+ Thoughts on the 10th
Sunday after Trinity (2026) +
1 Kings 19.9–18;
Psalm 85.8–13; Romans 10.5–15; Matthew 14.22–33
There’s a silent thread running through today’s readings that
makes talking about them difficult.
In the first one Elijah, fleeing for his life, heads to a
cave and mistakes the voice of God for the big dramatic events that crop up: 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 19.11-13).
I wonder if you know that silence. I hope you do. It’s
described as the sound of sheer silence here; a silence that is filled
with the unmistakable, peaceful presence of God, so that you know, when it
comes, that you are standing on holy ground and you also know that all is well.
There’s a Psalm appointed for today that goes like this: I
will listen to what the Lord God will say, for he shall speak peace to his
people and to the faithful (Psalm 85:8). This sheer silence always speaks
peace to us, when we have quietened our souls and opened our ears to it.
St Paul in the 2nd reading writes that this Word
of God is not something we need to ascend into heaven or descend into the abyss
to grasp because The word is near you, on your lips and in
your heart (Romans 10:5-8).
And finally we are given a glimpse of Jesus’ reliance on the
sheer silence when, after a day of ministering and feeding 5000 people, he dismisses
his noisy disciples and tells them to take their boat to the other side of the
Sea of Galilee and he heads off by himself into the Presence of his Father.
And while he makes his way back to them, walking on the
waters of chaos and back into their turbulent lives, he seems untouched by the
dramatic storm that is raging around the boat, and in the souls of the
disciples themselves.
You know, this is the persistent testimony of people who make
a habit of stepping into the sheer silence on a daily basis.
The chaos and the storminess and the turbulence of life seems
somehow to recede into the background. Life can still be busy and demanding and
messy, but there’s a certain detachment that sets in, and a certain peace and
perspective that mitigates against what would otherwise make us stressed and
anxious.
My wife, my brother and I had a really interesting
conversation on Friday evening. We were talking about talking and it got me
thinking.
But before I get into the meat of that conversation and our
thoughts about it I’d like to tell you a story.
Way back in around 2004-5, while I was teaching in London, I
did some post-graduate study in the psychology of education. It was a study of
how some theories in psychoanalysis could help us to understand why some people
found it difficult, for emotional reasons, to access education.
Anyway, part of the course involved a study of how group
dynamics play out and that involved something they called an ‘Experiential
Group’.
Picture the scene. There were 10 chairs, laid out in a circle
in an empty room. There were 8 of us, waiting for whoever it was that was going
to be leading whatever it was that this ‘Experiential Group’ was.
Nobody told us what it was about and that was part of the
set-up.
We were there on time so we sat and waited for about 5
minutes when 2 psychotherapists (a man and a woman) walked in, without saying a
word. No introductions; no instructions; no pleasantries. Nothing…
They took their places in the 2 empty chairs and sat in
complete silence for a moment before one of them said, ‘Let’s see what
happens’.
Then nothing happened. They just sat there in silence, and we
went a bit mad.
I remember feeling very anxious and trying to hold still and
pretend I was comfortable. One of my fellow students huffed and puffed and muttered
something about this being a waste of time, and then he pulled out a book and pretended
to start reading. Some got the giggles. Some started flirting with the male
psychotherapist and another asked them again and again what we were supposed to
be DOING? He got angrier and angrier.
Well they sat there, perfectly calm, and said nothing!
It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life
because it showed me that when we strip away all the conventions of social life
– all the rituals and the small talk and the pleasantries what emerges in us is
a profound anxiety that leads to behaviours that border on insanity.
We get very anxious when we don’t know what to do, especially
in social situations. Think of the awkwardness of a trip in a lift when it’s
just you and a stranger, in silence.
One of the ways we relieve anxiety when we are with each
other is by talking, and that brings me back around to the conversation with my
wife and brother on Friday night.
I love talking. My job depends on it and always has, and it’s
important to me, but I am acutely aware that there are times I talk to relieve
tension because I am anxious; I’ll often use humour when I feel threatened;
I’ll try to sound interesting when I feel overlooked; I’ll try to sound strong
when I feel weak or inadequate. The list goes on.
My wife and brother added to the list and one of the really
interesting ones that came up is that we often fill the silence because we are
defending against a feeling of emptiness, as though, when we peel back the
layers of our personalities and characteristics there’s a very scary feeling
that there’s nothing really there.
And now we are touching on something very deep, something
very vulnerable in the depths of the human soul: a feeling, and a fear, of what
we might call non-being. A fear that under the many masks and defences we wear
there’s nothing really substantial there. A sense that fundamentally we don’t really
exist in any permanent sense.
We all share this fear at some level and it’s why an enormous
amount of energy is spent on encouraging people to ‘be themselves’ (as though
anyone really knows what that means); and even more energy and money is spent
on spiritual practices and therapies that help us to ‘find ourselves’.
This is all a very long-winded way around getting to my
point, which is that if it’s a very difficult thing to sit in silence with each
other it’s also a very difficult thing to sit in silence with God.
So when preachers encourage Christians to pray, and to
develop a habit of prayer, I think we sometimes forget how challenging and
anxiety provoking that can be.
Like my two psychotherapists from the Experiential Group, God
is often silent.
Now what happened in the Experiential Group is that over
time, as we grew in trust with one another, and with the two therapists, the
silence got easier. It was no longer as threatening as it was in the beginning.
The fear that we were going to be judged, or criticised, or even attacked,
receded and we began to simply enjoy being in each other’s company.
I think this is the journey that any Christian goes through
when they begin to devote time to regular prayer. All sorts of fears come up:
what if I have nothing to say? What if I actually hear his voice and find out
he doesn’t like or even love me? What if I am not enough? What if under my
masks and defence mechanisms there’s just a big hole and I am not really there?
Can God love the empty space that is me?
This is one of the reasons that our Christian tradition gives
us prayers and methods of meditation and suchlike. The tradition knows how
difficult it is to step into the presence of God without the small-talk;
without the introductions, the instructions and the pleasantries.
So we have words to use like the Lord’s Prayer and the Glory
Be and the Litany; we have Bible reading and those methods that use beads, like
the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary, These are all there to give us something to do
until the silence works its magic on us and we begin to realise that we are in
the presence of a God who loves us; who will not judge; who will not criticise;
who will not attack. The God who gives peace.
When that happens the silence becomes something warm and
delightful and reassuring and we begin to develop a taste and a hunger for it.
When that happens we can
say along with the person that wrote Psalm 62: For God alone my soul waits
in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my
fortress; I shall never be shaken (1-2).
Try it. You might like it. And if you would like some help or some pointers come and have a chat, or even think about joining us for morning prayer at Bishop’s Caundle on a Wednesday at 9.30am.
God bless you all.
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