A Time for Silence

 

Luke 9:28-36

Epiphany Last / Year C

Janet Hunt, a Lutheran pastor, writes about a time she officiated at the funeral of military veteran.  After she completed the graveside committal, the Honor Guard took over.  Surely you have seen what they do.  Taps.  The salute of guns.  And the solemn, dignified folding of the flag and its moving presentation to a family member.  I think back to last November as we stood in the Church Yard at the Columbarium and the Honor Guard preformed this service for Tom Pruden.  All eyes were on them.  No one spoke a word while the soldiers methodically went about their well-rehearsed task.  So meticulous and serious were they about this duty, before the service began they asked me to show them the flag.  Already folded, the work of whoever prepared it did not meet their high standards.  Alone, in the yard, the two soldiers responsible for preparation went through the process of unfolding and refolding the flag as is the President himself was present.  Every time I have witnessed the Honor Guard’s ritual, it has been a transcendent moment, but this one even more than the others.

Many times over the course of her ministry Pastor Hunt also has experienced this scared devotion to our country and to those who have served her.  “It always gives me pause,” she writes, “to bear witness to the formality of this ritual and to consider the symbolism playing out before my eyes.”  There was one exception for her, however… the time the funeral home director came to her side and offered “a rote and practiced explanation of what we were experiencing.”  “I wanted to kick him,” she writes.  “There are times for words and times for silence and this seemed to me to be a time for silence.”

Plato taught “The wise speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”  Abraham Lincoln famously observed it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

A time for silence.  Have you ever been watching a championship game on TV and noticed how when time expires or the last out is made the announcers go silent?  The elation of the winning team (and their fans) and the despair of the losing team is simply a moment too big for words.  The broadcasters allow the images to tell the story – typically for a good 30 seconds or more.  Talking over a moment like this only diminishes it.  It attempts to contain in the temporal something which belongs to the ages.

In today’s gospel reading Peter finds himself in a moment when silence is the preferred response.  The description of the Transfiguration defies explanation.  Jesus’ entire countenance changes as, for a brief moment in time and space, his humanity is eclipsed by his divinity.  He radiates light unlike anything Peter, James, and John have ever seen.  And there is more.  Moses (the giver or the Law) and Elijah (the founder of the prophetic movement) – the two most important figures in the Old Testament – are present and talking with Jesus. 

This truly is a moment when the old adage holds true – silence is golden.  This is a moment to be experienced, not narrated.  Peter gets rebuked, I think, not so much for what he says (and what he says completely misses the mark), but because he says anything at all.  I sat for a while and pondered what Peter could have said that would have been appropriate for the moment, but I couldn’t think of anything.  All I came up with is if this took place in our day and time, Peter probably would have said, “Let’s take a selfie!” 

The English Poet Thomas Carlyle wrote…

“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together… Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.”

Mother Teresa held God is the friend of silence and cannot be found in restlessness and noise.  She noted how in nature trees, flowers, and grass grow in silence; how the stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence.  It was her experience silence is absolutely necessary for the soul to be touched in a consistent way by God.

Before I was ordained a deacon and then before I was ordained a priest, I made silent retreats with the Cowley Fathers in Boston.  Other than the liturgy of the daily offices and a few brief mediations offered by one of the brothers, not a word was spoken for five days.  The opening meditation laid out what we might expect to happen.  At first, we were told, you will realize how tired you are.  For the first day and half I napped in the morning, napped in the afternoon, and went to bed in the evening much earlier than normal.  It is testimony to how we run ourselves ragged much of the time.

Next, we were told, the silence would allow us to hear our own inner voice.  For the remainder of the retreat I experienced a rich internal dialogue.  I learned I have a voice I cannot hear when my world is filled with noise and sound – music, TV, talk radio.  I learned you have to take time to stop listening to everything else if you want to be able to hear how you yourself actually engage the world and feel about it. 

The final part of the retreat never came to me.  This is when you learn to silence your inner voice in order to listen for God to speak.  I have had a few times since then when I was silent enough and open enough to hear a Voice from beyond.  There are many people who practice what is called “centering prayer” who hear God speak on a regular basis and, if you are interested in something like this, I can help you get in touch with folks who teach how to do it.

We are entering the season of Lent with Holy Week to follow.  Our Holy Week services, like the ritual of the Honor Guard, offer experiences of profound silence.  The Tenebrae service on Wednesday of Holy Week is a deeply moving liturgy with psalm readings and the extinguishing of candles.  When it is all over and a single candle lights this space and the power of the silence is palpable.  The same holds true with the Stripping of the Altar on Maundy Thursday.  It is akin to the Good Friday liturgy when the simple act of standing by the Cross in silence – as Jesus’ mother, John, and the other women did – changes us.  The Stations of the Cross on Good Friday evening also ends in silence.   No words are necessary.  No words would be adequate. 

Only on the third day will we be ready to speak of what we have experienced and our words will be these:

Alleluia!  Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

Maybe a part of your Lenten discipline can be a commitment to inviting more silence into your life, saying less and listening more, and becoming comfortable in the moment without have to comment on it.