silence

 

Note: includes discussion of suicide.

Lectionary readings for Holy Communion today: Jeremiah 7.23-28 and Luke 11.14-23.

I have been thinking about silence of late. Silence, and listening. One of the things God says, repeatedly, through the prophets, is that the people don’t listen to him, when God cries out in the voice of the poor and those weighed down by heavy burdens. The more the world changes, the more it stays the same. In our age, we are trained, by social media—surely Orwellian double speak—to listen to shout down with counter-argument, rather than to understand another’s experience and meet them with compassion.

There is a silence that leads to life, and a silence that leads to death; and we must discern one from the other.

Here at St Nicholas’ Church this Lent, some of us have been sitting together in shared silence. This is a profound experience. I spend some hours every day alone at my desk, with no radio or music in the background. But this is not silence. Inside my head there is a running commentary, on what I am doing, on what I need to do next, and after that. Shared silence is a discipline of allowing the internal noise to be stilled, the mind to come to rest. Sitting with others in 20 minutes of shared silence on Tuesday night, I realised that my mind does not know how to rest. I understand the theological importance of rest; I gift rest to my body; but my mind does not know how to enter into rest. My mind is not a machine, that can be turned off and later on again. My mind is a creature—God’s good creation—that is stuck in a trauma response—for me that is to freeze, in hope that if I stay very still, the danger I sense will go away. But a frozen mind is not a mind at rest; it is a mind at constant high alert.

Shared silence is a discipline, a posture that opens us to the possibility of encountering God; and encountering, more deeply, others; and encountering, more truthfully, ourselves. Shared silence invites us to let go of the false self, the barriers we construct between us and others, which, eventually, come between us and the self we fear to acknowledge, because we cannot gaze upon ourselves with the depth of love with which God gazes upon us.

There is a silence that leads to life, and a silence that leads to death. Some days ago, a local teenage boy completed suicide in the park across the intersection from the church. His friends and classmates and their wider peer group have gathered where he died each day since, at the end of the school day, in small groups, leaving flowers and lighting candles. I have been deeply impressed by how they are caring for one another. And a recurring theme in the cards they have left is, we wish you had felt able to speak up; we would have supported you.

We wish you had felt able to speak up.

The silence we freely choose leads to life. The silence that feels imposed upon us, by the world around us, the shape of society, by an exercising of control we might even call demonic, leads to death. In some cases, tragically, in a literal sense.

The perhaps counterintuitive thing is that shared silence may help us to listen more attentively, carefully, compassionately, when another person does speak up. Because we have disciplined ourselves not to cut them up, not to speak over them.

As the local church, we need to hold safe space for shared silence—safe space, because to enter into silence, letting go of the noise that distracts us, is a deeply vulnerable posture. And we need to hold safe space for being listened to, where people can find a voice to say, ‘This is what I am burdened with right now.’

Our young people need such safe spaces, as do our senior citizens, and anyone in between. Spaces where we might experience the freedom that God, who has made himself known to us in the face of Jesus Christ, longs for us to know.

I have been thinking about silence of late. Silence, and listening.

 

finding ourselves in the story

 

This Sunday, I shall be speaking about Abraham, who is also known as the father of faith. We meet him in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, the origin-stories.

By way of context, we first meet his father, Terah. Terah lived in what today we would call southern Iraq, and had three sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran. Haran pre-deceases his father, and after this loss, Terah determines to set out for Canaan. He is searching for something, and though it is not made explicit, the implications is that he is searching for the God who will be known by his son Abram. His eldest son and his orphaned grandson go with him, while his other surviving son chooses to remain in the place he knows. They travel north along the Fertile Crescent between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, until they reach the foothills of the mountains of what we know as Turkey, coming to a place called Haran. It is a different language, different root and meaning, but the name sounds like the name of his dead son. Whether that is painful, or comforting, or both, Terah finds himself unable to go any further, settling and eventually dying there.

It is possible that Terah’s story is your story. I meet quite a few people who have an innate sense that God exists, and even a strong hunch that he might be encountered in a church, in the local church I serve; who make a plan to turn up at public worship, but who — for a variety of reasons — just can’t get over the threshold. It is too daunting. I know others who come every week, perhaps out of force of habit or sense of duty, but who carry some sense of loss that prevents them from knowing God as fully as they had hoped, or once did. Terah’s story is not unusual; but more is possible.

