Coming to Our Right Minds: An Invitation to Silence

by Bishop Mariann | Jun 23, 2019

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 
1 Kings 19:1-15

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me” — for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Luke 8:26-39

The late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, canonized by Pope Francis in October of last year, was assassinated in 1980 at the height of his country’s civil war. He is widely believed to have said to the priests under his charge, “Your life may be the only gospel that the people will ever know.” 

I’m fairly certain what he meant is that when working among the subsistence farmers of the Salvadoran countryside, many who were illiterate, it wasn’t enough for priests to preach Jesus’ message. They needed to embody it, pattern their lives on Jesus, so that those who might never read about him could experience something of his love through them. St. Paul said something his letter to the Philippians: “Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” (Philippians 1:27) It’s a good way to think about the promises adults make–parents and godparents–in ceremonies of infant baptism. We promise to live in such a way that the children we raise will come to understand what it means to follow Jesus. Surely that is the charge for all Christians everywhere. 

In my experience, however, the patterning of my life on the gospel of Jesus is as much of a revelation for me as for anyone around me. I don’t mean this abstractly, but in the most concrete terms. From time to time, a gospel story shifts from being a teaching that I’ve read and know in my mind to something else entirely. It somehow takes up residence inside me and becomes for a season–sometimes for years–a  lens through which I see my life and through which I experience God. It becomes the gospel of my life. 

Being spoken to by God through a biblical text is a classic spiritual experience. It’s not unique to Christians, and it can happen to us with other texts besides the Bible. But this experience of feeling one’s life somehow addressed in this way is the most important reason for those of us who wish to follow Jesus to have a regular practice of engaging Scripture. It’s not simply to gain knowledge of the Christian story, as important as that is, but in order to allow the stories and teachings of Jesus to become vehicles of our transformation. What changes is rarely a dramatic rearranging of our life’s circumstances, although that can happen. Consistent with how Jesus lived and taught, the life transformation through a steady engagement with the written and spoken word is most often an internal experience of being given new eyes and ears with which to see and hear what’s around us. A story, an image, a metaphor from his life, can give us precisely what we need at a particular moment to live our imperfect and wondrous lives with courage and even joy.

Here’s an example from my own life with a story that you will hear in church if you happen to show up on July 20. It’s the story of two sisters, Martha and Mary. Along with their brother Lazarus, Martha and Mary were among Jesus’ closest friends. Their home was his refuge, a place where he was always welcome. On one occasion, Jesus arrived, and as was the custom, he went into the common room where men gathered for conversation while the women prepared a meal. Mary joined the men–a bold thing for a woman to do in that culture, while Martha busied herself in the kitchen. You may remember that Martha began to resent her sister for sitting at Jesus’ feet while she toiled alone. Martha complained to Jesus, and asked him to compel Mary to assist her. But do you remember what Jesus said? “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42) 

Several years ago, I spent the better part of a summer with Jesus’ words to Martha as my spiritual touchstone, only Jesus was speaking to me: “Mariann, you are worried and distracted by many things.” No argument there. “There is need of only one thing.” Every day I would repeat those words like a mantra: “There is need of only one thing,” and ask, “What is the one thing needed today?” It was a remarkably cleansing question. 

What I discovered was that each day’s answer was a bit different. One day the answer was honesty, a deep, no-nonsense honesty about who I was and what I felt and how things affected me. Another day, the answer was forgiveness, my capacity to forgive, the people who had hurt me and myself for the wrongs I’ve done. Another day, the answer was to be fully present to my family. On another, the answer was to see the work I had begun to completion. Still another–it was summer, after all, the one thing needed was rest. On some days, of course, many things were needed, not just one, but I then tried my best to put those needs in their proper order–most important first, allowing other cares and occupations to fall into line. 

I offer you that question as a good one to ask as the beginning of the summer, as well as the larger notion of living under a gospel imperative. Carl Jung once told a patient that a good rule of thumb when trying to make decisions is to tend to the next, most necessary thing. If you do that, he said, the Spirit will guide your path.  

Now I confess that the rather strange story we have before us this morning isn’t one of the more readily accessible texts for this kind of spiritual meditation. On the surface, it seems to be a story of severe mental illness, which our forebears understandably interpreted as demonic possession. The man seemingly possessed wore no clothes, refused to live inside, and he heard so many voices in his head that it was as if an army of soldiers were living inside him. I’m not sure what to make of the herd of swine that were driven off the cliff. 

