The art of shutting up

Yesterday morning was our community's monthly ‘house family breakfast’. We meet, eat, talk about communal practicalities, I or someone else will usually share a thought or two on community life, we pray or worship...

But yesterday was different. For the first half of our breakfast, by prior arrangement, we were in complete silence, not a word spoken.

The seed for this novel arrangement came from a conversation I’d had earlier in the week with Penelope Wilcock, author of a series of novels set in a Medieval monastery called ‘The Hawk and the Dove’. (Read her account of our meeting here.) I asked her what she felt we could learn from an ancient community rule such as the Rule of Benedict.

Her answer, perhaps surprisingly, was that the Rule of Benedict can teach us common sense. We might think of the founding document of Benedictine monasticism as a lofty, spiritual masterpiece – as indeed it is. Yet, as Penelope pointed out, many of its injunctions have a ring of good plain sense about them.

An example Penelope gave was ‘the great silence’ – the rule Benedict laid down that after evening prayers the whole community observes silence throughout the night until after the morning service the next day.

‘What a brilliant rule for fostering harmonious community,’ Penelope enthused. None of those too-late-at-night conversations when things can get fractious and irritable (and things can be said which are regretted the following morning). Likewise, no demand for communication while still waking up (one of my favourite biblical proverbs springs to mind: ‘If anyone loudly blesses their neighbour early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.’)

Common sense, yes, which fosters the health and harmony of a community. It got me thinking because as a leader in a residential Christian community, I give quite a lot of thought (not to mention what goes on in my subconscious) to the issue of how to foster healthy, fruitful community. And this issue – silence – is part of that. (I’ve mused about it before here and here.)

We’re a very active community. Activist, one might even say (and one recent blog called Power Activism has already featured us three times!) That’s good and it’s what God has called us to. And yet. Without silence our minds and spirits become noisy and overcrowded.

There is stillness and silence in our community life, but it mainly happens on our own, out on the fringes of community life – a personal prayer hour, a walk in the park... a bath! And sometimes we will have a pause for silence before a meal or during corporate worship.

I think we should integrate shared silence into our life more, for the sake of health and harmony.

It was silent in the temple’s holiest place. And the New Testament speaks of the ‘unfading beauty of a quiet spirit’ (our spirits, God’s dwelling like the temple, ought to be silent, still, poised). We want our community house to be a place people find the presence and peace of God. Silence must play its part.

So we passed the first half hour of our breakfast in silence. It wasn’t a 'religious silence' – we weren’t praying or meditating, just eating breakfast together. There was quite a bit of signalling (a wave meaning ‘pass me the honey?’ A thumbs up meaning ‘thanks!’), some winks and smiles. Most of us found it refreshing; some rather hard work.

I’m convinced it’s something we’ll explore. Ideas anyone? What can a busy, bustling community do to foster shared silence, shared stillness in the midst of it all?

Watch this space (space! ah!) – I’m sure this is a theme I’ll return to again in this blog.

Ancient prophet, young Messiah

Sometimes I read something in the Bible that makes my heart beat faster. It happened this morning when I was reading the prophet Isaiah.

I was reading chapter 49, which contains the second of Isaiah’s ‘servant songs’. (For the other three, go here.)

In amongst these prophecies about Jesus, I read this:

“The Lord called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother he named my name.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” (Isaiah 49:1-3)

We aren’t told much about Jesus’ infancy and childhood in the New Testament. Apart from Luke’s fascinating glimpse of Jesus in the Temple, telling his bewildered parents that he’s been “about his father’s business”, there’s almost nothing.

Yet here, in this prophecy from centuries before Jesus’ birth, we get another glimpse. Jesus is “named” in the womb as the servant, the saviour. (A divine christening that works itself into history as the angelic instruction that his name should be Jesus, “Saviour”.)

And then we get a glimpse of Jesus in his childhood and youth, being prepared by God, sharpened in wisdom, protected, readied for what was to come. It’s wonderfully poetic, too: “in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away”.

Jesus was hidden in the quiver for about 30 years before God took him out and fired him, like an arrow in the heart of his enemies. And in those years, Jesus heard his father’s call. He discovered who he was. Who he was called to be. Israel-in-person. Messiah. Servant. Saviour of the world.

To get the best effect, say these words aloud, but as a whisper – like they would have been whispered in Jesus’ mind and heart over those years of preparation: And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

It is a mystery quite how Jesus became aware of his calling and identity. I’ve long since been dissatisfied with explanations that leap too quickly to Jesus’ deity (babe-in-manger thinking through quantum physics et cetera); they don’t seem to me to do justice to Jesus’ full and true humanity.

But I love the glimpse Isaiah gives us. This young prophet, but more than a prophet, this servant, but more than a servant, this son. He hears his father’s voice. The call grows. Certainty grows. He reads Isaiah and knows.

And then the day of confirmation: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

That call was tested immediately with the demonic “if” – and afterwards? Isaiah himself prophesies an agony of uncertainty, especially in the face of rejection from his own people: I said, “I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God” (verse 4).

But Jesus saw it through; through the tears, the sweat, the blood. The result was salvation.

What a salvation. And what a saviour.

That was the heartbeat moment of inspiration. Thought I’d share.

...

For those who want a bit more exegetical background on ‘the servant’, this mysterious yet compelling figure who crops up several times in the latter chapters of Isaiah, here’s some theological small print:

The ‘servant’ is called ‘Israel’ – yet the prophecies about him find their fulfilment in Jesus. (The first servant song is quoted by Matthew to that effect; verse 8 of the chapter I read this morning is similarly cited by Paul; Acts-writer, Dr Luke, has Philip the evangelist explain to an Ethiopian eunuch (got all that?) that Jesus is the servant… And so on.)

How can the servant be both Israel and Jesus? Answer: because, as Israel’s Messiah, Jesus represents Israel as a whole. This idea of representation is found throughout the Bible. A chosen individual can stand for a whole people: a patriarch can represent his whole family; a king can embody his whole nation.

Jesus takes on Israel’s ancient calling to be light to the world, a blessing to all nations. Jesus, the Messiah, the servant, a ‘one-man-Israel’, embodies both Israel’s faithfulness to God and God’s faithfulness to Israel. He is the fulfilment of God’s purposes through Israel and the answer to all God’s promises. He says to the prisoners, ‘Come out’, to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear’.

In Isaiah 49, the prophet announces the servant to the whole world (v.1) as: called by God from conception (v.1), prepared in his youth (v.2) and commissioned to be God’s servant (v.3); knowing pain as his mission seems to fail, yet trusting God nonetheless (v.4); tasked with calling Israel back to God (v.5) – and not only Israel but the whole world (v.6); despised and rejected, yet eventually commanding the allegiance even of monarchs (v.7); embodying God’s saving covenant with His people (v.7) – and not just with Israel, but with people from all over the world (v.9-13).

Thank you God for your servant, Jesus.

The Fix

'The Fix' is another poem from my friend Wilf. As so often with his wordsmithying, worth sharing.

I'm not myself today,
Not that I'm anybody else, you understand
But what I am doesn't seem so good or complete
In this strange bright light.

I feel dangerous and afraid
That if the wrong thing touches me
I would explode, or spit poison
And the "wrong thing" would be
Someone I love,someone like you.
So I'm in a bit of a fix, the fix being that I need fixing
And God who does that kind of stuff
Seems distant
Though it is always He who orchestrates these things.

The happy ending is slow in coming
But he knows it will
He will be himself again
But not again
For it will be the self
He has never quite been before
Some steps closer to perfection