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Teach us to Pray  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Scripture Readings

Holy Crap, I have to come up with a WWTW

Introduction: Silence

Start with a minute or two of silence.

Sitting under the mountain

Last year I went on a retreat to Boulder Colorado.
It was this fantastic camp, right beneath the base of this huge mountain.
And it was a three day retreat…in total silence.
I didn’t speak to anyone.
No one spoke to me.
I ate my meals in silence.
I went for a few walks on trails around the camp in silence.
I lived a full three days in total silence.
So many folks asked me how I did it, or was it scary.
And it was scary at first, but man did I find myself loving it more than I thought I would.
It turns out that there’s a deep meaning to silent prayer.
And it’s worth us exploring a bit today.

Flash Versus Substance- Elijah and Kings

Pre-Context: Elijah was showing off.

Elijah is fresh off a prophet battle between himself, representing God, and the prophets of Baal.
They have this contest to see who’s God can rain down fire from the heavens.
And Elijah shows off a bit, he douses the wood for his fire in water.
And God shows up, torches the altar, and Elijah wins.
But as often happens when someone shows off in victory, he’s got some sore losers on his hands.

Now he’s on the run.

Particularly the Queen is out to get him, so he takes of in fear for his life.
And he’s hiding in a cave.

The places where God is not

Rock breaking wind

Wind can be incredibly destructive!
Whether it’s tornados or hurricanes or just a real bad storm,
Wind has the ability to do what the scriptures say, to break rocks and disrupt landmarks and lay waste to our modern infrastructure.
Wind can really mess things up, and make a big show.
If you think about God, this is the kind of thing you think about.
Big, powerful, flashy.
But God’s not there.

Earthquakes

Earthquakes too are pretty destructive.
I remember a few years ago when there was that quake that hit in DC and wrecked the Washington Monument.
I could actually feel that in my office here in Pittsburgh.
The room went up, then came back down a little bit.
And it was freaky, and scary, and kind of unsettling.
And that was the barest glimpse of an earthquake that was 250 miles away!
Those who live in places where quakes are a part of life will tell you that they are big and flashy and extravagant.
But God’s not there either.

Fire

Sensing a theme here?
Fires are massive, and can make their influence known for miles and miles.
Just last summer we were having issues here in Pittsburgh with smoke, from fires that were hundreds of miles away in Canada.
Fires can completely change the landscape, destroying everything in their path.
And yet God’s not in the fire.

Interesting to note: All of them are destructive.

None of those destructive things are where God is.
For all the images we have of God with lightning bolts and fury and wrath and destruction…
God, at least in this story, isn’t in any of those things.
Where does Elijah find God?

The Thin Whisper

Translation is an art.

Daq dehmamah-
Daq- Thin, scarce, fine, small
Dehmamah- Whispered voice.
There is something in the silence.
One of my favorite shows, as we know is the West Wing.
In one episode, the speech writers are trying to figure out what the difference is between flash and substance.
It’s one thing to write a flashy speech, anyone can do that.
But what about a speech that can change you? That can inspire you? That has substance to it?
Those are hard to come by.
Too often when it comes to God, I think we’re interested in the flash.
We want to find God in the wind and the earthquakes and the fires of life.
When God is making it quite clear that God’s substance, when God really wants to talk, its through these thin whispers.
The silence is holding something, if we can still ourselves enough to listen for it.
What’s the silence holding for you?
In this case…it’s a question.
Elijah…what are you doing here?
It turns out that Jesus makes a habit of getting away and praying in silence, to see what he might find there whispered in the silence.

Wanna Get Away- Jesus in Mark

Apologies to those who are in the Wednesday Bible Study, as we’ve been over this already.
But that’s also an advertisement for you who haven’t been there yet! Come along!
But sign up for dinner!

Jesus has pulled an all-nighter healing.

He’s been up all night at Peter’s mother in law’s house healing all the people of the village.
And I don’t know what an all night healing session is like, but if it’s anything like an all nighter to finish your term paper in college…
You’re beat!

So he sneaks away.

Jesus sneaks out of the house in the middle of the night, and he finds some dark, deserted place.
Away from the people.
Away from the noise.
Away from the distractions.
Away from the work.
Into the silence.
And he prays.
This is kind of like hitting the reset button I think for Jesus.
He’s spent all night giving to everyone who needed something
You can only do that for so long before you find yourself needing to refuel.
Perhaps a relevant word for our hustle culture world.
But just like our hustle culture world, Jesus can’t stay away too long.

Hide and seek with the disciples

The disciples come to Jesus and they say “There’s more people in line waiting to be healed.”
Break’s over Jesus! Time to get back to work!
But Jesus comes back at them with an answer that I think can only be arrived at after a long session in silent prayer.

We have to keep going.

Jesus says that there are other people who need to hear the gospel.
There are other people who need to be healed.
There are other places on our travel itinerary.
There’s a bigger mission at play here.
And this is tough, because to say yes to those things, Jesus has to say no to going back to the house to heal other people.
All of which begs the question:

What’s in the silence?

