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| Quietness and Solitude Philip Berg, Narkis Street Congregation July 9, 2005
The third stanza is such a great description of feeling alone in the midst of thousands. And in the naked light I saw, There were a lot of artists singing songs of alienation in the 1960’s. Simon and Garfunkel gave us perhaps some of the more powerful images and with their beautiful harmonies made the songs very memorable .The meaning is always clear, no cryptic lyrics in these songs. There is a special bit of irony here however. Sound of Silence was always one of their most requested songs in concert—thousands of people were paying good money for a ticket to hear a song about loneliness and the inability to communicate with each other. Each person at the concert, an island in a sea of humanity. Paul Simon describes this in another song, I am a Rock. I have my books and my poetry to protect me; Thus sings Paul Simon. Alienation and loneliness has pretty much been the theme of our world since the day that Adam and Eve walked out of the Garden. Alienation has been the theme of thousands of books, songs and movies. Does anyone know what the first question recorded in the Bible is? A man and wife were walking in a garden in the cool of the day, and the Lord God called to the man and said “Where are you?” And where is Adam? Adam is hiding from God. Isolation, alienation and loneliness did not start in the 60’s. It started in the Garden. And ever since, we have been attempting to fill that void in our hearts which only God can fill. And how do we fill our lives? With activity. Lots of activity, because if you stop for a moment then you may find out just how empty you really are. This propensity for filling our lives with activity goes for the Christian and non-Christian alike. I gave the parasha reading on Leviticus 25 a few months ago and I started thinking more about the subject of the Sabbatical year. This led to thoughts about Shabbat in general and then about rest, and quietness and solitude, which led to thoughts about noise, busy-ness and the frenetic activity we see all around us. “Be still and know that I am God” says the Psalmist. (Psalm 46:10) It seems to me that most of us have lost the ability to find stillness and quietness. I would like to search the mind of the Lord this morning as to where this quietness of life has disappeared and how we might regain it once again. To launch us into this subject I would like to read an article by Barbara Brown Taylor. This is what she says on the subject of Shabbat. Anyone engaging in the practice of Shabbat can expect a rough ride for a couple of years at least. This is because Shabbat involves rest, freedom and slowness, none of which comes naturally to us in the 21st century. Most of us are so sold on speed, so invested in productivity, so convinced that multi-tasking is the way of life that stopping for one whole day can feel at first like a kind of death. As the adrenaline drains away, you can feel that your heart has stopped beating since you cannot hear your pulse pounding in your temples anymore. As time billows out in front of you, you can have a little panic attack at how much of it you are wasting since time is not only money but also the clock ticking on your life. For reasons like these, plenty of us take an hour here or there and call it Shabbat, which is like driving five miles to the store and calling it Europe. Two hours on a Friday evening is not enough. We need ten times longer than that to calm down enough to draw a deep breath. We need ten times ten to trust the saving rhythm of Shabbat without worrying that our own ambition will yank the rug of rest out from under us. You haven’t had the experience until you’ve tried keeping the Shabbat for the full 25 hours, and doing it for a year or two minimum. In its community form, Shabbat is not only about rest but also about resistance. Each time it appears in the Torah, the commandment limits the exploitation of others as well as the exhaustion of the self. When you stop working, so do your children, your animals and your employees, even if they do not believe in your God. You believe in your God, so they get the day off. By interrupting our economically sanctioned social order every week Shabbat suspends our subtle and not so subtle ways of dominating one another on a regular basis. If we paid as much attention to Lev 25 as we do to Lev 18 then we might discover that God is at least as interested in economics as in sex. Real rest involves all creation: freeing of slaves, forgiving debts, restoring property and giving the land every seventh year off. Lev. 25 shows divine concern for grapes, for heavens sake. It promises both tame and wild animals in the land enough to eat, along with the hired hands. While there are a lot of yard signs supporting the Ten Commandments in the rural county where I live, I do not know a single farmer who keeps the Shabbat holy by giving the fields their hard-earned sabbaticals. Where there is money to be made, there is no rest for the land, or for those who live in it. People who have already run out of closet space work overtime to pay the interest on their average $9,000 credit card debts. Resistance to such ravenous behavior will