I Preached...Again!

My sermon from September 28, in case you're interested. The title printed in the bulletin was "Silence is Not an Option." The true title, however, was "Silence is Stupid." If you would rather just listen to it, you can find the audio recording here. Or the video of the service here.

Bethany: Mark 3:3-6 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Rachel: Jesus was grieved at the hardness of the hearts of the leaders in the temple. He was angered by their silence. Paul Simon’s song, The Sound of Silence, calls silence a cancer. Most of you have heard the song, I’m not going to sing or play it for you, but just listen to a couple of the words:

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never shared

No one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools," said I, "you do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you"

But my words like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells of silence

When asked what the song was about, Simon was quoted saying, "the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other."

I used to imagine the Pharisees as the evil villains of the New Testament. I envisioned them, after being thwarted once again by our hero, Jesus, shaking their fists angrily and crying, “We’ll get you next time, Jesus! Just you wait!”

But were they really the villains through and through or did they just have hardened hearts? They were doing what they were taught and following the law laid out for them. Instead of the evil villain chant, it might be better to have imagined them speaking some rather familiar words, “But that’s the way we’ve always done it!”

They were following their instructions and it was hard for them to believe that years and years of practices and beliefs could be so challenged by one man. How could one young man know all this? How could his voice drown out all those that had come before him? If he was right, then everyone before him was wrong or misguided.

It was easier to harden their hearts against him, sink into tradition, than to open up their hearts and accept what was right in front of them. So when Jesus asked them that question about what it is right to do, they stayed silent.

Sometimes silence is the easiest route. But sometimes it’s the most damaging.

In one of my classes, recently, we were talking about racism in America. We discussed how, as one of our handouts put it, “learning to be anti-racist is a re-education process.” In that process, there are several obstacles and detours that stop us from reaching our end point.

One of those is silence. Our obstacle is that we stay silent. The handout goes on to give the reader a “reality check” and point out the consequences of remaining silent.

Jona Olsson, the author of the article, writes (addressing white people), “Our silence may be a product of our guilt or fear of making people of color or white people angry with us or disappointed in us. We may be silent because our guilt stops us from disagreeing with people of color. We may be afraid that speaking out could result in losing some of our privilege. We may be silenced by fear of violence. The reasons for our silence are many, but each time we miss an opportunity to interrupt racism, or to act as allies or to interact genuinely with people of color or other white people. And no anti-racist action is taken as long as we are silent.”

Another obstacle is exhaustion and despair. This obstacle leads to thinking such as “I’m exhausted. I’m only one person. I can stop and rest for a while.” Or “Racism is so pervasive and entrenched, there just isn’t any hope.” Olsson writes, “Despair is a real enemy of anti-racists. For our commitment to be a lifelong one, we must find ways to mitigate the effects. Burn-out or desertion are of no use to the struggle.”

A combination of these two is one thing that leads to a hardened heart. It’s not a conscious thing. But you see enough violence in the world and anger and it’s hard to think things will ever change. We see brutality on the news and we fear intervening when we see something happening in front of us because we don’t want that brutality turned on us. Our fear freezes our tongues and hardens our hearts.

Those in the temple, those ‘evil villains’, weren’t however, the only ones who had frozen tongues or hardened hearts.

Bethany: Mark 8:14-21 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” They said to one another, “It is because we have no bread.” And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” And they said to him, “Seven.” Then he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

Rachel: He seems to be teaching them what they need to do, where they need to go, over and over again, and, we see it more in Mark than the other gospels, but the disciples just don’t get it. They’re worried about the food or this or that. Jesus is telling them what they need to do, how they need to help others but their hearts have been hardened. They don’t get it. I imagine him saying this last line “Do you not yet understand?” and dead silence following.

Jesus’ whole ministry in Mark is a call to action, to bring God’s kingdom to earth, and to help others. The Pharisees are caught up in their laws and the disciples are caught up in their lunch. No one seems to get it.

We are bombarded daily with a call to silence. Society tells us in many different ways that it’s better to remain silent than to sound stupid. Sometimes silence is exactly what we need. But sometimes, silence is not an option. Sometimes silence comes from a hardened heart.

Lisa Kleypas may be a romance novelist, and maybe a romance novel is not somewhere you’d think to turn to for words of wisdom, but once in a while, a romance novelist will show their philosophical side. In one of her books, she wrote, “Many times in life I've regretted the things I've said without thinking. But I've never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken.”

When we see injustice, when we see racial profiling, when we know congress is not doing its job, we have to speak out. Martin Luther King Jr. said once, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Shelley challenged us in her final sermon to help with one organization that is making a difference in the lives of child soldiers. I know I sat in that front pew and cried while watching that video. But have I done anything since that Sunday to help the effort? No. I get so caught up in the if’s, and’s, and but’s. I find myself scared to say something wrong or to maybe even make things worse. I need to do something, though, because silence is just as harmful as possibly saying the wrong thing.

There are even organizations within the Church of the Brethren to make things simple for us if we don’t know what to say. Those working in the Office of Public Witness in Washington, DC, have created postcards and emails to send to our legislature about certain issues that, all we have to do is sign them and send them in.

A young adult I know, who’s a registered “Dunker Punk” has been working on sending 1,000+ letters to “higher ups” to bring back our girls who were kidnapped in Nigeria and to keep the issue in the light.

Some of our youth have stepped up and gone to events such as Christian Citizenship Seminar in New York and Washington, DC to learn about specific issues such as our carbon footprint and childhood poverty. They speak to government representatives on this trip, face to face most of the time or through an assistant. I would be terrified to do something like that, but they study, and know what they need to say, they pray that God will give them the strength and the words, and they jump in.

People are doing things, little and big things, and we can too. There’s a lot wrong with our world and there are a lot of people drowning out the voices that would turn it around, but a hardened heart won’t help anyone. We have to find each of our own little or big ways to speak out and speak up. Silence is no longer an option.