| he speaks boldly into the microphone. | 18:36 | |
| "Pay no attention to that man | 18:40 | |
| behind the curtain." | 18:42 | |
| Well, today there is not just one voice | 18:45 | |
| telling us to pay no attention | 18:48 | |
| to the powerlessness of the seemingly powerful. | 18:49 | |
| There are a legion of voices. | 18:54 | |
| And what we as Christians know | 18:57 | |
| and what the world so desperately needs to hear | 19:00 | |
| is that there is a still small voice of calm | 19:04 | |
| that has the power to bring wholeness. | 19:08 | |
| And that voice is Jesus. | 19:12 | |
| In Luke's account of the Gerasene demoniac, | 19:17 | |
| there's one part that I've always questioned. | 19:19 | |
| I have never understood why the townspeople | 19:22 | |
| were afraid of Jesus. | 19:25 | |
| I can understand why they might be afraid of demoniac. | 19:27 | |
| Anyone with any sense would run from a raving streaker | 19:32 | |
| who lives in tombs and has the Hulkish ability | 19:36 | |
| to break out of chains. | 19:39 | |
| But what I can't understand is why | 19:41 | |
| the local folk would be upset and nervous | 19:45 | |
| when they saw this same man fully clothed | 19:48 | |
| and in his right mind. | 19:52 | |
| Why would they fear Jesus, the giver of sanity? | 19:55 | |
| I can imagine why they would ask him to leave. | 19:59 | |
| For heaven's sake, he just destroyed somebody's livestock. | 20:03 | |
| But why be afraid? | 20:07 | |
| Interestingly enough in all three synoptic gospels, | 20:10 | |
| right prior to the incident of Jesus calming the Demoniac, | 20:13 | |
| Jesus calms the sea of Galilee. | 20:18 | |
| And oddly enough the disciples are fearful | 20:21 | |
| when they see Jesus' ability to bring calm. | 20:25 | |
| Perhaps not as obvious to you, | 20:29 | |
| but Elijah also demonstrates fear. | 20:31 | |
| He will not look at the silence | 20:34 | |
| but instead he covers his face with his robe. | 20:37 | |
| I sense today a fear in this one | 20:42 | |
| who only wants to bring calm into the midst | 20:44 | |
| of the chaos of our lives. | 20:47 | |
| During annual conference one night, | 20:50 | |
| I stayed up late with a college son of a friend of mine. | 20:51 | |
| He is a professed agnostic | 20:56 | |
| and has many questions about God. | 20:59 | |
| We talked until midnight, two hours I believe, | 21:03 | |
| about everything from creation to infinity. | 21:06 | |
| And finally I said, "I think we all need to get some rest." | 21:11 | |
| His mother had told me that he was having | 21:15 | |
| trouble sleeping at night. | 21:17 | |
| Before we went to our rooms, | 21:19 | |
| I called him by name and I said, | 21:21 | |
| "You need to listen for God to speak to you." | 21:23 | |
| I'll never forget his nervous response. | 21:27 | |
| He said, "Oh, Mrs. Harper, please don't tell me that. | 21:31 | |
| "Not before I go to bed. | 21:34 | |
| "I wont' sleep a wink all night." | 21:36 | |
| why do we fear? | 21:39 | |
| Why do we fear listening to the silence? | 21:40 | |
| That's the question I had to ask my self | 21:44 | |
| after my husband Lee died a year ago. | 21:47 | |
| I hated the calm, I hated the stillness | 21:50 | |
| that his absence created. | 21:54 | |
| And I wondered, why was I so fearful of the quiet? | 21:57 | |
| And then it came to me. | 22:02 | |
| I was afraid that I would listen, | 22:06 | |
| listen intently and hear nothing. | 22:09 | |
| Nothing at all. | 22:13 | |
| The thought occurred to me that I might be like | 22:16 | |
| the Canaanite woman who pleaded with Jesus | 22:18 | |
| on behalf of her demon-possessed daughter | 22:20 | |
| but got no answer from him at all. | 22:23 | |
| What if I really did stop, became quiet, listened | 22:27 | |
| and still heard nothing? | 22:32 | |
| It's safer to stay in the whirlwind | 22:36 | |
| to keep things stirred up. | 22:38 | |
| That way we don't know if the silence is speaking or not. | 22:39 | |
| Our daily routine of squeezing just as much | 22:44 | |
| as we can into 24 hours, | 22:47 | |
| of constantly telling people how busy we are, | 22:49 | |
| of cramming something into every idle moment, | 22:53 | |
| of keeping the noise level high | 22:57 | |
| and the thought level low. | 23:00 | |
| All this confusion | 23:03 | |
| saves us. | 23:07 | |
| It keeps us from | 23:09 | |
| getting into the deeper side of life. | 23:12 | |
| It protects us from finding out | 23:15 | |
| that our lives are nothing but shallowness | 23:19 | |
| and we are scared half to death. | 23:22 | |
| This was my first fear. | 23:26 | |
| What if the silence doesn't speak? | 23:27 | |
| And then came my second fear, | 23:30 | |
| what if it speaks and I miss it? | 23:34 | |
| Or worse yet, what if it speaks | 23:37 | |
| and I don't like what it says? | 23:41 | |
| I don't know what's more terrifying, | 23:45 | |
| a silence that's mute | 23:47 | |
| or a silence that speaks | 23:49 | |
| an unwelcomed message. | 23:51 | |