not come from those who are heavily invested in its revenue. The resistance will have to come from elsewhere, from those who live by a different rhythm because they worship a different God. This is my growing edge where Shabbat is concerned, and I cannot do it alone. God did not give this commandment to a person but to a people, knowing that only those who rested together would be equipped to resist together. To remember the Shabbat is to remember what it means to be made in God’s image and when the Shabbat ends, to join God in the holy work of mending the world. These thoughts sent me into a whole chain of thoughts about rest and quietness. What is the difference between loneliness and choosing to be alone in a quiet place? When one is young, especially in junior high and high school there is nothing worse than to be considered not cool, not hip, not “in”. I am using words that date me but I am sure that you can insert the right words that young people are using today. The main thing here is that it is extremely important to find some group where you fit in and are accepted. Those left outside these circles (unless you are a very exceptional kid) are often lonely people and lonely people often get very depressed. The tragedy of this loneliness and depression is that it accounts for one of the biggest causes of death for this age group—suicide. Thousands upon thousands of kids commit suicide in the US every year. It would be grossly simplistic to say that the reason in every case is that these are simply lonely people. It is obviously much more complicated than that. But a big percentage of these kids are in fact choosing to end their life because they do not fit in anywhere. This need to be cool can last into college years and beyond, but usually when one gets to college there is more freedom to be a free thinker, march to the beat of a different drummer. There often is the desire to really change the world. Rid the world of hunger, poverty and injustice, get involved in petitions, march on city hall, demonstrate. Then when one comes to be my age the quote from Bill Cosby, which Salim shared with us some weeks ago becomes all too true. We are not as concerned about injustice as we are about finding some quietness. Quietness is hard to be found these days, perhaps even impossible for those of us who live in the city. Martha, the kids, and I live on HaNevi’im (Prophets St.). There is a constant hum of traffic, with the occasional ambulance siren piercing one’s ear drums. There is the occasional screeching of tires; the sign of a near miss; there is the frequent deep throbbing bass of someone’s very expensive car stereo system. There is the constant blaring of horns and the occasional shouting match just outside our windows. It often sounds like the shouting is going to lead to some serious bodily injury but it never does. And when it comes to sounds in our daily life, one can go on. Home phone ringing, office phone ringing, company cell phone ringing, personal cell phone ringing, office door buzzer ringing, home gate buzzer buzzing, and yes, I know it is hard to believe, but somewhere in the house there is the sound of children fighting We have not even left home yet. Jaffa Road is only one block away from our house. For the past twenty years the department that fixes roads in this city has dug up and repaved Jaffa Rd. at least 20 times, not just the roads, the sidewalks as well. In the past year alone, they have done it five more times in preparation for the rapid transit coming to town. The sound of jackhammers tearing up every other street in town has left me with some weird sort of twitch at the corners of my eyes. One steps into the Post Office for a moment to calm ones nerves and there is a huge fight going on between Post Office clerk and Post Office customer. Noise, noise, noise everywhere. One of the interesting ironies of our modern day culture is that we now can plug in an IPOD, choose our favorite tune out of 10,000, and replace the external noise with a noise more to our liking. Along with noise, noise and more noise goes busy, busy, busy. Here is an experiment you can undertake over the next few months. When you ask someone “How have you been?” Listen to the answer and note it down. You will find that it is a variation of one the following responses. “You know, I have been soooo busy” or-“I have been going non-stop” or-“I have hardly had time to think.” We are a busy and a distracted people. Here are two scenes from every day life which highlight this propensity for distraction. You go out to a restaurant, you order your food and then glance around the room. Sitting right next to you is a young couple. They are sitting across from each other and their hands are intertwined in the center of the table. It appears to be a nice romantic dinner until your eyes move upwards, and then you see the young man and the young woman each on their separate cell phones. This is a new kind of romance. We shift now to the airport waiting lounge at Ben Gurion. We watch many joyful and tearful reunions and then we see one young lady running with arms wide open for a hug and then the man appears but he only has one arm wide open, the other hand is clutching a cell phone to his ear. He obviously has someone