But here is the part that spoke to me: as a result of his encounter with Jesus, the tormented man was returned to his right mind. In other words, “he came to himself,” which is exactly how Jesus describes what happened to the younger brother in his story of the Prodigal Son (just a few chapters ahead). In that story, you recall, a young man loses himself in wild living, having his persuaded his father to bankroll his freely chosen insanity. His self-destructive behavior eventually lands him penniless in a foreign land where he must hire himself out to a farmer in order to survive. It was as he fed the farmer’s pigs, and envied the pigs their food, that he “came to himself.” Restored to his right mind, he returned home to ask his father’s forgiveness. 

So this week, I’ve been reflecting on the all too familiar experience of losing myself, and having a lot of competing voices in my head. “Most of us live our lives caught in a whirlwind of stories going on in our heads,” writes the Augustinian monk Martin Laird in a guidebook he wrote on the Christian practice of contemplation, “like some wild cocktail party of which we find ourselves the embarrassed host. Often, we’re not even aware of how utterly dominating this inner noise is until we attempt to leave it through the doorway of silence.” (Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guidebook on the Christian Practice of Contemplation (Oxford Press, 2006).)

Where can any of us go to find ourselves again, to be open to the presence of God that can put us in our right mind, allow the murky waters of our soul to settle and receive whatever bits of clarity might come?

It can happen anywhere–on a walk, in your car, doing laundry, cooking dinner, or when you refuse to cook because the one thing needed is elsewhere. The common denominator in the setting for that kind of clarifying experience, however, is silence. Most of us don’t have a lot of silence in our lives these days, often by our own choosing. If that’s true for you, I wonder if you might consider the spiritual practice of sitting in silence, if only for 10 minutes, everyday. It’s not that God doesn’t speak to us in the whirlwind of our lives. What’s easily lost if we don’t practice keeping silence is our capacity to sift through those many voices, or still them completely.

That was the prophet Elijah’s experience, as we heard earlier. There was a great wind, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” What, indeed. What are you doing here and what am I–not here in church at this moment, but here in our lives? In silence we can ponder such questions and hear a different kind of voice speak. Martin Laird again: “It is your noisy chaotic mind keeps us ignorant of the deeper reality of God as the ground of your being.”

Jesus offers us a way to leave the cocktail party and experience a truer sense of ourselves, and of God as the source of life, freedom, and love. That way requires of us nothing more–and nothing less–than a bit of silence and sufficient attentiveness to go beneath the noise to the place where we can, like the healed man or the Prodigal Son, come to ourselves, be in our right mind, the place where clarity emerges and wisdom speaks.

So find some place, if you can, to practice silence every day. It needn’t be long. You don’t have to sit still, although that can be helpful. You can walk, be in your car, linger a bit longer in bed before getting up. It can be when you take a shower. The important thing is intentionality and persistence even when your time of so-called silence is filled with distraction. If you add to that silence a bit of Scripture reading–not a lot, just enough to keep you connected to Jesus’ words–chances are quite high that you will come across a phrase or story that will become the gospel of your life, a light to illuminate your path.

Let us pray:
Lord, you know how noisy the surface of life can be sometimes, how we can struggle with many voices in our heads and competing pressures in our lives. It’s not easy to know what is the one thing needed, or how we can live in our right mind, from our truest self. Help us to hear your voice, coming to us in silence, in the particular word from Scripture that might guide us now. Help us to find that place within ourselves where deep wisdom resides, so that we might live with peace and clarity. If our lives are the only gospel that others see, Lord, may we embody something of your grace and love.

Spiritual Tasks of a New Season – Celebration of New Ministry at Christ, Church, Rockville

by Bishop Mariann | Jun 22, 2019

So the Lord said to Moses, ‘Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tent of meeting, and have them take their place there with you. I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.
Numbers 11:16-17; 24-25a

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Romans 12:1-18

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
John 15:9-16

Let me begin with a word of thanks to God for the people of Christ Church and for your leaders who have guided you through a long season of transition. I also give thanks to the Holy Spirit for bringing the Rev. Lisa Zaina into discernment with Christ Church and all that resulted in her call to join you in ministry. Lisa, as you know, was sponsored for ordination by the Diocese of Washington, and many of us have been praying for the call that would bring her back to us. 

Lisa, I am one of your greatest admirers, and I am so glad that you accepted the call to be the spiritual leader of Christ Church, Rockville and serve alongside God’s people here. 