After Terah dies, the Lord God speaks to Abram. And that is noteworthy in itself. The story takes it for granted that God speaks, to humans. And not just to vanishingly rare Important People. If God speaks to the father of faith, anyone who traces their heritage back to Abraham — Jews, Christians, Muslims — should expect to hear this God speak to them, too. To hear God’s voice. To learn to recognise the voice of God, the things that God would say to us.

And what God says is, Get out, get away — there is a sense of urgency here — from your country and your kindred and your father’s house. Not because these things don’t matter, but because God does not want us to find our security in them. Because, ultimately, these things aren’t secure. Who settles, and who rules over, geography changes continuously over time, not only over long stretches of time but in a continually ebb and flow. Culture changes, from generation to generation, so that you are quickly left behind by the concerns, the vocabulary, of the generation below you. Family can be a source of strength, but also of wounding, of enmity, of division. The word for ‘house’ can also be translated ‘palace’ or ‘dungeon’: families can exercise a hold over us; even where we love and are loved by our families, they can prevent us from going beyond where we now are.

Jesus will call these things — sources of privilege such as ethnicity, nationality, socio-economic background, gender, sexuality, education — the flesh, saying flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit of God gives birth to the spirit. It is also noteworthy that Jesus called the Temple in Jerusalem ‘my Father’s house,’ and for some, our cherished church practices can become a dungeon that imprisons us. If that is your story, the Spirit of God wants to set you free.

Instead of in these things, God wants Abram to find security in God. In knowing himself to be a child of God. In knowing God to be a loving Father. As my wife would put it, knowing WHO you are, and knowing WHOSE you are.

(Abram means Great, or Exalted, Father. But Abram is childless. He has no heir. His name is as unwelcome as a Best Dad In The World mug to a man with low sperm count. But God wants to bring healing to Abram, first by showing Abram that he, God, is a Loving Father, and in time by giving Abram a new name, Abraham, the Father of a Multitude, the father of all who follow in his footsteps walking with God.)

God calls Abram — and his descendants — out of every familiar source of hoped-for security, to become foreigners wherever they find themselves. To identify with the immigrants, those on the outside of national identity, cultural identity, self-interest. To be a significant sub-group within the host people but not of the host people. To be, as immigrant communities usually are, a community who seek to bless the host people. To serve their neighbours. To add value.

God tells Abram that if he sets out on this adventure, he will meet two kinds of people. He will meet those who bless him, who affirm him, encourage him, those who ask how they can support him. And he will meet those who curse him, who speak ill of him, on account of his faith, who oppose him. God tells Abram to expect both responses, and that God will multiply blessing wherever the intention to bless is found; and frustrate all intention to curse Abram, working to constrain evil, to transform it effectively against itself by bringing good out of actions intended for harm.

If you have set out on the journey of faith in the footsteps of Abram, you can expect to encounter the same reactions. We should not be surprised by this. We can give thanks for openness and hostility, for invitations and challenges, for favour and frustration, all as signs of still being on the path to a destination we don’t yet fully know, in the company of a trustworthy guide.

Maybe you recognise yourself in the story of Abram. Of faith, stalled by circumstances. Of the search for security — identity, meaning — in structures that are, inherently, unstable. Or perhaps of feeling like an outsider, and feeling alone, not part of a mighty people-group. Maybe you want to be a blessing, but struggle to see yourself in such terms, as something — someone — who is a gift to the world. Or perhaps you are struggling with the hostile reaction of others towards the things that matter to you.

Abraham’s story is the story of his descendants in faith. If that story resonates with you — if anything above intrigues you — I’d love to talk to you about that, to hear your story. To bless you. And to pray for you, that you would see and hear and know God more clearly.

If you are geographically local to me, you’d be most welcome to join us on Sunday morning, at 10.30 a.m. at St Nicholas Church, Sunderland

Genesis 12.1-4

‘Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.’

 

immigrants

 

Abraham was seventy-five when he set out on a great adventure with God. He had already seen seventy-five winters. (So have I; but then, we squeeze more than one winter into each year around here.)

God invites Abram to get away — to distance himself — from his country, his kindred, and his father’s house, exchanging these securities — the soil and the people who have formed him — for uncertainty, and for his descendants to become a foreign (goy, or gentile) people wherever they reside.