more important to talk to than the loved one he came to meet, because as she smothers his face in kisses he continues intently with his conversation on the phone.. Very bizarre examples of intimacy around us every day. Why are we so busy? What are we so busy doing? Why do we have “To Do Lists” that are a mile long? Here is a nice piquant story to illuminate this quandary. One morning Martha, her sister and husband, who live in upstate NY, were discussing the day’s schedule ahead of them. Martha’s sister was bemoaning the number of things she had to do that day. Her husband listened for awhile and then he looked his wife in the eyes and with a mournful look he said “Oh your list is sooooo long!” Now this could have gone downhill very fast. But luckily Martha’s sister looked at her husband for a brief moment and then burst into laughter. It has become their joke and they use it on each other whenever scheduling is getting out of control. Now it is easy to denigrate someone who is “out of control busy”. However it must be said that there is a good kind of busy. There are people who have a controlled, ordered and productive busy-ness. You have heard the cliché: “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” There is a lot of truth to this, but you have to ask the right kind of busy person. The other kind of busy-ness could be described as something almost frenetic. To be around someone who is frenetically busy can make you quite nervous. This is the same sort of person who sits next to you in a meeting and their leg is going 100 miles an hour up and down, up and down. There is a picture that comes to mind when I think frenetic or
frenzied or frantic if you will. It is when I am standing at the
corner of Jaffa and King George and Strauss in the center of town.
Hopefully many of you can picture it with me. You stand there
waiting at the stoplight and cars and buses and taxis and ambulances
are rushing by, then the light changes and the traffic comes to
a screeching halt. This is all very standard fare. But at this
particular traffic light something unique happens. Pedestrians
are allowed to walk in all directions at the same time; straight
across or diagonally in an X pattern. Halfway across the intersection
I look around and I think to myself “Everyone of us here
has a family, loved ones, jobs, heartaches and joys, deep concerns,
but where are we all going?” But as I mentioned earlier, busy is not all bad. It is a good thing to be involved and active in a controlled sort of way and making oneself useful. The other extreme is defined most commonly as a couch potato. I think that most of us have experienced this at least for a short period of our lives. I remember one summer vacation in particular when I was a college student in the US. I would get up at 11 AM and go down to the beach and watch the waves roll in. There was no thought of swimming—that would involve too much energy. Then I would go back inside and have some breakfast/lunch. Then I would watch some soap opera or sports on TV, and then I was ready for another nap. After the nap I would read the newspaper and order in Pizza and then watch TV until 3AM or whenever the screen went blank. Now some of us can keep that lifestyle up longer than others. I for one tired of it rather quickly. So from that pathetic couch potato life style, we are ushered into the rat race. And without God, without God’s perspective it becomes a rat race all too quickly. Where does one go to find some quiet? Nothing about our everyday life makes us want to listen. We live in an increasingly noisy place, where hurry and speed are the measure of a productive life. Waiting more than two minutes for a MacDonald’s hamburger or more than three seconds for a webpage to load becomes an irritation. Speaking of irritations, anyone who drives a car in town can relate to this one. You are sitting in your car waiting for the light to change. The light turns from red to yellow and instantaneously you hear the blare of a horn from the car behind you. In other words, if you are not moving out into the intersection before the light even changes to green then you are too slow. The guy behind you has places to go and you are hindering his progress. But finally, these irritations turn to an irritation with oneself, that I am being sucked into this speed culture. There is a prayer deep inside that cries out: Lord give me a heart that longs to hear your voice, one that is soft and teachable. Keep me from the distractions of a noisy, busy culture. The fact is, it is very difficult to escape these distractions. The hallmark of our age is that nothing ever shuts down. In most of the world now it is very important to be open for business, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. But you know, there is still one place in the world that things haven’t gone to this extreme. We are living in that place. Jerusalem is a unique city in many ways. It is also unique in that one can still experience the dynamic of Shabbat descending on a Friday evening. I don’t know what it was like in your neighborhood last night but by 7:30 PM on Prophets St. we were very aware that quietness had descended. If you live in any other major city in the world this does not happen. In the rest of the