Wisdom 5:9-23; Col. 2:8-23; Luke 6:39-49

Usually I focus on the stories, themes, or topics within the passages themselves.  Today my imagination was caught by just one concept: keeping silence.  Silence, peace, and centering has been hard for me to find lately.  My days have been filled with VERY upset people, with the news of the budget recommendations and struggles at First Pres.  I have appreciated all the care and concern you all have shown me and I would have it no other way.  And yet, there is no silence or peace to my day.  It is non-stop.  I too am crushed.  So there are the outside voices to my day.  There is also my inner voice, crying out by the suddenness and creepiness of all this.

And then I read in Psalm 50: “Our God comes and does not keep silence.” 

Today I found myself dwelling on the idea that God does not keep silent.  That is an inverted way many people experience God.  We spend our days hustling and bustling around, and many feel that God has fallen silent – deaf to this world of brokenness.   In this view, he sits up there, watches from above, sometimes in horror, but has abandoned many people’s lives.

In my early days of contemplative prayer I would struggle to silence my voice.  It took a lot of practice to get to where I heard God regularly.  And I am not saying I have mastered this – for we are all beginners in prayer – but perhaps those who don’t hear God have simply fallen out of practice.  Perhaps they never learned to listen for God.  God is speaking.  I know this to be true.  And so we pray for silence.

We are also told in the psalm that God comes as judge.  He gathers the faithful ones and looks for the mark of thankfulness.  And while we might seek to be in silence with God, we have to understand God is not silent with us – always guiding and speaking to this world.  It is our choice whether to acknowledge God’s call or not.

It appears in our political world, there are some that would like to silence the voices of others – that there is a story to tell and their goal is to scuttle that.  As you and I well know, this never happens.  The story will come.  God’s justice will prevail.

And so let the noise come.  In your life.  In our country.  In our church.  Let God speak boldly to you.  And as I depart the daily life of FPCOKC, know that God will continue to speak loudly.

Be listening.

-Matt