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Meditation
for Remembrance
Micah 4.
1-8
Luke 1. 68-79
Silence falls.... That - I would guess - is a major part of
what has brought you hear this morning. Wanting to remember -
the fallen and the wounded.
What does the 2 minutes' silence mean to you, you who are here
- who have come to keep silence? To show your respect? Is silence
just a blanket that we can wrap around ourselves on a cold and
frosty November morning? Does it bring home to us the importance
of the day - the enormity of the sacrifice made for our peace?
Is it a time to fidget and feel awkward? Not sure where to look?
What to do? - an uneasy silence? The Silence of dis-ease???
Silence is golden - oh how often have we heard that? Especially
(when we were children) on the lips of exasperated adults! So
what is the value - the true value of silence?
The silence of the grave ; well death is the great leveller.
We are all silent in the grave. Our earthly strife is over and
we pray that we may rest in peace. Softly and silently drifting
to eternity. People often comment on the peace and quiet of a
churchyard - especially a country churchyard as here in Pattingham
... all that might disturb us here is the distant bleating of
sheep on the hillside...
The Silence of the Lambs? That was a film that came out a few
years ago - one that showed something of what happens when humanity
becomes totally corrupted - when the noise of the Holy Spirit
is overwhelmed and replaced by the voice of evil.... Friedrich
von Hugel - 19/20th Cent theologian wrote - "Be silent about
great things; let them grow inside you. Never discuss them: discussion
is so limiting and distracting. It makes things grow smaller.
You think you swallow things when they ought to swallow you.
Before all greatness, be silent - in art, in music, in religion...
silence"
Silence of the lambs... Lambs to the slaughter. - thinking of
all those generations of young men who remained silent in their
graves. Who never returned to the villages and towns that had
waved them off, - frequently with brass bands playing and people
cheering them on. As they marched away to war; to the inevitable
carnage of the fields of Flanders - where only the poppies remained...
silent witnesses to the death that came - to the unending silence.
Just as Peace is not just the absence of War, but a much more
active concept - God's Peace, his Shalom, means seeking the wellbeing
of all - Means health and prosperity for the whole community
- not just ourselves, not just our own selfish wants. So Silence
is not just the absence of noise. Any musician will tell you,
Silence is as important as the notes in music. Music consists
of notes and silence, arranged in such a way as to please the
soul, or stimulate the imagination.
Silence has a presence and, paradoxically, a sound .... For
evil to triumph it only needs good people to keep silent. It
is not right for us to keep silent in the presence of violence
or injustice. Then we must shout - shout out for justice - shout
out for peace.
Blowing the whistle - today we see this as a way of finding a
voice for the voiceless. Of breaching the silence of officialdom.
100 years ago, blowing the whistle was often the signal for
going - 'over the top', climbing and struggling from the relative
safety of the trench - to the danger and probable certain death
of no-man's land .... no woman's land too. A place of nothingness,
oblivion and darkness. Darkness and pain. But silent? No. Too
many whizz-bangs and exploding shells for that. Men hung on barbed
wire entrenchments died, but not silently I think...
But silent was the danger of the gas that came stealing, snaking
across the mud and the blood and the bodies. Silently infiltrating
lungs and eyes; destroying sight, destroying breath - destroying
life - an angel of death wreaking its dreadful work - so silently...
eyes that closed for the last time. Breath that came gasping
and rasping - then not at all. All became silence.
Heads are bowed in silent prayer
Prayer may be public and voiced; or personal and silent. We do
not need to shout our prayers for God to hear them - although
there may be times when we want to speak them out loud. God knows
the secrets of our hearts - he knows our deepest desires before
we know them ourselves, and God wants only what is best for us.
- Whether we know it or not.
God is found - not in the noise of wind or earthquake. Not it
in the tumult of war, but in the silence of peace - that is when
the still, small voice can finally be heard - echoing in the
silence. It is in silence that God is known, and through mysteries
that he declares himself. (Meister Eckhart - )... "The very
best and utmost of attainment in this life is to remain still
and let God act and speak in thee." God is speaking still
to us through the voices of his prophets - pointed and potent
on the tongues of the children - who call us to account for the
state of this world. For the inhumanity that is all around....
for the death and destruction that we have wrought. And in answer,
so often all that we can use in our defence - is silence.
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