Like Jews and Muslims, Christians trace their faith heritage back to Abraham. And while there are voices today claiming that Britain must reclaim its Christian heritage, there is no such thing as a Christian geo-political nation, or national people group. Land and neighbour and family matter to Christians, but don’t define us. We are foreigners in the midst of whatever nation we live in; foreigners positioned there to bless this ‘other’ soil and people we live among.

The word used to describe Abram’s father’s house can also be translated ‘palace’ or ‘dungeon,’ and when we seek to elevate the historic palace of Christianity in this nation — its beautiful buildings and music; its position of privilege in the corridors of power — it becomes, for us, a dungeon.

God speaks to Abram about both blessings and curses. Blessings are expansive, words — and actions — of life-giving affirmation. Curses are temporary constraints applied to those whose actions towards others steal life, make their world smaller. Being under a curse — for example, spending time in prison — is intended, in part, to create space to change minds and amend ways, ultimately opening the door to blessing that outstrips the curse.

If anyone is truly concerned that we, as a national society, have lost our sense of identity, confidence, and direction on account of forsaking the Church, the best advice I can offer is that you commit yourself to being found among the local church community that gathers week by week in your neighbourhood; that you submit yourself to learning, alongside neighbours of various origins, the Way of Jesus. That you might move from being under a curse to being blessed, and a means by which others are blessed too. You are not yet too old.

But if you are simply looking to co-opt Christianity as a weapon against other faiths, you won’t find support here.

Genesis 12.1-4

‘Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.’

 

hungry

 

I wonder what you are hungry for?

God made us with bodies, and with appetites. Those bodies, and appetites, are good. Our appetites are designed to keep us close to God, as the one in whom all our hunger is met. But we can also seek to fulfil our hungers elsewhere, in false consolation. The invitation of Lent is an invitation to sit with our hunger long enough to name it, and to allow it to draw us back to God.

While we all experience all kinds of appetite, we each have a core, habitual hunger. It might be a hunger for justice, that, whenever you see injustice in the world, leaves you with a physical ache, or longing, for justice. It might be a hunger for order, or originality; for success, or knowledge; for security, or peace; a hunger to be helpful, or comforted.

Each of these can draw us back to God, the source of justice, harmony, diversity, creativity, wisdom, fidelity, contentment, support, joy.

But we must wrestle with the temptation to settle for false consolation. To be drawn away from God into vengeance, control, supremacy, drivenness, despair, legalism, misery, resentment, cynicism. These things can all feel good in the moment — self-indulgent — but they leave a bitter aftertaste.

We are so schooled to be ashamed of our hunger, as if it revealed some failure, that we hide our hungers even from ourselves. When emotions threaten us, we displace the feeling (we feel sad, find that uncomfortable, and reach for a doughnut). The reality is, we might hide so well that we can’t even identify our own deepest, core hunger — a hunger that most probably is shaped by childhood experiences (such as needing to compete for parental love) but which also reveals something profound about who God made us to be, the way in which, our hunger being met in God, we might contribute to the healing of the world (for example, extending justice, rather than perpetuating injustice).

The invitation of Lent is an invitation to sit with our hunger long enough to name it, and to allow it to draw us back to God.

I wonder what you are hungry for?

Matthew 4.1-11

‘Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’

‘Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’

‘Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”’

‘Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.’

 

Ash Wednesday 2026

 

‘So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’

2 Corinthians 5.20-21

 

God is Light and Life and Love. Sin is darkness and death and fear. In the person of Jesus, God took the sin of the world into God’s very being, where it was captured and utterly dissolved, rendering it powerless.

At our Ash Wednesday service, I spoke on John 8.1-11. Here we see a group of men who are so committed to discrediting Jesus that they misuse the Law cynically and partially, while ignoring the processes it sets out to protect people, not caring whose lives are destroyed as collateral damage.

They invite Jesus into an argument — that will never change anyone’s mind — and, choosing to hold silence instead, Jesus declines to attend. This is real wisdom for us in our digital age where we are bombarded with invitations to outrage. But there is more than that going on here.

Twice in this account, John tells us that Jesus bent down and straightened up. And this is what he did, physically. But everything John writes in his Gospel — his account of the life of Jesus, and why it is good news — is a sign. And the words he uses for ‘bent down’ and ‘straightened up’ can also be translated ‘bowed down’ and ‘lifted himself up.’ Twice, Jesus bows down; and twice, he lifts himself up.

