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Sermon for Lent 3
By The Reverend Dr Joan Crossley
“Why spend your money on what is not bread and your labour on what does
not satisfy?”
The prophet Isaiah in a phrase of apparent simplicity is throwing out a
question of the most profound significance. Using a metaphor about what
sustains us, bread, and work, he challenges us, and all who read the
words to ask, what really matters?
John Wesley in his notes on this passage argued that when the prophet
spoke of money “do not spend your money” Isaiah meant time, and
strength, and cost. And by bread Isaiah was speaking not only of real
food but of the things which sustain body and soul. Wesley took the
passage to be a warning against frittering time and energy on “those
things which can never nourish or satisfy you, such as worldly goods, or
pleasures. Eat ye –“ Wesley wrote, “That which is truly and solidly, and
everlastingly good.” We tend to think that we live in a much more
complicated world than our forebears, the people of Wesley’s times, but
I am sure that they too felt that things were simpler in their parents’
day. When we contemplate our world, our personal worlds, can we be sure
that we are making the right choices as to how we spend our time, our
money, our energy? These resources are finite, meaning that they can and
will run out. No-one lives forever, are we in fact wasting the resources
we have on things we don’t really want or need?
My Lent book for this year is “Finding Sanctuary: Monastic steps for
everyday life” and a fascinating read it is too. I chose it because it
is very unlike my kind of spirituality, which as you know is energetic
and outgoing. The author commends the Benedictine monastic way of life
and says that it’s principles can be integrate into the life of anyone,
even bouncy, talkative people like me. Abbot Christopher Jamison wrote
the book in response to the popularity of a television series made at
his monastery, Worth Abbey. In the programmes a group of fairly
unreligious or non religious men came to live at the Monastery to be
part of its routines and to discover a little of what the monks believe.
The series was, I understand, absorbing and so many people are still
talking about it, that I decided to work my way through the book,
chapter by chapter. It is all challenging and interesting but I wanted
to speak to you this morning about one aspect of a chapter on Silence.
I read the chapter for the first time as I was preparing to go up to
General Synod last week. The gist of the first bit of the book is that
people are busy. They may think that they have to be busy, but most
people, he says severely, choose to be busy. They fill their lives with
competing demands, they take on more and more things to do, people to
see, places to go, hobbies that need to be tended, and their lives are a
relentless round of being busy. Now even this gentle man living retired
from the world recognises that there are times of life, perhaps when you
are raising children and working when you cannot at all dictate the pace
of your life. You are forced to adapt to the needs of others, a child
must be fetched from school, the dog needs walking, another child needs
to go to Brownies, the bills must be paid, sick parents must be tended.
Some of these things cannot be avoided, it is just where you are in your
life. But in other phases of life, pace can be slowed. And it is in this
time of choice, that Isaiah’s words come creeping through your
consciousness, why waste time and energy on unimportant things? When you
know deep down that your lifestyle doesn’t give you what you are really
craving?
Sometimes we choose activity in order to hide from the things we might
find out about ourselves. Perhaps if we were more still and listened to
God in the silence we might make profound discoveries about ourselves. .
Abbot Christopher noted that most of the men who came to be his guests
at the monastery found it very difficult to not be busy. They found it
hard to turn off their mobile phones, even though most of the calls they
made were not about much. They found it hard to stop rushing about and
to accept that being with God was the only place that they had to be for
those few precious weeks. And it was hard for them and it is hard for
us. Because doing things is sometimes necessary or it can be used as a
bit of an escape. Some of us fill our lives with things we want to do,
or even don’t much want to do, because we need the validation of being
busy. Or we enjoy the pace and bustle because it is a diversion, a
distraction from inner loneliness and fear.
We need to devote real listening time to God, because only by getting in
touch with God can our deepest inner needs and longings be addressed.
Now I hate going on retreat. I find it hard to go and be quiet. I don’t
like being away from you all, I miss my family and yes, I enjoy my life
and work. Going into silence is hard. But if I am truthful, I am also a
little afraid of what thoughts might come if I had to spend a week in
silence on my own. So that has been my challenge for Lent, to try and
find an hour here and there, in the early morning just to be in silence,
with God, calm and waiting for him to speak.
In that mood of serene reflection, having read about
Silence, I set off to General Synod. I have written a little about what
was debated in Partnership news, so that if you are interested to can
see what is happening. Any gathering of religious people in these days
always has lots of pressure groups in attendance, people attacking or
pushing Trident, campaigning for animal rights, wanting green issues or
gay issues fore fronted, wanting the Prayer book and the thirty-nine
articles restored to importance. Before I go, I always receive a five
inch pile of material to read for the Synod, but in addition you get
bombarded with material from special interest groups. Every day at Synod
there are fringe meetings and receptions and demonstrations and
petitions… well you get the picture. Lots of commendable energy. Lots of
wonderful people busy doing things for God. Too many words and too many
speeches. The thing that matters, the things that we are really about,
can some times get lost beneath the weight of words and the sheer the
bustle of doing good and meaning well. Jesus knew this. While he was a
very sociable man, making friends, visiting, surrounded often by crowds,
he knew that in order to tap into the source of his strength. He had to
turn to the silence of the desert and be still and alone there. And it
was frightening. We are told that he was confronted by evil there. Evil
that challenged and tempted him. I expect he was tormented by inner
demons as well, perhaps he asked himself difficult questions. “am I
doing the right thing? Should I stay on a path that will lead to my
death? Why don’t I go home and settle down? I have done a lot of good
things, brought many to God, Could I not have a little longer to enjoy
this wonderful world and the people in it?” Can we doubt that Jesus too
had fears or doubts? But when he emerged from the desert he wasn’t
shaken from his purpose by these questions, doubts and temptations. He
was strengthened. He had been cleansed by the stripping away of the
cares of life and in the quiet and loneliness of the desert and been
able to hear God better.
At Synod within the noise and words, there is worship and when it is
good worship, not too difficult and wordy, we can find our way back to
the source of our strength and our reason for being. And find the food
that truly satisfies.
In the Order of service for funerals, the minister reads
this prayers. “We pray that we may use aright the time that is left to
us here on earth”. If you look at the things you do, the things that
fill up your lives there will be two categories of things that you do:
stuff that you must do and stuff that you choose to do. Please let us
make this Lent a time when we each of us make a mental inventory, a list
of things in our lives: let us pray about that list, take out what is
necessary, in order to eat and survive and our duty to others, and then
lets look at what is left. Does it really satisfy us at the deepest
level? Ask yourself, are you starved for lack of quiet and tranquillity?
Is there anything you can do? You could start with turning off the radio
or the endless babble of TV in the background. You could cancel the
daily paper for a week or so. Perhaps avoid people who complain or
gossip, filling your mind with ugly, unnecessary words. And buy yourself
a bit of silence to see if you are spending your time wisely on the
things that matter. Amen