world it is of extreme importance to give everyone equal opportunity to shop for their stuff at Stuff-Mart, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. We should treasure what we have here in this city while it lasts. There are two words that resonate in my head from early in my child hood until today. The words are “Quiet Time”. The impact of the words are much more powerful than a simple definition would suggest. From as early as I can remember I was told of the importance of having a “Quiet Time”. Having a quiet time meant getting alone with God with the goal of hearing His voice. This quiet time could include many things, such as Thanksgiving, Confession, Praise, Intercession, Reading the Word and Listening. As a teenager attempting to follow the Lord, this became a bit too overwhelming for me. All the Para-church organizations preach the importance of having this quiet time—the Navigators, Campus Crusade for Christ, Young Life, and YWAM among others would all say unequivocally, “You must have a quiet time!” It came to the point that every time I heard the words I would flinch and get rather nervous. I tried and tried but was never successful in keeping it up or making it a discipline in my life. I experienced a lot of guilt over this failure. But since I have been married and especially since we have seen children fill our home, I have been driven to the need for a time of quiet. Call it nitpicking, but I prefer to call it a “time of quiet”. There is just too much mental baggage that comes with the inverse expression “Quiet Time”. Over the past year I have pursued this “time of quiet” like food and drink. I have come to the place finally after 55 years that I know deep, deep down that I need this time of quiet to survive. It has turned into a 2 hour period between 4AM and 6AM. It really is the only time of day that works for me. There is a verse from Psalm 73 that has really come alive to me as a result of these early morning rendezvous with the Lord. Asaph, the Psalmist is bemoaning the fact that it appears that the arrogant and the wicked prosper. He goes on and on. It appears to him that the wicked don’t have struggles, their bodies are healthy and strong, and they are free from burdens common to man. Now I have to say that this issue that Asaph is struggling with is not really one of my struggles at this point in my life. But there is a very key principle that we find in verse 16. Asaph says When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me until I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. It is very clear here. It is only in the quiet presence of God that we can keep our perspective on what is happening in our world. All the world’s values are upside down and if we are not pondering God’s ways then we slowly but surely will be sucked into the mind set of that world. Here is just one example of upside down values that are shouted in our ears at every corner, and that is that Bigger is Better. Bigger is always better except in electronics. We still prefer our laptops and our cell phones small. Everything else though must be Big. Believers in Jesus get sucked into this as well. A huge megachurch is a blessed church where certainly God is involved in a more powerful way than a small church. It seems that newsletters sent out by ministries both big and small fall into this trap as well. The tenor of the newsletter is always about what fantastic, huge exploits are being wrought for God. Now the Lord may or may not be involved in these perceived great exploits. But you know, there is one place that you can be sure that God is at all times. God is in very small closets where men and women down on their knees have chosen to get alone with Him. In this quiet place they are listening to the quiet voice of God which leads to a pouring out of their hearts on behalf of their children, their friends, and the world. The God of Israel chose to get the attention of His people in many ways. But perhaps the most powerful way is that found in I Kings 19:11-13. The Lord said “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountain apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.. It seems in my experience, that we as believers in Jesus are so busy looking for the wind, the earthquake and the fire that it is impossible to hear the gentle whisper. “Be Still and Know that I am God.” This is a verse that is quoted often in church circles. I have a feeling that most of us only pay lip service to this truth. Eight words in English, five words in Hebrew. We are pretty good about being busy about the kingdom and the king’s business. However, solitude is another matter. Be still and know that I am God. I have heard this verse all my life and I have always liked the ring of it. But the ring of it had a way of going in one ear and out the other. This verse, this concept, this truth is so essential for believers in Jesus today. There is so much that is clamoring for our attention. There is so much garbage that assails our minds daily that time alone with God is not a good thing, it is an absolute necessity. I think that one of the reasons that we avoid the times alone is that it is scary. It is a bit unnerving to be totally alone with one’s own thoughts, listening for God’s perspective