What is going on here? This is Jesus, taking on sin — bowed down under its weight — and, that sin dissolved, lifting himself up again, triumphant.

The first time, he is taking upon himself, into his very being, the sin of the men who are standing around him. Their envy, their fear, their hatred, their hypocrisy, their bearing false witness against the woman and against Jesus and against Moses, their hard-heartedness. Taking all this into himself that it might be dissolved. That they might be freed to walk away from it all, to live a life reconciled to God and neighbour, characterised by love. This, Jesus does for them. It is in no way dependent on what they choose to do next.

The second time he bows down and rises up again is to take on, and dissolve, the sin of the woman. A life caught up in wrongs committed against her, and wrongs committed by her; a life story we might only speculate over, though speculation is of no help to us: better that we simply recognise our common humanity reflected back in her eyes. Once more, Jesus bows down under the weight of what sin has wrought in the world; and, once more, rises up triumphant over it, freeing the woman before him to walk into a life reconciled with God and neighbour. When he tells her to go, and son no more, he is not setting her up for future failure, but indicating that such a life is possible, such is the work he has done on our behalf.

This is not to say that sin has no consequences, which we must live with. What we see here in John 8 points us to the cross, where the sin of the world coagulates and is dissolved en masse, though Jesus’ body still bears the scars. Our bodies, too, bear the scars, keep the score; but can, nonetheless, know freedom.

Jesus says, let whoever is without sin be the first to throw a stone — and does not throw a stone, himself. He cannot, for he is not without sin. Jesus reveals to us the God who takes upon himself, takes into himself, sin — this making himself ineligible to cast stones — that we might experience restoration. This is the length God goes to heal every soul. Every soul.

At the end of the day, all our lives turn to ash — sometimes, very publicly. And yet, that is not the end of the story. We came from ash to begin with, and, just as God gave life to us, so God restores life to us.

This Lent, may you know that freedom.

 

John 8.1-11

‘Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’’

 

Candlemas

 

This coming Sunday is a pivot-point in the year, forty days on from Christmas, when we turn away from celebrating Jesus’ birth and turn towards remembering his agonising suffering, death, and glorious resurrection, in Holy Week and Easter.

This coming Sunday we recall the occasion, forty days after his birth, when Jesus’ parents presented him before God at the Temple in Jerusalem. This coming Sunday we bless candles — the ritual lighting of which symbolises our deepest moments of sorrow and of joy; and of recognition that God, who is invisible, is with us.

When a Jewish woman gave birth, she entered niddah, a period of seclusion and abstinence from intimacy with her husband she entered whenever she bled, in menstruation or in childbirth. Niddah lasted around seven days (or, seven days after the bleeding stopped) after which she would take a ritual bath before being reunited with her husband. (In recent years there has been a renaissance of this practice of withdrawal and reunion among Jewish women, as a beautiful gift of self-care, and a means of sustaining intimacy over time.)

After giving birth to a son, a woman entered niddah for seven days, followed by thirty-three days before she returned to public life, marked by presenting her son before God. After giving birth to a daughter, the periods were doubled — fourteen days of niddah, followed by sixty-six days before returning to public life.

This much is set out in the law of Moses, though no reason is given for why it should be thirty-three days for a son and sixty-six for a daughter — leading to much speculation. My own speculation (no more than that) is this. In Genesis 46 we read about the family of Jacob — grandson of father Abraham, and whom God had re-named Israel — who went with him down to Egypt to find salvation from a lengthy, region-wide famine. Jacob had twelve sons — who would give their names to the twelve tribes of Israel — and a daughter, by four different women, his wives Leah and Rachel, and their slaves Zilpah and Bilhah. We read that the number of his offspring, those belonging to him, his sons and their children, by his first wife Leah — beginning with his firstborn son, Reuben — numbered thirty-three; and the total number by all four women came to sixty-six. (The list of names and the accompanying numbers don’t exactly match; but these are symbolic numbers, not literal ones.)

I would suggest that to wait thirty-three days before presenting a son before God, and sixty-six days before presenting a daughter, is a means of including them in the family of Israel. Every son extends the family into the next generation. Every daughter completes the family again. Thirty-three. Sixty-six. This one, too, belongs to Israel. This one, too, takes their place within the family who are saved from famine, and, later, saved again, from enslavement. This one, too, is numbered.

