(By Jody)
Luke 1:5-25, 39-45
Gordon Hempton, audio ecologist, recorder of natural soundscapes, and silence activist talks about what silence means to him.
What does it mean to listen to God?
In the bible, God gives overt comment and instruction, even converses.
God calls out in the garden to the first humans: “Where are you? What have you done?” and from the burning bush: “Moses Moses!” and in the temple: “Samuel!” Prophets proclaim “This is what the Lord says...” and Angels deliver life-changing messages from God.
There are a fair few instances of God’s audibility in the Hebrew bible, and some in the New Testament too. Many of us won’t experience such conventional communication from God. And those who do hear God’s voice may not be sure if the voice is God or something else – voices need to be checked out with trusted friends and community.
The bible doesn’t only recount overt ways of hearing from God. There are dreams, often needing interpretation, signs and wonders, visions and images, and geographical indicators.
And then there are many times, many stories, where God is not making a big noise or flashing a bright show, and the people need other resources to keep company with God: other ways to listen beyond the obvious.
Individuals in churches and churches together want to listen to God. Without a sense that God leads, that there is something other than ourselves to listen to, we might have a small number who stay for the rituals and social opportunities, but most of us would move on, find other circles of meaning, and save a lot of money on window and roof repairs.
With an AGM coming up, this foundational need comes to the forefront. How can we listen to more than ourselves? How can we know where, out of many options and possibilities, God wants us to put our time and energy? How can we discover what this staid little box on Jervois Rd, and all the people who gather here, can best do to bear witness in our community to the transforming love of God?
Benjamin Gensic points out many congregations in the West are trying to process (or ignore) the demise of status, influence, and privilege of Christianity. We are surrounded by the relics and responsibilities of Christendom – yet we are in unfamiliar territory. No one wants a church full of people who are there because they feel guilty and hell bound if they’re not – but if the alternative is an empty church it forces some serious questions. How do we listen to God in this time?
Today’s text comes from the start of Luke. We read from this segment of our bibles every Christmas Eve – the story of Mary and her angelic announcement are very familiar to us, but this fills in the gaps: the nativity of John, path-clearer for Jesus.
The text weaves speech and silence. It was this theme of silence, and the knowing it enabled, that interested me.
Zechariah is silenced when he questions Gabriel. Elizabeth spends five months in seclusion when she discovers she is pregnant. What did they each learn in their silence? Later, the unborn baby John leaps, and Elizabeth knows she is in the presence of the mother of her Lord.
I’ve been listening to two professional listeners this week. Katy Payne, among the first scientists to discover whales are composers of song and the founder of the Elephant Listening Project, decoding the language of elephants, said: “Just being silent is a most wonderful way to open up to what is really there. I see my responsibility, if I have one, as being to listen.”
And Gordon Hempton, aforementioned audio ecologist and silence activist, from the video (and the Call to Worship) says he learned to listen lying in a storm, and that “Silence isn’t the absence of something, but the presence of everything.” “When I listen, I have to be quiet. I become very peaceful. And I think what I enjoy most about listening is that I disappear.”
What does it mean to be silenced, not drastically or for punishment, but just to find what else we might notice if we don’t fill the space with our opinions and impressions? We can guess what it meant for Zechariah and Elizabeth, and for John’s fetal formation.
It’s not that I have a particular agenda about this, I’m not angling to silence free for alls, introduce a Quaker hour of stillness, lift the work of sermon preparation from my shoulders.
But I am curious what the invitations in silence are. Where do you notice yourself drawn to silence, or, perhaps more accurately, the presence of everything? And in the presence of everything, is it easier to listen to God? Gordon Hempton is nature focused, a luxury not everyone everywhere has. (In NZ many of us do.) But his points might be transferable in your life, even in the city, even with kids, even commuting, even surrounded by people.
Baptists are people of the word – we like our scripture and our preaching, we believe that in the polyphony of gathered voices we can discover the mind of Christ.
But something precedes all that. And perhaps it can just be called listening, listening in silence, listening for silence.
Maggie Ross, quoted by Sheila Pritchard in her article in the SGM magazine edition “Silence” says: “...deep silence [is] where we touch reality directly. We need to recover the ability to live at the intersection: in the present moment, energised by the upwelling from deep silence, where, in Christian terms, our shared nature with God becomes manifest.”
Sheila adds: “Silence is the portal, the access point to the ‘deep mind’ kind of knowing that seems mostly like unknowing.”
This is the precursor to discerning and decision making: listening, silence, presence. How can we put ourselves in the place of knowing that seems more like unknowing, and, grounded by that, go on to discern and make decisions about the life of this church?
Gordon Hempton again: Isn’t it amazing that our concert halls, our churches, places like that, they’re quiet places? They’re places where we can feel secure, secure enough that we can open up and be receptive and truly listen. And when we’re truly listening, we also have to anticipate that we might become changed by what we have heard.
