Luke 4: 31-39, 40-44; Luke 5: 1-3, 12-16
Introduction
Many of us watched NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) recent Artemis II mission. Four brave astronauts blasted into space on a rocket. They spent the next 10 days orbiting Earth, and taking a voyage out beyond the moon, further than any other human has ever been. While they traveled they were kept busy conducting experiments, testing equipment and human capacity for space travel, all in preparation for long-term human exploration of the Moon and future Mars missions. They gave live updates and interviews from space! They answered questions from school kids about life in a space capsule, and what they were seeing outside the windows.
And then they hurtled back to earth. Many of us watched their reentry live, collectively holding our breath while that plasma burn tested their heat shields to the limit. We waited anxiously to see the various parachutes deploy to slow the capsules’ descent until they finally splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
However you feel about space travel, and its risks and costs, it was amazing to witness this. I am sure it represents for NASA a major success in terms of engaging public interest and support. I think the most compelling part of the story for me was the 40 minutes or so the astronauts spent, travelling around the dark side of the Moon, when they were out of contact with Earth. The live feed fell silent. They were in the utter silence of space–very much in the wilderness.
During that time it sounds like they did pause and appreciate where they were, to take in those incredible views of an earth rise, an eclipse of the sun, those deep craters and cliffs on the face of the moon. To ponder their place in the vast universe. Even as highly disciplined and trained scientists, focused on objective observations and data collection, they all took time to reflect on the more abstract, even spiritual dimensions of their experiences. Their reflections have been eloquent, poetic even, about Earth, humanity and the meaning of life, about the value of international cooperation and friendship. In the midst of the intensity and the demands of the mission they took time to open themselves to awe and wonder and the mystery of that space wilderness. Those 40 minutes, especially, gave them some silence, solitude and stillness in an otherwise intense and crowded mission where they described every action as a four person negotiation given their close quarters in the space capsule.
Man on a Mission: Luke 4-6
The stories we chose from the gospel of Luke are meant to capture the intensity of Jesus’ mission, and the demands on his time–the crush of human need that surrounded him, the desperation of people begging for healing.
There are several striking images here:
- Jesus drives a demon out of a man during the Sabbath gathering in the synagogue
- Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law, and her just getting right up to start preparing a meal
- As the sun goes down in the village, people bring sick family members to Jesus and he heals every one he touches
- Crowds pressing in on Jesus to hear him speak, so that he gets into an empty boat on the water’s edge, pushes out into the water, far enough that the folks on shore can still hear him teach
- Jesus reaches out and touches a man with leprosy and heals him
- News about Jesus spreads like wildfire
- Vast crowds follow him
How did he manage the expectations? It was nearly impossible for Jesus to get away, beyond the reach of human demands and needs. He was surrounded by the noise of expectations and by the needs of hurting people. When did Jesus get his 40 minutes of silence, solitude and stillness?
Silence, Stillness, Solitude
In Luke’s gospel we read, [As] reports of his power spread…vast crowds came to hear him preach and to be healed of their diseases. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer (Luke 5:15-16). I think this is the most important part of this Scripture. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. Sometimes early in the morning. Sometimes late at night. I would suggest that Jesus needed this solitude as much as he needed the air he breathed and the water he drank. It was a chance to release the pressure from all the demands on him, to rest, to pray. Here God’s Spirit nourished and replenished Jesus’ Spirit so that he could return to the needs of the crowds. So that he could maintain his heart of compassion, his patience, his kindness. He recentered his mission, renewed his commitment to be a peacemaker, restored his energy, his courage, and his hope.
I imagine that getting out into the natural world nourished his spirit. Karina’s peace dove from last week (behind me on the wall here) makes me think of the healing properties of the land, the water, the creatures and the plants. I think these natural elements and creatures nourished Jesus’ Spirit–he spoke of them often in his teachings and parables–birds, and flowers, trees, fields, seeds, water. Many of us too know the healing properties of Creation, and how important it can be to have time in parks, gardens, campgrounds, near water, in the wilderness, on trails, and even in our backyards and balconies.
And, I suspect there was also more to Jesus’ time of solitude, silence and stillness. I wonder if he also struggled in those times, wrestled with God, with his calling, with himself, with his identity. Like he wrestled with temptation in the wilderness for 40 days at the beginning of his ministry, and in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, I imagine he wrestled with those same temptations and fears and doubts throughout his ministry. What kind of leader would he be? How would he use his power and influence? What tools would he reach for: swords and clubs, violence and coercion, or hospitality, hope, seeds and stories? Did he feel overwhelmed by the need, and utterly inadequate to help everyone? Sometimes, I imagine he simply collapsed in exhaustion.