on things. We might find out just how shallow we are, just how much poverty of spirit and soul there is inside us. The last time I shared from this pulpit I mentioned a rather depressing statistic about the lifestyle of Christians in the 21st century. The percentage of Christians involved in extra marital affairs, divorce, premarital sex, internet porn, etc. is no different than the secular world. Every year the percentages only get worse. We are talking about people who identify themselves as evangelical, born again, church attending believers. How can this be? From personal experience I can say that it is largely connected to this verse we have been considering. I made a commitment to the Lord when I was 17 years old and for the next year I was immersed in the Word. After that first year and for the next umpteen years, I spent almost no time being still and getting to know Him. You can spend 8 hours a day talking about Jesus and running to this church service and that bible study. At the end of the day I don’t know that you will necessarily know Him any better. Knowing Him involves some measure of intimacy. And this happens alone with Him in a quiet place. “Be still and know that I am God.” If this were a Bible study then it would be time now to break this verse down word by word. Let me briefly say two things. “To be still” is pretty straightforward. It has the idea of being quiet, silent, making no sound or noise or movement. Being “still” implies lack of motion or disturbance and often connotes rest or tranquility. The words “know”, and “I am” and “God” are far more involved to delve into. Suffice it to say this morning that we are not talking here about “knowing how to ride a bicycle”, we are talking about a “knowing” that speaks of the utmost intimacy. This is a truth that we have heard spoken a couple of times just recently from this pulpit. I guess a third time won’t hurt. I am up here moving my lips this morning and a certain percentage of what I am saying may be dead wrong or needs to be clarified. A certain percentage of it is just interesting stories, a certain percentage is right on and a certain percentage is filler. Now a person who is spending time on a regular basis in the presence of God will be able to discern the differences. If you are not spending this time alone with God, then there is every possibility that you will be tossed by every wind of doctrine. What this leaves us with is a worldwide church filled with believers in Jesus whose life styles are anything but godly. Having an ear that is attentive to the true voice of God is necessary for every waking moment. “Be still and know that I am God.” This is not happening in a huge portion of the church today and that is why we don’t stand out from the crowd. The latest superstar in American Christianity is Joel Osteen. He is being interviewed by every talk show host that can get their hands on him. And what is the message that this spokesman for Christianity has for America? There are only two points. God wants you to be rich and there is a call to bask in the absolute, unconditional love of God. This is not new stuff, it is still the prosperity gospel, just recycled and updated for the ears of the 21st century. Joel Osteen has 30,000 people come to his church in Houston TX each week. Recently, he bought the Compaq Computer Center for 15 million dollars, (formerly the home of the NBA Houston Rockets) and he is spending another 90 million dollars to renovate the place so that 100,000 people can come and worship on the weekends. 100,000 people, 100 million dollars. This is a happening place. This place will have state of the art everything. It will be an eye popping spectacle of a place. It will be glorious. You will have orchestras and audio-visuals that will blow you away. You will have everything needed to worship God in comfort and luxury. You can get on the internet and donate $2,500 for a red velvet cushion seat in the sanctuary with your name on it. This is obviously where God is at work according to the 20 million people who tune into his TV appearances throughout the month. He is the most watched preacher in America today. Joel Osteen is nicknamed the “smiling pastor”. It is not hard to figure out why this man is smiling from the veranda of his multi-million dollar home. It is also not hard to figure out why 20 million people are so attracted to his message and to the Temple that he is building for them. Here is how one individual explains the philosophy behind the American mega church. To be a success in marketing, you have to know where people itch
and then scratch it. Or you have to create a desire in them by
creating a hunger for something they currently do not have, nor
formerly knew they needed. All commercials can be condensed down
to one of these two truths. So to become a megachurch, a pastor
has to make church relevant. He has to give people what they want,
something that soothes that spiritual itch. In order to be a success
(i.e. large numbers of people and money) pastors must preach unchallenging
messages that uplift rather than convict. He must pander to the
lowest common denominator and make sure that whatever is taught
does not offend anyone at anytime. What we are seeing is really
