Take The Bread
Sermon
Dancing The Sacraments
Sermons And Worship Services For Baptism And Communion
Call To Worship:
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ... a time to speak, and a time to keep silence ..." Come, let us worship God who speaks in sheer silence.
Hymn: "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise"
(words: Walter Chalmers Smith; music: Welsh hymn melody)
Children's Time:
The girl's father had been away a long time. She asked her mother, "How do you know if someone far away is loving you?" Her mother said, "Do you mean your father?" The girl replied, "Yes. If I can't see him, or hear him, or feel his hugs, how can I know he loves me when he isn't here?" Her mother answered, "You have to stop when you're lonely and listen. Listen the way you do when you can't see the church steeple, but suddenly the sound of its bells comes through the air to you. You have to listen inside yourself. If you listen hard, you'll feel someone far away sending love to you." The girl sat still a long time. She was thinking of her father. She looked up at the sky. It was a clear blue. One bird circled overhead. She watched until he flew away. Then she came back to her mother and put her head in her mother's lap and said, "I will listen hard, but I wish he'd come home."1
Talk Together:
How do you know God loves you when you can't see or hear or feel God's hugs? Did you ever think of the church as "God's hug"? Or of prayer as a way of hearing God or feeling God's presence?
Prayer Of Confession:
Forgive our wandering thoughts, our wayward feet, our weary words, and the way we predict and plan and proclaim rather than patiently wait for an awareness of your presence. We are a people who want to choose and control rather than love and be loved in your grace and mercy. In the silence we confess our lack of love and ask for forgiveness in Christ's name. Amen.
Words Of Assurance:
God breathed into him the breath of life, saying, "You are forgiven. In Christ's name you are a new creature." Amen.
Psalter Reading: Psalm 107:1--9
Old Testament: l Kings 19:12--13
Epistle: Colossians 3:12--17
New Testament: Revelation 8:1
Sermon:
This is the day we participate in the sacrament of communion. I have often wondered what it would be like to take communion without words, to take "in remembrance of Christ" in deep silence, as the Zen eat their meals in silence in order to appreciate their food. Jesus' words were brief: "Take, eat; this is my body. Take, drink; this is my blood." Period.
As we prepare to take communion we are surrounded by words, so many words they trip, crowd, bump into one another. We swim in words. Our heads go under for the third time. We are drowning in the words. When the usher elbows us, we stand and stagger forward without knowing. Our feet and hearts are heavy. Too weary to dance, we barely make it to the altar to fall on our knees.
And with the bread and wine more words. Oh, if Meister Eckhart were only here with us now! He would protest, for as a pray--er, he loved silence. Yet his words, too, penetrate the mystery of the sacrament, as he whispers:
The most beautiful thing
which a person can say about God would be for that person to remain silent
from the wisdom of an inner wealth.
So, be silent
and quit flapping your gums about God.2
I am not sure this is the way Eckhart spoke about silence. It is the way Matthew Fox heard him and passed it on.
I like words or I would not be writing, preaching, and teaching. I like hanging around words and I like listening to their silence.
Life is about hanging around words, dancing, singing, loving our opposites when they are not reconciled. We reconcile them through wonder, love, beauty in the silence of the Word and our need for and openness to God's grace.
In receiving spiritual grace, we are in the real of relational mystery, not only seeking but being sought, not only knowing, but being known, not only loving but being loved. So at times I want to cry, "Keep quiet. Let God speak!" because I cannot hear. Your words will not let me listen.
Why are we doing this, this coming to the altar, if not to experience God's presence in the taking? At least our response is silent as we chew and sip.
We are eating months of work: the work of the seed growing in the soil, the work of the farmer, the baker, the grocer, the winegrower, or the juice--maker. We are eating and drinking the grain and grape of God, letting it penetrate us so we may become that body and blood we are taking.
Some of the people worshiped the golden calf. Some of us worship words, but God is in the silence.
We live in a world of two kinds of silences: the silence of obedience that ends speech, be it that of parent, prophet, or preacher. It is the respect we show before power and authority for the role or office of the person. The second kind of silence waits for us to speak. It is God listening, luring us into speech, awakening us to our own voice, the voice of our heart. Within this silence we speak.