And knowing his compassionate heart, I imagine he also wept for the suffering he witnessed. He must have ground his teeth in frustration, maybe even raged at God for the injustice faced by his people. How long, O Lord!? How long will you hide your face from your people? (see Psalm 13:1-2). And he must have quaked with fear at the growing opposition to his teachings and his actions, and the spectre of Roman crosses as instruments of torture and death for those who threatened the Empire.
When his personal resources were depleted, his energy drained, his spiritual strength wavering, he withdrew to the wilderness to pray. He reached out for God to sustain him. To renew him. He remembered the story of his people and how God had heard their cries in the past, and acted on their behalf. He cried out to God to fill him once again with hope and courage. He found grounding in the love of God. He re-centered himself in the assurance that God would never forsake him or anyone else. He was sustained in hope that God would be faithful.
The Noise That Gets in the Way
It isn’t always easy to get away for solitude and silence. It is hard to find the time, and the space in our days. We push ourselves to keep going. We can think that so much depends on us, we can’t take any time away. We thrive on being busy, active, and doing. At least it feels like we are accomplishing something. We are making a difference. Isn’t that how we prove we are good people? Isn’t that how we earn God’s favour–by doing good works? So we work harder, we project optimism. We keep up a sunny disposition and a positive outlook. It is hard to admit when we are depleted. We think we can keep going just a little longer. It is hard to accept our limits and admit what we can’t do.
And it is also hard for many of us to be alone with ourselves. For when our surroundings quiet down, the noises in our own heads start up. When we slow down, and stop rushing around we are faced with the shadows that we avoid when we are busy. We realize that all the things we had kept at bay when we were busy, really have not been dealt with at all–just shelved, avoided, denied. Being alone with our thoughts can be unsettling. Facing our own demons can be troubling. Things that we thought we had dealt with, or hidden away can arise again–grief, anger, fear, pain, doubt, feelings of inadequacy. They leak out and haunt us.
In our meeting this evening, with Dana Cressman, who runs a counselling practice out of one of the rooms in our basement wing, we will explore some of these emotions and our attachments–and how those play out in our relationships, and our life and faith journeys. How they can get in the way, and disrupt and hamper our efforts.
There is benefit to building times of silence, stillness and solitude into our lives, and we need to be gentle with ourselves. Stopping our busyness can help us to realize we can’t do it all ourselves, and it doesn’t all depend on us. The principles of the Sabbath are about letting go of our work and our identity with our work. Our ego’s need to be wanted and needed. Stopping our activity for a time can help us step outside of the doing, making, accomplishing, striving, working model that says our worth depends on what we do or make. Our worth instead, comes from being created in the very image and likeness of God.
Grounding and Centering our Peacemaking
Now this might seem, at first glance, to be countering everything we said last week in our Peace Sunday service and activities for the day. Last week we emphasized how we can’t stay silent and we need to stand up, speak up and act for peace. To remember is to work for peace, so now what do we do? Everything that happened last Sunday was profound and important and true. I am not disagreeing with any of it.
And I think it is also important to name that our activism needs a foundation. Our “speaking out” needs thoughtful, reflective wisdom behind it. Our plans and activities need to be centered in the peace teachings of Jesus, whom we follow. Our “doing” needs to be grounded in “being” beloved children of God who recognize the belovedness of all the other children of God.
And I think we have done that. We are doing that. I think we have been responding to the nudging of the Spirit. Our Anabaptism at 500 Renewal worship series last winter, invited the Spirit’s energy and creativity into our reflections on what it means to be Anabaptist/Mennonite in the 21st century. This painting beside me, that Kandace created during that worship series, reminds us of the seed of peace the Spirit is calling out in us. It started first as a dry, brown husk. But each week it changed–it sprouted roots, and then tiny green shoots, and now is full of green growth and life. The Spirit has called us, and we are responding. We are responding to the nudge to be a peace church in our time.
So don’t mistake my call for solitude, silence and stillness as a call to passivity, and quietism. Not at all. Peacemaking is a lifelong, active journey, and it needs pauses, much like a vehicle needs maintenance. It needs fuel, much like our bodies need food and water to sustain our activities.
I remember a story one of my professors at Conrad Grebel University College told, about being a young, enthusiastic Mennonite activist for peace in the ‘80s in Central America. A number of young Mennonites headed to that area of the world to work for peace, to make a difference, to bring about change that was so desperately needed. But they soon found themselves facing realities that they were poorly equipped to address. The grinding poverty. Indiscriminate violence. The complicity of foreign governments. It was depressing and discouraging. Systems of injustice have a way of wearing down idealism and enthusiasm. What helped them cope with what they were facing was a group of nuns working in the same area, whose discipline of daily prayer helped to keep them grounded and centered. Gave them hope and anchored their work in the gospel of love and mercy and justice, as lived and taught by Jesus. The Mennonite peace activists, it seemed, had much to learn from the contemplative framework of the nuns’ work for justice.
