"The Sound of Silence"

When is the last time you experienced silence? I mean real, prolonged silence, not just a moment’s pause in a conversation.

Can you remember? For many of us it might be difficult to think of such a time.

Like many people, I go through occasional bouts of insomnia. I toss and turn, unable to sleep, until finally about 2 or 3 a.m. I give up and go downstairs to read.

At first I am struck by the silence.

But as I settle in, I realize that even at that hour of the night, the house is quiet and still, but not really silent.

There is the steady whirring of the ceiling fans, the hum of the refrigerator, the sporadic thunk as the icemaker drops its load into the freezer. The heater or air conditioner chugs on and off.

The faint noise of a car passing by drifts in. The cat appears to see if maybe I will give him a midnight snack, his claws clicking softly on the tile and hardwood floors.

If I am very still, I can feel, and sometimes even hear, the comforting presence of those I love most asleep in the rooms above me.

Although I know I will pay for it in tiredness when the alarm goes off in just a few hours, I do not usually begrudge these sleepless nights. There is something refreshing and restorative about being awake in the peace and quiet of those hours.

Peace and quiet are rare commodities in our lives. We live in a loud age, in a world where the volume always seems to be turned up, a world that bombards us with noise from every angle.

There is the noise of traffic, of engines revving and horns blowing and brakes squealing. Of car stereos that sometimes blare so loudly the very vibrations of the music can be felt in the houses and cars they pass.

There is the noise of TVs and IPods and cell phones. Even those who don’t use these modern technologies are still affected by the noise of others who do, forced to hear conversations we are not a part of, to listen to music we have not chosen.

Of course, we learn to block out much of the noise and sounds around us. We may even learn to function well within them. I remember when I was an editor on the city desk of the newspaper in Nashville.

The physical “city desk” was actually four desks pushed together in a square, around which sat three editors. On the desks were four computers and eight telephones, which rang constantly.

Above my head was the two-way radio, with which we communicated with reporters in the field in those days before cell phones. Behind my back was the police scanner, which broadcast nonstop 24 hours a day.

On the opposite wall were three TVs, tuned to news channels, the sound muted unless something big was happening. In the rest of the large, open room were 40 reporters at their desk, each with computer and telephone.

As deadline approached, the noise grew steadily louder, people shouting back and forth across the room, telephones ringing, keyboards clacking.

One day in the middle of deadline, a friend made her first visit to the newsroom. She stood by my desk with an appalled look on her face. “How in the world can you think with all this noise?” she asked in horror.

I was so accustomed to the sounds that I honestly did not know what she was talking about.

Even though we may learn to function in the midst of endless noise, the steady decibels that surround us take their toll.

The loudness of the age in which we live is also reflected in the way in which we speak and interact with one another, as individuals and as a nation.

When is the last time you heard a thoughtful discussion about an important issue?

What passes for commentary on television these days is people with opposing views shouting at each other, no one listening, no one conceding, no one trying to explain a nuance or ambiguous point.

That spills over into other parts of life as well. Our leaders and politicians act the same way, loudly asserting themselves, rarely acknowledging the complexity of an issue or that those with opposing views might have a legitimate claim or voice.

When the world is either black or white, good or evil; when you are either for us, meaning totally uncritical of all things, or against us; when there are no shades of gray, no acknowledgement of ambiguity, then loudness has taken over.

There is no room for listening, for waiting, for discernment or thoughtful reflection. There is no room for silence.

And yet, as we see in today’s reading from the Book of Kings, silence may be exactly what we need.

Up until this point, the story of Elijah has been a loud one. He has courageously confronted the corrupt King Ahab and his evil wife, Jezebel. While fleeing from their wrath he has raised a dead boy to life.

Elijah has engaged in a contest against 450 prophets of the false god Baal, calling on the God of Israel to help him, which God does in a spectacular way.

Elijah then single-handedly kills all 450 of those prophets.

There has been nothing subtle about Elijah. His words and deeds have been loud, and he has been guided by God all along the way.

Now Ahab and Jezebel are threatening once again to kill him, and Elijah is suddenly tired, depressed, and afraid. Suddenly God seems absent, or at best remote and far away.

Elijah is tired of being a prophet, perhaps sick of all the noise, and he wants nothing more than to lay down and die.

But God is not having it. Instead, Elijah is instructed to make a 40-day journey to Mt. Horeb, the same mountain where God was revealed to Moses, and to wait for God to pass by there.

As Elijah huddles inside a cave on the mountain, waiting for God, there is a great wind, so strong it breaks rocks, a tremendous display of power. But God is not in the wind.

There there is a strong earthquake that shakes the very cave Elijah is cowering in. But God is not in the earthquake.

Then there is a brilliant fire. But God is not in the flames.

And then there is nothing – just the sound of sheer silence, a silence so startling after all the noise that Elijah goes to the entrance of the cave to see what is happening.

And there, out of the silence, is God.

God listens to Elijah’s complaints. “I am alone and they are seeking my life,” he says.

Then without further comment, God tells Elijah to continue in the word God has given him to do. No divine words of reassurance or encouragement, but in the silence Elijah has encountered God, and that is all he needs to continue.

A modern-day prophet, Martin Luther King Jr., writes of a similar experience in the days of the Montgomery bus boycott, when the 24-year-old King was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight.

Like Elijah, King confronted those in power, and also like the Biblical prophet, he soon began receiving threats against his life.

After a particularly taxing day, the telephone awoke King in the middle of the night. An angry voice threatened to kill him and his family.

Like Elijah, King suddenly had reached the saturation point. “I got out of bed and began to pace the floor,” he writes. “I was ready to give up. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory.

“’I am here taking a stand for what is right,’” King told God. “’But now I am afraid…I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I have come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’”

And in that dark and silent house, King suddenly felt the presence of the Divine. “It seemed as if I could hear a quiet voice saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth.’

“Almost at once my fears began to pass from me,” King writes. “The outer situation remained the same, but God had given me an inner calm.”

There are times when God does speak in the earthquake, wind and fire, in the blaring music, or sound bite, or overheard bits of conversation.

But there are other times when God is like the teacher who, walking into a loud and unruly classroom, does not shout for attention, but lowers her voice, talking more and more softly, forcing the students to become quiet to hear her.

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Readings

1 Kings 19:1-15a

Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Luke 8:26-39

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As Jesus stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”–for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

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