It was out of silence, out of nothingness that God created, for the depths are dark and silent. The silent dark waters teem with life. The deep, dark soil nurtures the seeds in silence.
Silence is not the absence of God, but the very presence of God, pregnant with possibility. I went to my spiritual director and said, "I speak to God and listen for God's word and there is only silence." She said to me, "That is how God speaks to you ... through silence."
To be comfortable with silence, to close down the mind and body to stillness and emptiness, shutting out outside and inside noises, is to listen, for the soul prefers silence to the intellect, and delight to the scholar.
The rabbi, expert in the use of silence, was asked, "Where did you learn the art of silence?" As he was on the verge of giving an answer, he went home to practice his art.
Long ago a prophet stood on the mountain expectantly awaiting the thunder and shaking of God speaking or a raging, burning fire, but God was not in the earthquake nor the fire but in the still, small voice.
Before I had experienced the holiness of silence I was impatient with every pause the preacher made. How do we teach the value of "be still and know that I am God"? The words do not say, "be still and hear," but "be still and know," experience.
A man fell in love with a woman, but she rejected him, so he spent his time pouring out his love in letters he never sent, telling her of his love and suffering. Finally the woman said, "If you really wish to be with me, come at such and such an hour." At that time and place, the lover found himself beside the woman he loved, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out all the letters he had written to her. They were passionate letters and he read them with passion. The hours passed by, but still he read on and on. Finally the woman said, "These letters are all about me and your longing for me. Well, here I am sitting with you at last and all you do is talk about me."3
We long for God and all we do is talk about God. Silence is the way inward, becoming still enough to hear the deep desires of our soul, the promptings of the creative Spirit. Meditation in silence allows emotions and images to emerge.
God created the heavens and the earth and on the Sabbath, the day of silence, God rested. Abraham was alone in silence when God promised the covenant, Moses when he received God's commandments, and Isaiah when he was given God's command to go. Jacob dreamed in silent sleep. Jesus went into the desert wilderness to be in silence with God before he began his ministry. Again and again he went away to some silent place to pray. He told his hearers to go into the closet and shut the door. He stood before Pilate in silence. In the Garden of Gethsemane, silence was the companion who stayed awake. He died an ugly death on the cross in silence. He lay in silence in the tomb. In silence he arose.
"Silence is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation."4
After 37 chapters of words, pleas, petitions, protests, God out of the silence spoke to Job and said, "Look around!" Quit flapping your gums, Job, and look around you in silence. Learn the art of listening. Become an artist of stillness. Seek the silence, and in that invisible, unspeakable silence, dance the sacrament with the Lord in harmony with all creation, and be made free.
I keep listening for God,
Thinking God will speak
With words we use,
Rather than burning bushes,
white--winged doves,
angel messages in dreams,
Rather than songs of sparrows,
sprouting seeds,
hugs and handshakes,
Rather than dance,
dinner with loved ones,
praying with faith imagination.
I keep thinking I'll turn a corner
and God will be there,
handing me a handwritten letter
or one blazed across the sky.
I keep listening for God to speak to me,
And in the silence I feel God's love. Amen and amen.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion:
Come now, eat and drink, and feel God's love in this communion with one another.
Hymn: "Breathe On Me, Breath Of God"
(words: Edwin Hatch; music: Robert Jackson)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
I whisper, "Thou."
The rest is silence.
More would be what I do not know.
More would be what I do not deserve.
More would be redundant, for you,
Lord, are my all. Amen
The Lord's Prayer
Offering
Doxology
Hymn: "Spirit Of The Living God"
(words and music: Daniel Iverson)
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God who speaks in silence, through Jesus Christ who taught us to pray in the silence and the Holy Spirit who enables us to hear within the silence. Amen.
____________
1. Charlotte Zolotow, If You Listen (New York: Harper & Row, 1980).
2. Matthew Fox, Meditations with Meister Eckhart (Santa Fe: Bear & Co., 1983), p. 44.
3. Based on Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird (Garden City, New York: Image, 1984), p. 101.
4. Father Thomas Keating, Newsweek, January 6, 1992, p. 44.
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ... a time to speak, and a time to keep silence ..." Come, let us worship God who speaks in sheer silence.