Two Kinds of Silence
When I invite us to imitate Jesus, and withdraw to the wilderness for prayer, for silence and stillness, I think it is important to understand what kind of silence we are talking about. Diana Butler Bass in an essay called “Practicing Silence” writes about the“two kinds of silence involved in the work of justice and the common good” ( Diana Butler Bass, A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom and Perseverance, p. 271). The first is the silence of “neutrality, ignorance or fear” (p. 271). When we hesitate to speak up, when we claim we are being neutral, when we look the other way. It can look like quietism. It can emerge from indifference, or from fear. In this kind of silence we end up giving consent or being complicit, simply because we have not spoken up about things that matter. She says these kinds of silence are “wrong, sinful, [and] evil” because they “fuel injustice” (p. 274).
Martin Luther King Jr said, “the ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people…In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends” (p. 271-272).
But we are “living in a time with multiple, demanding crises–climate change, economic inequality, the structural injustice of hierarchies of race and gender, and the challenges of technological society and globalization” (p. 273). We might think we need to compete with the loudest voices. We live in a time of “breathless, constant outrage on social media and in the news” (p. 271). It doesn’t help matters if we share “viral tweets, jumping on the cause of the day, or public shaming of those who resist the latest bandwagon” (p. 273). She writes, “How do we know what matters if we are yelling all the time? If we live in perpetual outrage?” (p. 273).
So there is another kind of silence. The other kind of silence is that of “inner work, healing and insight, and making room for new awareness and activism” (p. 273). We enter into this kind of silence “to gain perspective, deepen understanding, and discover what matters.” This kind of silence is a “matter of discernment, research, creativity, empathy, and innovation” (p. 273). This kind of silence is “the most holy of things possible” because it can stand as “truth in the face of injustice.”
This is the silence Jesus sought when he withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. This kind of silence invites us to do the important inner work of getting away, quieting the shouting and the noises and the outrage. This is the silence that gives us space and time to explore our motivations. To observe the demons and ego attachments we struggle with, to notice our need for control, for accolades. Perhaps, in this kind of silence we can be still long enough for God to show us our shadows-those parts of ourselves we don’t want to acknowledge, and don’t want to admit how they fuel our anger and our outrage. This kind of silence invites us to step back and gain perspective.
In this silence, we can seek our centre in God. We can learn from God, and from the life of Jesus, our identity, purpose, and mission. In this silence we can seek comfort in the presence of God for the pain and suffering we witness and experience. And learn to transform our pain toward compassionate, softened hearts, rather than toward bitterness, resentment and rage. We can seek wisdom and insight and inspiration from the story of God and God’s patience with people.
Diana Butler Bass writes, “These difficult times demand insistent, passionate, and clear voices” (p. 273). Our speaking and activating for peace does matter. Elie Wiesel writes, “we must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” (p. 274). Dr. King also says, “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” (p. 273).
If we honour this second kind of silence, then our voices will be stronger, wiser, clearer and more powerful when we do speak. If we take time for this kind of silence, we can be more focused, direct, disciplined and clear about what is our work to do, and what is not. Where our gifts can be put to good use, and what to leave to the gifts of others. We can put our energy to good use, instead of using it to stress and fret and try to multitask and do too many things all at once, as if the world depended on our work alone.
Nurturing Our Peace
So as we continue the Peace in our Time worship series, let’s consider how we are feeding and nurturing our whole selves: head, heart, body–our whole Spirit. There is something here of putting on your own oxygen mask before assisting others, as we are instructed during flight safety demonstrations on a plane. We need nourished and nurtured peacemakers. Whether that happens through music, shared meals, community projects, spending time in the natural world. Take time for silence. As one wise person said, we need both legs to walk–the leg of activism, with its enthusiasm, energy and drive. And we need the leg of spirituality– for centering, grounding, inspiring and encouraging.
I see this community of faith as an important part of that centering and grounding work. Where we do some of our inner work. Where we seek God’s mercy, compassion and guidance. So that we can share what we have received beyond ourselves.
Let me close with this prayer of blessing from Ephesians: I ask that God will strengthen you in your inner selves from the riches of God’s glory through the Spirit. I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God…who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us. AMEN (Ephesians 3:16-20, Anabaptist Community Bible).