So, Mary and Joseph bring Jesus, forty days on — seven, plus thirty-three — to take his place within the story of his people.

And there, there will be a reversal, a pivot-point, a turning. For the old man Simeon will bless Mary with a strange blessing: ‘and a sword shall pierce your heart, too.’

This points us to the cross, where a spear is thrust into Jesus’ heart to establish that he is, truly, dead; and the blood that has pooled there, and separated out into red and white blood cells, pours forth as blood and water. And a sword shall pierce your heart, too. Mary, at the foot of the cross. Her heart pierced, in the personal pain of any mother who witnesses the violent death of her son. But also, a symbolic union. Mary, who is the Church, the family of Jesus, shares in his piercing, in his death — and in his resurrection.

Just as Jesus is brought into the story of the family of Jacob/Israel, so, now, Mary — and all future generations to come — are brought into the story of the family of Jesus (which is a continuation, and a fulfilment, of the family of Israel).

This is the story into which the Church enters, participated in, down through the generations. A share in Christ’s suffering, dying, rising in glory. This is the life we are called to live in the world, not seeking to shield ourselves from pain but to know pain transformed, to bear faithful witness to, first, evil, and then, good — and truth, and beauty — rising from the bloody ground.

This is the story we enter into, symbolically — in embodied ways — in observing Christmas and Holy Week and Easter; and in observing the pivot-point between them, this Sunday, with the blessing of candles, which we light in times of great joy and sorrow.

 

a dimly burning wick

 

Often, when we hold services at church, we light candles, as a visible reminder that Jesus is the Light that shines in the darkness of this world. At this time of year, when it is dark when the 8.00 a.m. Sunday service starts, this symbolism is especially profound.

This morning, the member of the congregation who was setting out the space came to light the two candles that sit on either side of the windowsill behind the altar. The first candle lit, as normal; but the other would not light. And so he spent several minutes trying to coax it into flame, trimming the wick, to no avail. It sputtered into life, only to give up the ghost. Eventually, it was time for the service to begin, and so he needed to leave it, for now, and return to it later.

This was not planned, nor had I spiked the candle so that it would not light, yet this was a visual aid to what God wanted to say to us today. In Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, our Old Testament readings mostly come from the book of the prophet Isaiah, much of whose poetic vision is rehearsed, six hundred years later, by Jesus in the role of the Servant. Today we read:

‘a bruised reed he will not break,

and a dimly burning wick he will not quench’

(Isaiah 42.1-9)

A dimly burning wick he will not quench. Rather, like Ray this morning, Jesus holds us with tenderness and compassion, coaxing the flame of faith.

And this morning it was a gift to us to have two candles, one burning brightly, the other cold. Because, there are times when our faith is sure, when we know that God loves us, loves our neighbour, and so, we are able to love our neighbour too. And there are times when our faith burns dimly, sputters and fails. When we find it hard to accept — to imagine that it is possible — that God could possibly love me, unliveable as I am.

But we do not come to God on our own, we come together. Sometimes, my faith shines bright, when yours does not; at other times, it is your faith that shines, when mine is dim. Yet there is room on the windowsill for both candles. And the one that cannot ignite today will yet be tended into flame, whether today or later.

A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.

There are times when we are all bruised. Sometimes by the way we witness the world handling others — overly roughly, without appropriate care. Sometimes we are bruised by the circumstances of our own lives, or the lives of those close to us. Sometimes we are bruised by those sides to our personality we find hardest to live with. We are not always bruised, but we bruise easily. And we are tempted to harden our hearts: I have been hurt before, I will not allow it to happen to me again. But this will not save us, for the more we harden our hearts, the more we bruise one another. It is not hard hearts we need, but gentle hands. And here, again, we are reminded that Jesus cares for us with tenderness and compassion.

When we are bruised, when our faith is dim, at these times and in these places may we have epiphanies of our own. May we encounter Jesus, and may the eyes of our hearts be opened to his healing love, making us whole again.

 

Image: photo shows the altar in the Lady Chapel at our 8.00 a.m. service this morning. There are two brass candlesticks on the windowsill behind the altar, one at either end with a brass cross between them. The candle on the right is lit, the one on the left is unlit. Our curate, Katherine, is seated behind the altar. The altar is set ready for Holy Communion, with a silver ciborium (holding bread wafers) and chalice (for wine) and a brass bookstand holding the Book of Common Prayer.