Be Still

Midweek Vespers (Lectionary 28), AD 2020 A

The Forty-Sixth Psalm:

God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
    God will help it when the morning dawns.

The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
    see what desolations he has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.

“Be still, and know that I am God!
    I am exalted among the nations,
    I am exalted in the earth.”

The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

God’s first language is silence. All else is bad translation.

Yet if His first language is silence, His second must surely be song. There is something primordial and deeply moving in music—the rhythm, the harmony, the lyrics. To get lost in a song is a transcendent experience, sometimes even ecstatic. We feel at one with the universe, with the symmetries and the beauties of Creation, the pure primal experience of oneness, awareness, and bliss. This is what we used to call “the music of the spheres,” the meaningful melody in and through all things.

God in His essence is beyond all thoughts, beyond all words. And so the closest we often feel to Him is when we are in the presence of beauty and silence and song. And this indeed is why I find myself so partial to vespers. Here we are in the midst of a busy week—hump day, as the camel would have it—and we carve out for ourselves a little space for prayer, a sanctuary in time, here to gather in the softness of twilight, amidst the flickering of candles, to sing and to read and to “be still and know that I am God.”

In many ways it’s scandalously decadent for us to be here. Our culture would shame us for wasted, unproductive time, for an evening not filled to the brim with busyness, be it work or chores or entertainment. I mean, we could at least have the TV on. But to take a moment to come here, in this sacred space, this time and place set apart, to sing softly, to breathe deeply, to be together alone with God—it is liberating. Quietness and holiness are often one and the same. How much more so in the middle of this noisy nation, this crazy year.

The time is coming, I suspect, when it will take bravery to affirm that there are values beyond the political, realities beyond the visible, promises beyond the temporal. It will take strength to proclaim that what undergirds our reality is not profits nor parties but selfless, self-giving, long-suffering, white-hot, inexorable love—a love that forgives sins and heals wounds and raises up the dead; a love that topples empires in order to lift the lowly; a love that cannot fail, cannot falter, and cannot die.

It is the love poured out for the world from the Cross, the very life-blood of God, who loves us all the way to hell and back.

That is what we come here to remember, in Scripture, song, and silence. That is what we come here to experience, in vespers at the close of the day: the forgiveness, the promise, the resurrection and the love. They make us whole. They raise us up. When there are no more empires, no more wars, no more elections, no more disease, we will still be here: in the deep, rich silence of our God, in the peace that passes all understanding, in the bliss that transcends time and space.

Keep in mind that a culture of consumerism has a vested interest in keeping us distracted, keeping us busy. It fears the silence creeping in, because the silence cannot be commodified, cannot be tamed by appeals to fear or lust or power or pride. Because in the darkness, in the silence, we ultimately encounter two people whom the culture at large is always trying to hide from us, always trying to keep from us. In the silence we encounter ourselves, and we encounter our God.

Remember God’s eternity is His eternal now. God is always present in the now. The only question then is whether we are, or whether we’re already worried about the next big thing: what to wear, what to eat, what to buy. We’re everywhere but here. When it all becomes too much for us, carve out a sanctuary in time. Take even a moment to sneak into the silence. Close your eyes and bathe in that deep and quiet well. There you will find rest and relief from all your burdens. There you will find Jesus, waiting for us in the dark.

I know the world seems mad these days, and America mad some more. But beyond the screaming pundits, the garish ads, totalitarians both Left and Right, there is still beauty in the world; harmony, symmetry, meaning and purpose. There is still a God in Heaven who permeates every crack and crevice of Creation, in whom we all live and move and have our being. He will always be waiting for you in the silence. He will always be present with you in the here and in the now.

Take heart, dear Christian. You are loved with a love that overcomes all wickedness, all brokenness, all debt, despair, and death.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea … The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter … The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge … Be still and know that I am God.

He will always be here. He will always be now. It’s just a matter of seeing through the distractions—of listening for the silence, which overcomes all noise.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.