Hymn: "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise"
(words: Walter Chalmers Smith; music: Welsh hymn melody)
Children's Time:
The girl's father had been away a long time. She asked her mother, "How do you know if someone far away is loving you?" Her mother said, "Do you mean your father?" The girl replied, "Yes. If I can't see him, or hear him, or feel his hugs, how can I know he loves me when he isn't here?" Her mother answered, "You have to stop when you're lonely and listen. Listen the way you do when you can't see the church steeple, but suddenly the sound of its bells comes through the air to you. You have to listen inside yourself. If you listen hard, you'll feel someone far away sending love to you." The girl sat still a long time. She was thinking of her father. She looked up at the sky. It was a clear blue. One bird circled overhead. She watched until he flew away. Then she came back to her mother and put her head in her mother's lap and said, "I will listen hard, but I wish he'd come home."1
Talk Together:
How do you know God loves you when you can't see or hear or feel God's hugs? Did you ever think of the church as "God's hug"? Or of prayer as a way of hearing God or feeling God's presence?
Prayer Of Confession:
Forgive our wandering thoughts, our wayward feet, our weary words, and the way we predict and plan and proclaim rather than patiently wait for an awareness of your presence. We are a people who want to choose and control rather than love and be loved in your grace and mercy. In the silence we confess our lack of love and ask for forgiveness in Christ's name. Amen.
Words Of Assurance:
God breathed into him the breath of life, saying, "You are forgiven. In Christ's name you are a new creature." Amen.
Psalter Reading: Psalm 107:1--9
Old Testament: l Kings 19:12--13
Epistle: Colossians 3:12--17
New Testament: Revelation 8:1
Sermon:
This is the day we participate in the sacrament of communion. I have often wondered what it would be like to take communion without words, to take "in remembrance of Christ" in deep silence, as the Zen eat their meals in silence in order to appreciate their food. Jesus' words were brief: "Take, eat; this is my body. Take, drink; this is my blood." Period.
As we prepare to take communion we are surrounded by words, so many words they trip, crowd, bump into one another. We swim in words. Our heads go under for the third time. We are drowning in the words. When the usher elbows us, we stand and stagger forward without knowing. Our feet and hearts are heavy. Too weary to dance, we barely make it to the altar to fall on our knees.
And with the bread and wine more words. Oh, if Meister Eckhart were only here with us now! He would protest, for as a pray--er, he loved silence. Yet his words, too, penetrate the mystery of the sacrament, as he whispers:
The most beautiful thing
which a person can say about God would be for that person to remain silent
from the wisdom of an inner wealth.
So, be silent
and quit flapping your gums about God.2
I am not sure this is the way Eckhart spoke about silence. It is the way Matthew Fox heard him and passed it on.
I like words or I would not be writing, preaching, and teaching. I like hanging around words and I like listening to their silence.
Life is about hanging around words, dancing, singing, loving our opposites when they are not reconciled. We reconcile them through wonder, love, beauty in the silence of the Word and our need for and openness to God's grace.
In receiving spiritual grace, we are in the real of relational mystery, not only seeking but being sought, not only knowing, but being known, not only loving but being loved. So at times I want to cry, "Keep quiet. Let God speak!" because I cannot hear. Your words will not let me listen.
Why are we doing this, this coming to the altar, if not to experience God's presence in the taking? At least our response is silent as we chew and sip.
We are eating months of work: the work of the seed growing in the soil, the work of the farmer, the baker, the grocer, the winegrower, or the juice--maker. We are eating and drinking the grain and grape of God, letting it penetrate us so we may become that body and blood we are taking.
Some of the people worshiped the golden calf. Some of us worship words, but God is in the silence.
We live in a world of two kinds of silences: the silence of obedience that ends speech, be it that of parent, prophet, or preacher. It is the respect we show before power and authority for the role or office of the person. The second kind of silence waits for us to speak. It is God listening, luring us into speech, awakening us to our own voice, the voice of our heart. Within this silence we speak.