| Helmut Thielicke in his book "The Silence of God" | 23:55 | |
| claims that behind unanswered prayers | 23:58 | |
| are God's higher thoughts. | 24:01 | |
| What would it take for us to break free of our fear | 24:04 | |
| long enough to listen for God's higher thoughts? | 24:07 | |
| Clearly it would take realizing that God loves us, | 24:11 | |
| that we are cared for unconditionally, | 24:15 | |
| that God wills our good. | 24:17 | |
| One of the most comforting text for me | 24:21 | |
| this long and lonely year comes out of Jeremiah. | 24:24 | |
| "For surely I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, | 24:28 | |
| "plans for your welfare and not for harm, | 24:33 | |
| "to give you a future with hope." | 24:37 | |
| or in the words of the Apostle Paul. | 24:42 | |
| If God is for us, who can be against us? | 24:44 | |
| When we know that God is for us, | 24:48 | |
| we know that the divine calm is not to be feared. | 24:50 | |
| After hearing the low murmuring sound, | 24:55 | |
| Elijah steps out of the cave. | 24:57 | |
| Nevermind the fact that he's supposed to have been | 24:59 | |
| on the mountaintop a long time ago. | 25:02 | |
| Nevermind the fact that he didn't so much | 25:04 | |
| as stick his head out when the Lord passed by. | 25:06 | |
| The Lord meets him anyway. | 25:10 | |
| Isn't it wonderful | 25:13 | |
| how God is willing to speak to us | 25:14 | |
| even in our disobedience? | 25:17 | |
| In response to the summons, Elijah steps out | 25:21 | |
| to the entrance of the cave and his honest to God dialog. | 25:23 | |
| And sure enough God said some things | 25:27 | |
| that I know Elijah doesn't appreciate. | 25:29 | |
| For example, | 25:33 | |
| "Elijah what are you doing here?" | 25:36 | |
| After listening to Elijah whine | 25:39 | |
| a little while about his lousy life, | 25:41 | |
| the silence speaks again, | 25:43 | |
| this time with an even harder message. | 25:46 | |
| Elijah, go back. | 25:49 | |
| What? | 25:52 | |
| Go back to the administrative minutia? | 25:54 | |
| Go back to the relentless ringing of the telephone? | 25:59 | |
| Go back to the squeaky wheels that constantly demand grease? | 26:04 | |
| Do I have to? | 26:09 | |
| Yes. | 26:11 | |
| But in the midst of it all from time to time, | 26:12 | |
| be still and know that I am God. | 26:15 | |
| And when you feel tempted to feel | 26:19 | |
| every waking moment with meaningless activity, | 26:22 | |
| repeat these words to yourself a few times. | 26:27 | |
| Don't just do something. | 26:33 | |
| Stand there. | 26:36 | |
| Clearly we all need a divine sanction | 26:39 | |
| that tells us we don't have to constantly | 26:41 | |
| be doing something that we can stand still | 26:43 | |
| for a few minutes and think and feel. | 26:46 | |
| A little inner control over the chaos of our lives | 26:49 | |
| would not hurt any of us. | 26:52 | |
| In fact, it might pull back the curtain | 26:54 | |
| on the demonic powers and principalities | 26:57 | |
| that invade our everyday lives. | 27:00 | |
| It was Tuesday mid afternoon, | 27:05 | |
| the second day of annual conference. | 27:07 | |
| The middle of the pension report. | 27:10 | |
| Only one delegate elected to general conference | 27:13 | |
| and many, many more ballots yet to be cast. | 27:16 | |
| My election seemed less likely | 27:21 | |
| with the casting of each new ballot. | 27:22 | |
| To keep from losing myself in disappointment, | 27:26 | |
| I picked up a book and began to read. | 27:29 | |
| For one brief moment, | 27:33 | |
| God translated me out of that | 27:36 | |
| situation and into a realm of peace. | 27:39 | |
| I read as Dag Hammarskjold described his life | 27:43 | |
| at age 51. | 27:46 | |
| I thought to myself, "I'm almost there." | 27:49 | |
| He wrote about meaningless honors. | 27:54 | |
| He defined himself as trapped into the straight jacket | 27:58 | |
| of the immediate. | 28:02 | |
| And this is the vision for which he longed, | 28:06 | |
| to step out of all of this | 28:09 | |
| and stand naked on the precipice of dawn. | 28:11 | |
| Acceptable, invulnerable, | 28:16 | |
| free, | 28:19 | |
| in the light, with the light, of the light. | 28:21 | |
| Whole. | 28:26 | |
| What a vision. | 28:28 | |
| And isn't this what the silence says? | 28:31 | |
| Step out of all of this | 28:34 | |
| and stand naked on the precipice of dawn. | 28:36 | |
| Yes, go back. | 28:41 | |
| Face the frenzied pace. | 28:43 | |
| Only now be aware of the things | 28:46 | |
| with bells and whistles that demand | 28:49 | |
| to be possessed and yet | 28:52 | |
| invariably calm to possess. | 28:55 | |
| Be aware that true caring can only be demonstrated | 28:59 | |
| through honest attentiveness | 29:02 | |
| and be constantly aware of how critical it is | 29:06 | |
| to stop at regular intervals and commune | 29:10 | |
| with the divine calm. | 29:14 | |
| Mr. English professor, | 29:19 | |
| if you would just listen, | 29:23 | |
| the silence speaks. | 29:26 |