Elijah gets a question

There’s a story of a traveling preacher who is walking through the woods.
He stumbles upon a castle, and the guard on top of the castle wall shouts down at him.
“Who are you, and what are you doing?”
The preacher stops and thinks for a second and says “Guard, how much do they pay you to guard this castle?”
The guard says “$100 a week!”
The preacher says “I’ll pay you $200 a week to leave your post, follow me, and ask me those same two questions every day.”
Who are you, and what are you doing?
Sometimes when we sit with the silence, we get access to the right question.
All too often in our Christian faith we’re interested in the answers.
How much of your Bible do you know?
Have you boned up on your trivia?
Do you have your facts and figures together?
But if we don’t have the right question to start our journey, even the best answers might take us to the wrong places.
Sometimes we sit with the silence so that we can get the right questions.

Jesus gets a mission

Jesus gets some clarity on where he and this rag tag team of disciples should go next.
Jesus gets an understanding both of what he needs to say yes to, and by extension, what he has to say no to.
Those are hard nos.
They’re the kind of nos that you can only come to if you have a deep and pervasive sense of the mission God has given to you.

What does God want to speak to you?

Too much our prayer practices are about what we want to say to God.

So often when we’re talking about prayer, folks are looking for the right words to say.
Should I ask God for what I want, or is that selfish?
How much of the prayer should be on gratitude?
How do I write good prayers?
What kind of language should I use for God?
And to be fair, some times those are good thoughts!
Sometimes we need something to guide our prayers.
Lord Jesus Christ//Son of God//Have Mercy on Me//A Sinner
But…what we’re looking at today is rather different.

To engage with prayer in silence is to allow God to speak.

To engage with silent prayer is to empty our minds, our thoughts, our words.
It’s to let the flash go, and open ourselves up to God’s substance.
It’s to let God speak to us.
It’s to open ourselves up to the questions God might be wanting us to ask ourselves.
Who are you?
What are you doing here?
What is next for you?
Where are you taking this project, or mission?
It’s to open ourselves up to the potential answers that God might give, the mission that God might be placing on our hearts.
Maybe in the silence we hear that there is someone we need to reach out to help.
Maybe in the silence we hear that there is someone who needs to hear the gospel message.
Maybe in the silence we hear that there is someone who needs to be given forgiveness.
Maybe in the silence we hear what God is calling us to in this next season as a church.
But unfortunately, there’s something standing in our way.
As we may have noticed in the beginning of this sermon…silence is hard!
It’s awkward.
It’s weird.
It’s vulnerable.
It’s uncomfortable.
So how can we practice silence.

How do we practice?

Start very very small.

I have been engaged with a practice of silence for a long time.
And at the moment, I think I can max out at a grand total of 5 minutes before my mind starts to wander.
And that took me a long time to ramp up to!
So start very very small.
Maybe at the end of your devotional time this week, leave a few moments of silence.
30 seconds, a minute.
And just try to listen to what God is saying in that thin whisper.
You can work your way up to longer stretches of silence.
Maybe some day you’d even think about a three day retreat in the mountains!
But for now, just a dab will do!
Take a few moments of silence every day, to try to hear what God’s saying in the whisper.

Don’t bring anything with you.

The story goes of a man who was seeing a therapist about some anxiety.
The therapist said that the man should spend some time in silence and solitude, to help try to calm down.
At the next appointment, the man said that it hadn’t worked, that he was still carrying his anxiety.
The therapist asked the man to explain his solitude.
The man said that he would sit down, and put on a record of Mozart sonatas, and he tried to read a book by Hemingway, and occasionally he’d read the newspaper…
The therapist cut him off and said “I asked you to spend some time with yourself, not with Mozart or Hemingway or the news man!”
To best do silence, we need to not take anything with us.
This is hard!
A nature sounds recorder, someone who records those CDs that they play in waiting rooms and for us to fall asleep to, told this story:
In 1968, he could record 15 hours to get one usable hour of sound.
Sound without airplanes flying over head or cars passing by, or whatever.
Today, it’s over 2000 hours to get one hour of usable sound.
To get to silence, we have to work extra hard, and extra intentional, to make sure that we don’t take anything at all with us.

Including an expectation.

I don’t know that Elijah was expecting a question from God in the silence.
Especially when you come to find out that God had actually already asked Elijah that question a few verses earlier.
And I don’t know that Jesus would have gone in to his time of prayer expecting to receive a mission from God.
To go in to a season of silent prayer, we need to not take anything with us.
No music.
No radio.
No background noise.
And especially, no expectations.
Just us, and God.

Be ready to find what you’re looking for…and maybe more!

Every now and again I do our family grocery shopping at Trader Joes.
I love Trader Joes!
The cashiers have a couple of lines that I think management gives them in training to help connect with the customers.
Usually when I get to the line, they’ll hit me with the question “Did you find everything you were looking for?”
And to be sure, Sarah makes sure I go in to Trader Joes with a list of what we need for the week.
But also to be sure, there are some unsanctioned cookies and treats in my cart as well, things that weren’t on my list.
And so I usually respond to the “Did you find everything you were looking for” with “Yes, and a few things I wasn’t!”
Silent prayer can be like that.
Maybe you’re looking for a bit of peace in an anxious world. You might find that.
Maybe you’re looking for the right questions to be asking. You might find that.
Maybe you’re looking for a new mission, a purpose in life. You might find that.
Maybe you’re looking for some clarity. You might find that.
Maybe like Jesus you just need a few minutes where no one needs you (looking at you parents). You might find that.
And maybe you have no earthly idea what you’re looking for.
May you find that and more.
Because if we’re cautious enough to listen…
We might find something in that thin whisper of God.
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