The beginning of a new season in ministry is a unique moment in the life of a congregation and its new priest. There is so much for Lisa to learn and to do, so many tasks that are part of Christ Church’s everyday life. There are assumptions and expectations all around; challenges and opportunities, some you may have anticipated and others that will surprise you. It’s also a time for discernment, as you clarify together your core purpose as a faith community now and the particular part of God’s mission you are being invited to join.

There is, God willing, a long life of ministry ahead of you, and not everything that needs to be addressed can be addressed at once. In this sermon, I offer for your consideration four essential tasks of this early season of ministry.

Relationships 
The first task is relational and organic. It takes time for one who has been selected as a spiritual leader to become that leader. There is no shortcut for the kind of relationship building that is the foundation of every healthy church. St. Paul, using an image from the natural world, writes of being grafted into the life of a community much like a seedling is grafted into a stronger plant. You need time to get to know each other–you as a congregation becoming accustomed to Lisa’s voice in the pulpit, her way of leading. Lisa, in turn, needs to come to know and love you enough to determine how best to lead. 

Whenever a congregation calls a new spiritual leader, its leaders are looking for someone whose spiritual gifts and pastoral presence will serve as a mantle for the community, to be its spiritual touchstone, the one who helps, over time, to establish a spiritual tone for all who worship here. 

This service provides the members of Christ Church with important insights into Lisa’s core philosophy of leadership, for she was the one who chose the scripture passages we’ve just heard, and she did so with great intention. So, let’s mine them for a few clues. 

In the passage from the Book of Numbers, Moses has just finished telling God that the job to which God had called him was far too big for him to accomplish alone. In response, God took a part of the leadership spirit entrusted to Moses and shared it among 70 elders, so that no one person–not even Moses–held leadership in isolation. 

I can tell you from experience that leaders who gravitate to this story are not lone rangers, those for whom the very thought of sharing their responsibilities and stature is inconceivable. Rather Lisa is among those committed to a collaborative view of leadership. She wants to share authority with those who demonstrate the gifts and passion for leadership.

It also means that Lisa knows who your Lord and Savior is, and it isn’t Lisa. Nor is it any of you. 

That brings us to the second reading, from Paul’s letter to the Romans, with its gentle reminder that a relationship with the living God is meant to change us all for the better. Our particular church, the Episcopal Church, likes to say–and we mean it–that wherever people are on their spiritual journey, they are welcome among us. 

Lisa has as welcoming and inclusive a heart as you will ever know. But her understanding of what it means to be on a journey of faith is that it is, in fact, a journey that leads to a destination. Our destination is to become more like Jesus–loving as he loves, forgiving as he forgives. We don’t drift toward becoming Christ-like. It requires real intention on our part, and a commitment to one another in community. 

Here, in Christian community, we learn how to grow into the stature of Christ, in large measure because we have to work at loving one another–holding fast to what is good, outdoing one another in showing honor, persevering in prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints.

Finally, with the gospel text from John, Lisa is telling you how she experiences Jesus, as one who comes to her and all of us in friendship and sacrificial love. To follow him means to grow in love–to know ourselves as beloved by God in Christ and increase our capacity to love ourselves and others. 

I’ve known Lisa long enough to know that these qualities and aspirations are her heart and soul. And I’ve known Christ Church long enough to know that your leaders were drawn to them for reasons that resonate deep within them and all of you. Now is the time, in this first season together, to bond together, get to know one another over time and in a variety of ways, building trust and shared experiences that will lay the foundation for many years of fruitful ministry together. 

Gentle, Courageous Evaluation 
If only you could do nothing else but get to know each other in this first season! Yet you’re not a community on hiatus. There are decisions to make, plans to put into action, budgets to manage. Thus you must do the necessary work well and also save enough energy for the second important task of this season: gentle, courageous evaluation.  

In the first season, it’s helpful to cultivate a kind of dual vision that allows you to pay attention both to what is before you now and at the same time to a larger sense of purpose. A Methodist minister in Herndon, Virginia, Tom Berlin, suggests a simple method for cultivating this kind of dual-vision is to invoke what he calls the two most powerful words for leadership: so that. Those who learn to use these two words, he says, will discover a way to clarify the intended, fruitful outcome of every ministry endeavor. (Tom Berlin and Lovitt H. Weems, Jr., Bearing Fruit: Ministry with Real Results (Abingdon Press, 2001)) 

There is a lot of biblical inspiration for this kind of thinking. Once you start looking for them, you see the words so that throughout the Bible: 

• “Let your light shine before others” Jesus said, “so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

• “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” writes St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, “so that you may discern what is the will of God–what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2) 

• “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Let me give you a practical example from Tom Berlin’s experience with a congregation that had for many years hosted a Vacation Bible School. He asked all those gathered to plan for the coming year to complete the following sentence: “Next summer our church will have a vacation church school so that….”

