Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | September 1, 2024

Psalm 62

I was thinking about the readings for this week and how one line of poetry seemed to stand out from the rest: “For God alone my soul waits in silence…” (Psalm 62:5) What is it about our lives and our world today whereby it seems almost as if we fear silence, or the idea of it? And I wonder about the ancient world in which this Psalm originated, what kind of noise did they have to live with, especially in comparison to our time?

In college I signed up for a class called “Speech and Hearing.” I was taking a lot of speech classes and the title of that class looked interesting. On the first day of class I realized it was not what I thought it would be. But I needed the credits and decided to see it through.

What “Speech and Hearing” turned out to be was a scientific study of the inner ear and a training course in how to give hearing tests. To pass the course, students needed to pass the “Audiometric Technician” test. I never put the Audiometric Technician license to use, but one thing I gained from that course was an appreciation for the sense of hearing. Some people are born without the sense of hearing; some people lose it along the way in life.

We flew to Amsterdam to catch a connecting flight to the United States. Amsterdam is a busy international hub. As we were walking toward our waiting area the air was suddenly pierced by what is known in literary terms as a “blood-curdling” scream.

Not far from us there was a child, a girl who appeared to be around three years old and for some reason she was screaming as if something was seriously worth screaming about. Of course, you wonder what is causing this child to scream in such a dedicated manner. Everyone within hearing distance seemed to be pondering this question.

From what we could tell, the child was part of a large family traveling together. There were what seemed to be grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles and various children – siblings or cousins. The screaming child was unhappy about something. The other members of the family did not seem to be bothered by her screaming. Their lack of concern seemed to inspire her to scream even more. The more violently she screamed, the more they ignored her.

We found a seat some distance from the screamer. Pity the travelers who must bear with that, we said. The screams subsided into the background noise that is the general roar of a busy airport.

The time came for us to board our plane for the ten-hour flight to the west coast of the United States. We made our way to the boarding area and the screaming child once again came within hearing range. Could it be? Oh, dread the thought but the screamer and her family were boarding the same flight as us!

And as luck would have it, bad luck it was, they were all seated close to us. The child screamed to the point where I thought they should perhaps think about directing her toward a career in the opera; to be able to sustain that volume and pitch for hours on end surely signaled a world-class gift. But the fact that they ignored her vocalizing probably meant that they would not recognize such a gift. After about two hours of screaming, the child had exhausted herself. She slept for the remainder of the flight.

On the surface of this story, it would be easy to think, “What a little brat!” and blame the child. But it was interesting to observe the rest of the family; from the oldest to the youngest they all seemed indifferent to the little girl’s screaming. They must have been used to her behavior. She was in effect, what is known in “Family Systems” theory as the “Symptom Bearer.”

Every family has its own way of communicating. What appears as calm and collected and even indifferent on the surface of things might be a family of exceptional serenity. But serenity doesn’t exhibit itself as indifference. Probably because the child had not learned the coping skills to put a lid on her emotions like the rest of them, she was serving as a kind of steam vent for the volcanic pressure the rest of them were living with. And maybe she was giving voice to the way a hundred people going through that airport on any given day feel but are too constrained to express.

“For God alone my soul waits in silence…”

That one brief line of poetry from the Psalms presents such a contrast to the world in which we live; or perhaps, the world in which we live is in such great contrast to the poetry of the Psalm.

For God… It’s commonly accepted by the great thinkers, scientists and philosophers of our age that God does not exist. There is no rational or scientific evidence for the existence of God. According to the wisdom of the new age of reason, God like all other fairy tells, is a figment of the imagination.

Some years ago, one of my colleagues was quite upset that the BBC was going to show in prime time a program called “Jerry Springer – The Opera.” He objected to the content as well as to the idea that public funds were being spent on something he deemed “blasphemous.” He asked me to join in his cause and one of his arguments was, “We need to do something about all these atheists!”

I asked him, “What is it you suggest we do?”

He said we should rise up in protest and let it be known that Christians are being offended. I’ve always been uncomfortable with viewing my belief system as something that needs defending. Defense requires an argument or a counterattack.

How do you defend spirit? How do you defend trust? How do defend poetry? How do you defend love?

I politely declined is invitation. You certainly can’t argue someone into believing in God because such belief is not based on logic or reason. To even debate the question is to enter the realm of the playground, You are!…No you are!”

The best argument, if you can call it that, for God is to find God within your own heart and soul. Don’t worry about whether someone else believes or what they believe. Simply love God and love your neighbor as you would yourself. Against that, there is no argument.

For God alone… There have been times along the journey when I have, shall we say, lost the plot. The plot being, simply – God alone… Sometimes the plot lines get blurred – the lines between God and church; between God and all the energy that goes into the church as an institution; between God and the trappings of religion.

Church, the institution and religion can be parts of a helpful framework that supports our experience of God. But these things are not God. The challenge is to keep the lines between them sharp and in clear focus.

In some churches one of the jobs of the minister, whether it is part of job description or just there in people’s assumptions, is that the minister will recruit people to the church. While very few people, if any, appreciate a knock on the door from the religious sales force, there is that subtle expectation that the pastor should be out there recruiting. The reason for that is because we live in a world where the bottom line defines our institutions and even ourselves. The bottom line determines success or failure. If you run a business that doesn’t make money, you go out of business.

This reading from the Psalms reminds us that the “bottom line” is not about finances or politics. In fact, in God’s realm there is no bottom line, only God alone. God alone is a risky assumption. God alone has no framework, no support system. Only God…alone.

For God alone my soul waits…What do you do when you are waiting for something to happen – the bus to arrive; to appointment to take place; the visitor to show up; the child to be born; the loved one to die?

When you wait for something to happen you realize that often there is nothing you can do that will make it happen any other way than when it happens. Life happens when it happens. As for God, we certainly can’t make God happen; we can’t take God by storm or by force; we don’t contain God within the frameworks of our understanding. For God, we wait.

How long must we wait? Waiting for God is not so difficult. The French philosopher Pascal said in response to our search for God, it’s as if God says, “Be comforted. You would not be seeking me, if you had not already found me.”

For God alone my soul waits in silence…

In her book A Mystical Heart, Edwina Gateley writes:

“We are so hungry! There is such a deep unmet longing in us that we are driven to erratic and anxious enrolments in seminars, retreats, and workshops on myriad themes of spirituality, healing, wholeness, and even miracle making!

Millions of us are searching for a spiritual jumpstart or an instant divine fix. But our journey begins in spiritual infancy and unfolds and grows through our everyday life experiences. It is all right to be hungry. It is all right to want more. But it is God who feeds the waiting heart. We must he empty vessels, not afraid of that very emptiness. We must wait – ever gentle with ourselves – until God scoops us up and comforts us.”

God surrounds us like the air we breathe. We experience God when we are ready to take a breath, and sometimes just a breather. Amen.