INTO THE SILENCES

Our priest, revLois, has introduced periods of silence into our worship. It began the first Sunday in Advent and the silences were short. The first silence just before the confession during the Penitential Order; the second after the sermon, the third during the Eucharist just after the breaking of the consecrated bread.

The silences were very short in the beginning, lengthening week by week. I welcome these silences. They help me to focus on my worship 'business' at appropriate times. Before the confession I have the opportunity to consider more deeply those things that I have done and those that I have left undone. It is an opening up to God. It is a cleansing time, even before the absolution.

The silence after the sermon is, of course, time to reflect upon what the sermon says to me. At first there was much rustling of service leaflets and general fidgeting in the congregation. But as the season of Advent progresses, the silences are becoming still. We reflect. We sit in the quiet. Perhaps we just rest ourselves from the week's busyness. Whatever. We are still. We are in silence with God.

Just before receiving God's spiritual food is the best silence of all. A time to truly appreciate the gifts we are about to receive. A time to fully remember that we are the People of God. We are in the company of all God's people everywhere. ALL God's People.

I try to take the practice of silence home with me. It is not the same. There is just something enormously special about the corporate silence, just as corporate worship is special and different from my private worship. I will look forward to the silences next Sunday.

COMMENTS

Please read Lois' "Upon Moderating comments" over on Rambling's With Lois. I seem to have been hit by the same person. I think I now have my blog set to moderate comments. I don't like doing it as much as Lois does not like it. Sometimes things are just necessary for our own sanctity and those of our readers.

Sorry to any of you who were subjected to the off subject comment.

THE UPPER ROOM

WE are in the upper room. Grace Church is in that upper room. The disciples did not know how to cope without Jesus. They locked themselves into the upper room because they were fearful. Grace Church has locked itself into the past because we are fearful of losing the past. The disciples could not understand the death of Jesus and how they could go on with life. The Grace Church congregation does not understand the death of Grace Church as we know it or consider how to go on with life.

The disciples did not realize that life would never be the same. Grace Church does not realize that she will never be the same. Death changes everything. Death changes life. And so we sit as the disciples sat. Frightened. Bereft. Hopeless. Aimless. We are an apathetic bunch, waiting for things to get back to the way they were. Waiting. Hopeless. Aimless.

The disciples waiting in the upper room did not have the experience of the resurrection. We do. We have heard the story over and over and over again. Do we believe? Do we REALLY believe in resurrection? We are NOT the disciples sitting in the upper room. We have the benefit of knowing the story. We have the benefit of knowing that Jesus came to his bereft disciples and is already with us. If we believe we will look to resurrection and what that means to us right now.

It is not going to happen on it’s own, folks. We have to believe it. More that that, we have to LIVE it. Death changes life. We are being changed. NOTHING will ever be the same. We can accept that or we can deny it. Denial will be a slow and agonizing death. Accepting that this death we are experiencing will change how we gather, how we worship, how we view ourselves as disciples in the community is a call to act. What we DO!

Wake up, people! It is time to DO! It isn’t about what the church can do for us, it is about what we can do as church. We have to DO the doing. Wake up, people, everywhere. We don’t have to sit idle and frightened, locked in an upper room. We can gather together in hope and go out into the world living out the Good News. And we can encourage and support one another in our individual and collective endeavors.

Grace Church as we have known it is DEAD. It can be remembered. It can be celebrated as a good thing of the past. Now, let us all work together to resurrect ourselves as a church that will be a monumental credit to those who have gone before us and a church worthy of who we are as a people of today and build for tomorrow.

Death changes life. Let us choose the new life that we can be.

Jesus is here. Choose Jesus and the new life.