It was out of silence, out of nothingness that God created, for the depths are dark and silent. The silent dark waters teem with life. The deep, dark soil nurtures the seeds in silence.
Silence is not the absence of God, but the very presence of God, pregnant with possibility. I went to my spiritual director and said, "I speak to God and listen for God's word and there is only silence." She said to me, "That is how God speaks to you ... through silence."
To be comfortable with silence, to close down the mind and body to stillness and emptiness, shutting out outside and inside noises, is to listen, for the soul prefers silence to the intellect, and delight to the scholar.
The rabbi, expert in the use of silence, was asked, "Where did you learn the art of silence?" As he was on the verge of giving an answer, he went home to practice his art.
Long ago a prophet stood on the mountain expectantly awaiting the thunder and shaking of God speaking or a raging, burning fire, but God was not in the earthquake nor the fire but in the still, small voice.
Before I had experienced the holiness of silence I was impatient with every pause the preacher made. How do we teach the value of "be still and know that I am God"? The words do not say, "be still and hear," but "be still and know," experience.
A man fell in love with a woman, but she rejected him, so he spent his time pouring out his love in letters he never sent, telling her of his love and suffering. Finally the woman said, "If you really wish to be with me, come at such and such an hour." At that time and place, the lover found himself beside the woman he loved, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out all the letters he had written to her. They were passionate letters and he read them with passion. The hours passed by, but still he read on and on. Finally the woman said, "These letters are all about me and your longing for me. Well, here I am sitting with you at last and all you do is talk about me."3
We long for God and all we do is talk about God. Silence is the way inward, becoming still enough to hear the deep desires of our soul, the promptings of the creative Spirit. Meditation in silence allows emotions and images to emerge.
God created the heavens and the earth and on the Sabbath, the day of silence, God rested. Abraham was alone in silence when God promised the covenant, Moses when he received God's commandments, and Isaiah when he was given God's command to go. Jacob dreamed in silent sleep. Jesus went into the desert wilderness to be in silence with God before he began his ministry. Again and again he went away to some silent place to pray. He told his hearers to go into the closet and shut the door. He stood before Pilate in silence. In the Garden of Gethsemane, silence was the companion who stayed awake. He died an ugly death on the cross in silence. He lay in silence in the tomb. In silence he arose.
"Silence is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation."4
After 37 chapters of words, pleas, petitions, protests, God out of the silence spoke to Job and said, "Look around!" Quit flapping your gums, Job, and look around you in silence. Learn the art of listening. Become an artist of stillness. Seek the silence, and in that invisible, unspeakable silence, dance the sacrament with the Lord in harmony with all creation, and be made free.
I keep listening for God,
Thinking God will speak
With words we use,
Rather than burning bushes,
white--winged doves,
angel messages in dreams,
Rather than songs of sparrows,
sprouting seeds,
hugs and handshakes,
Rather than dance,
dinner with loved ones,
praying with faith imagination.
I keep thinking I'll turn a corner
and God will be there,
handing me a handwritten letter
or one blazed across the sky.
I keep listening for God to speak to me,
And in the silence I feel God's love. Amen and amen.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion:
Come now, eat and drink, and feel God's love in this communion with one another.
Hymn: "Breathe On Me, Breath Of God"
(words: Edwin Hatch; music: Robert Jackson)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
I whisper, "Thou."
The rest is silence.
More would be what I do not know.
More would be what I do not deserve.
More would be redundant, for you,
Lord, are my all. Amen
The Lord's Prayer
Offering
Doxology
Hymn: "Spirit Of The Living God"
(words and music: Daniel Iverson)
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God who speaks in silence, through Jesus Christ who taught us to pray in the silence and the Holy Spirit who enables us to hear within the silence. Amen.
____________
1. Charlotte Zolotow, If You Listen (New York: Harper & Row, 1980).
2. Matthew Fox, Meditations with Meister Eckhart (Santa Fe: Bear & Co., 1983), p. 44.
3. Based on Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird (Garden City, New York: Image, 1984), p. 101.
4. Father Thomas Keating, Newsweek, January 6, 1992, p. 44.