nothing new, it is simply a fulfillment of One way to be drawn into this type of Hollywoodized Christianity is by not spending time alone with God and getting His perspective. From the world’s perspective you can ask the question; “what is there not to love about this Church in Houston—from God’s perspective this is anathema. It is in the quiet place, listening to the voice of God that people will be saved from being sucked into the lights and tinsel and the mega-mentality. I have been pointing my finger at Joel Osteen and what he stands for. The scripture tells us to “Judge not that you will not be judged,” but for someone in the high profile position that Joel Osteen holds, I think that he must stand accountable. I don’t know Joel personally, but what I have read about him, I would say that he is a brother in the Lord; he is however teaching a false doctrine to millions of devotees. And I think that it is not only right but necessary for Christians to speak out against this kind of teaching which is contrary to the Word of God. It is rather self evident that Narkis is not a megachurch and
our Pastor, Chuck, is the furthest thing from a Joel Osteen that
you could find on this planet. So it may appear that I am preaching
to the choir here. But the main issue is of course not Joel. I mentioned earlier that in Gen 3:9. God asks Adam, “Where are you?” I feel that that is the Lord’s message to us this morning and every day of our lives. “Where are you Philip?” I think that the Lord will always be more interested in where I am than in what I am doing. I am not in any way belittling actions. The Scripture is very clear that faith without works is dead. But I think that we have to be careful not to get the cart before the horse. First comes time alone with God and then comes the doing. For the past year, after many years of absence, I have been coming to the Lord each morning and saying “Here I am Lord, I am listening. I want to hear your voice. I am desperate to hear your voice” Matthew 6:6 says “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” For myself I have been convicted after so many years of neglect that if I am not doing this daily then I am just playing games and not worthy of being called a follower of Jesus. This is a personal conviction. I would like to say that it has made a huge difference. I am hearing His voice in the morning and it has been good, but the noise and concerns and responsibilities of my life continue to drown out that still small voice all too often and I lose it emotionally and spiritually and relationally with my wife and kids. By God’s grace and with the encouragement of God’s people I trust that I will be able to continue to focus on Him in the quiet place. P.S. I grew up in Japan and went to a missionary school in Tokyo. The dynamic of the missionary, always busy about the Lord’s work, was something I watched all my formative years. My Dad was a businessman not a missionary. But for many of the missionaries their idea of putting God first meant to be traveling all over the country non-stop, very busy, serving the Lord. The kids of these missionaries, living in a boarding school, were my classmates and what I saw by the time we reached high school was many disillusioned young people. Disillusioned both with God and with absent fathers. There are of course missionary families that are an exception to this scenario but the exception only proves the rule. Perhaps you have heard this before but if you go to any cemetery in the world one thing that you will not find engraved on any tombstone are the words, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” It seems a natural human desire to want eight steps on how to succeed. I don’t have eight steps on how to succeed in finding time alone with God. I personally don’t believe in the idea of eight steps or in any amount of steps. Everyone one of us is different and God deals with us in different ways. One day you get desperate enough to want something very badly and when you do you will go into that quiet place and you will find the Lord there; He is waiting for you there. When that happens you can work out the steps with Him. II Timothy 4:2 says, “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.” It has been my intention this morning to correct perhaps a lack of attention to the importance of finding that quiet place alone with the Lord. It is also my desire to encourage you that the Lord, the one who loves you perfectly, is waiting for you there. You may not be especially interested in hearing this, this morning and it may go in one ear and out the other as it did for me for so many years. The Lord has His timing in each of our lives. My prayer this morning is that I will not stray from this path that He is showing me. And together with Carlo Carretto, a beautiful Italian brother in the Lord, I want to be like a little child in the Lord’s arms, close to His bosom, silent, loving and rejoicing. Finally, this has been pretty serious stuff. Just a reminder
to keep a sense of humor through it all. If you don’t have
one (a sense of humor that is) then find someone who does and
stay close to that person. I did and it has been a life saver.
Thanks for listening and staying awake. |
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