Luke 1:5-25, 39-45
Gordon Hempton, audio ecologist, recorder of natural soundscapes, and silence activist talks about what silence means to him.
What does it mean to listen to God?
In the bible, God gives overt comment and instruction, even converses.
God calls out in the garden to the first humans: “Where are you? What have you done?” and from the burning bush: “Moses Moses!” and in the temple: “Samuel!” Prophets proclaim “This is what the Lord says...” and Angels deliver life-changing messages from God.
There are a fair few instances of God’s audibility in the Hebrew bible, and some in the New Testament too. Many of us won’t experience such conventional communication from God. And those who do hear God’s voice may not be sure if the voice is God or something else – voices need to be checked out with trusted friends and community.
The bible doesn’t only recount overt ways of hearing from God. There are dreams, often needing interpretation, signs and wonders, visions and images, and geographical indicators.
And then there are many times, many stories, where God is not making a big noise or flashing a bright show, and the people need other resources to keep company with God: other ways to listen beyond the obvious.
Individuals in churches and churches together want to listen to God. Without a sense that God leads, that there is something other than ourselves to listen to, we might have a small number who stay for the rituals and social opportunities, but most of us would move on, find other circles of meaning, and save a lot of money on window and roof repairs.
With an AGM coming up, this foundational need comes to the forefront. How can we listen to more than ourselves? How can we know where, out of many options and possibilities, God wants us to put our time and energy? How can we discover what this staid little box on Jervois Rd, and all the people who gather here, can best do to bear witness in our community to the transforming love of God?
Benjamin Gensic points out many congregations in the West are trying to process (or ignore) the demise of status, influence, and privilege of Christianity. We are surrounded by the relics and responsibilities of Christendom – yet we are in unfamiliar territory. No one wants a church full of people who are there because they feel guilty and hell bound if they’re not – but if the alternative is an empty church it forces some serious questions. How do we listen to God in this time?
Today’s text comes from the start of Luke. We read from this segment of our bibles every Christmas Eve – the story of Mary and her angelic announcement are very familiar to us, but this fills in the gaps: the nativity of John, path-clearer for Jesus.
The text weaves speech and silence. It was this theme of silence, and the knowing it enabled, that interested me.
Zechariah is silenced when he questions Gabriel. Elizabeth spends five months in seclusion when she discovers she is pregnant. What did they each learn in their silence? Later, the unborn baby John leaps, and Elizabeth knows she is in the presence of the mother of her Lord.
I’ve been listening to two professional listeners this week. Katy Payne, among the first scientists to discover whales are composers of song and the founder of the Elephant Listening Project, decoding the language of elephants, said: “Just being silent is a most wonderful way to open up to what is really there. I see my responsibility, if I have one, as being to listen.”
And Gordon Hempton, aforementioned audio ecologist and silence activist, from the video (and the Call to Worship) says he learned to listen lying in a storm, and that “Silence isn’t the absence of something, but the presence of everything.” “When I listen, I have to be quiet. I become very peaceful. And I think what I enjoy most about listening is that I disappear.”
What does it mean to be silenced, not drastically or for punishment, but just to find what else we might notice if we don’t fill the space with our opinions and impressions? We can guess what it meant for Zechariah and Elizabeth, and for John’s fetal formation.
It’s not that I have a particular agenda about this, I’m not angling to silence free for alls, introduce a Quaker hour of stillness, lift the work of sermon preparation from my shoulders.
But I am curious what the invitations in silence are. Where do you notice yourself drawn to silence, or, perhaps more accurately, the presence of everything? And in the presence of everything, is it easier to listen to God? Gordon Hempton is nature focused, a luxury not everyone everywhere has. (In NZ many of us do.) But his points might be transferable in your life, even in the city, even with kids, even commuting, even surrounded by people.
Baptists are people of the word – we like our scripture and our preaching, we believe that in the polyphony of gathered voices we can discover the mind of Christ.
But something precedes all that. And perhaps it can just be called listening, listening in silence, listening for silence.
Maggie Ross, quoted by Sheila Pritchard in her article in the SGM magazine edition “Silence” says: “...deep silence [is] where we touch reality directly. We need to recover the ability to live at the intersection: in the present moment, energised by the upwelling from deep silence, where, in Christian terms, our shared nature with God becomes manifest.”
Sheila adds: “Silence is the portal, the access point to the ‘deep mind’ kind of knowing that seems mostly like unknowing.”
This is the precursor to discerning and decision making: listening, silence, presence. How can we put ourselves in the place of knowing that seems more like unknowing, and, grounded by that, go on to discern and make decisions about the life of this church?
Gordon Hempton again: Isn’t it amazing that our concert halls, our churches, places like that, they’re quiet places? They’re places where we can feel secure, secure enough that we can open up and be receptive and truly listen. And when we’re truly listening, we also have to anticipate that we might become changed by what we have heard.