At first, very few people wrote anything at all, struggling to come up with the purpose of the Vacation Bible School. At last, one person spoke up: “Next summer our church will have a vacation bible school so that the children of our church will experience a vacation bible school.”  “Are there any other possibilities?” the Tom asked. Another said: “Next summer our church will have a vacation bible school so that children will experience church as fun.” Tom responded, “I’m not sure we need a curriculum for that.” 

After some time and deeper reflection, the group came up with this: “Next summer our church will have a vacation bible school so that our children will come to know and love God more and that we will reach children in the community with God’s love whom we have not reached before.”

That was a purpose they could be inspired by, get excited working toward and inviting others to join in. It was also one that could afterwards be evaluated by a standard of fruitfulness: did the children of our church have an experience of love; were we able to reach children in the neighborhood? If not, why not? What might we do better next time? 

The purpose wasn’t to have a vacation bible school. Vacation Bible School was a means to a greater purpose. If it no longer fulfilled that purpose they were free to consider something else. The focus became less about the activity but the outcome.

Weathering a Storm
The third task is hard and yet both important and inevitable: weathering a storm together. I don’t know what the storm will be, and unless you’ve already experienced one, neither do you. But I know that one is coming, because they always do. There may well be more than one. 

Remember this: how we handle ourselves in a storm has a greater lasting impact than the storm itself while you’re going through it. There’s no choice, when the storm comes, but to go through it, however if you can all remember that’s what you’re doing, it can help create enough distance for prayer and reflection. It will also encourage, when the storm passes (for it will pass) a post-storm evaluation. What did we learn about each other? About ourselves? What mistakes did we make? How did Christ reveal himself to us in the storm? How might we plan for the future so to avoid the conditions for that kind of storm to resurface? 

Drawing Closer to Christ
The most important task of this first season is one that Lisa’s choice of scripture passages holds before you with real clarity: to deepen your love relationship with Christ. 

I urge you, in this season, to create at least one new avenue exclusively devoted to that endeavor in your common life, and think as broadly as you can about that, so that as many people at Christ Church have the opportunity to grow deeper in a loving relationship with Christ for themselves. I’m not talking about simply an evening class or mid-week service for your 10 most faithful attendees, but an initiative that involves the  whole church in a multi-generational effort. 

I have all sorts of ideas about this: It could be a preaching series on a spiritual topic, augmented by a parish-wide book study, with small group gatherings in people’s homes and nearby coffee shops. It could be a proposed spiritual practice, such as the Presiding Bishop’s Way of Love, that all members of the congregation are encouraged to adopt and reflect upon together. The possibilities are endless, and perhaps the Holy Spirit has already planted ideas and possibilities within and among you. Pay attention to them. Give time and energy to them, so that you might draw closer to Christ, hear his unique call for each one of you and as a community, and have something of spiritual value to invite others to share. 

I am persuaded that the future of Christ Church, and all our congregations, depends on that kind of spiritual renewal and deeper experience of God’s love in Christ. Without it, we are running on our own energies, and our energies aren’t enough. Without it, we create a church in our image, according to our preferences, rather than open ourselves to the call of Christ to join in his redeeming work. But know that you needn’t do this alone. We are all in this holy work together. Now is our time, so that the Episcopal Church we love may take its humble, fruitful place in God’s mission of reconciling, healing love.

Will you pray with me? 

Loving God, we are so grateful to be here, at this moment in the life of Christ Church, and we pause to give thanks to all those whose faithfulness and love sustained this community over the years of its life. We thank you for Lisa, for her love for you and the gifts you have endowed her with for leadership. Bless this moment, Lord. Guide Lisa and the people of Christ Church to a place of deep trust and affection; help them to live into these first months and years with open and discerning hearts; be with them through whatever storms they might face, and through it all, in worship, study, service, and times of quiet prayer, may they draw closer to you and serve your mission of love for others. In your name, Amen.