Contemplation and Testimony March 22, 2009 Fourth Sunday in Lent

Fourth in a series based on Christianity for the Rest of Us, by Diana Butler Bass.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
Henry David Thoreau

The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me?
Leo Tolstoy

Silence. It isn’t something we do well in the United Church. Silence makes us nervous, after a minute or so. I went looking for biblical references to silence, in terms of contemplation, and found one which fit - from the Book of Revelation, chapter 8, verse 1 - “and when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” We have references in the gospels of Jesus going off by himself to pray and meditate. Sitting in silence, fasting in the desert, wrestling with a call to give his life. From reading between the lines, we can guess that Jesus used meditation, and contemplation, as a way of staying focussed and spiritually healthy when things threatened to come apart.

When we talk about contemplation in the church, we tend to think of it as unproductive silence. We tend to think of boring people going around saying nothing, taking a vow of silence. A quick look in the lists will find us many orders which employ and engage in contemplation, but not necessarily silence. Among them are the Augustinians of the Midwest (Order of St. Augustine) which is a religious order, but there is also Augustinians of the Rosary, a religious order for laity and professed members who live out their vows while remaining in the world. There are the Capuchin Sisters of Nazareth - a joyful order of apostolic contemplative sisters who live in community and who work with the youth and in parish missions, and the Companions of St. Luke Benedictine, an Anglican Community based on the Rule of St. Benedict. It is open to single and avowed partners, both men and women. The Priory honors the past with rich traditions, but also recognizes the needs of a contemporary society. Just in case you thought the contemplative orders were all Christian, there is also the Sacred Order of Living Paganism, which is a spiritual order of brothers and sisters dedicated to deep Pagan learning and service.

Look up the meaning of contemplation - it means thoughtful observation, deep consideration, purpose or intention, prospect or expectation. That’s a little more than sitting in silence, or doing nothing.

One of the most noted of the Christian mystics, Hildegard of Bingen, was both a contemplative, a mystic, and one who constantly testified, through her music, her visionary art, and her writings and words. She was the leader of her sister community. When her immediate superior refused to allow her and the community more freedom and independence, she went over his head to get approval from Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. She was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to one sister. At the age of 42, she received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear."

Diana Butler Bass says that many church growth specialists (and probably some of us) think that successful churches keep everyone entertained in worship. Silence is seen as a turnoff. Tradition in the church reserved contemplation and silence for a handful of people. It has not been encouraged among congregations. No wonder we are uncomfortable with silence. John Fiorni, who teaches at Johns Hopkins University, says that noise is described in Latin as horrovacui, or fear of nothingness or emptiness. In our lives, we tend to fill up every moment with some kind of noise - talking, music, whatever. In our worship, we have to fill up every moment with prayer, music, preaching - and we rarely sit in contemplation. But to be spiritually healthy, we cannot reserve this for just some sort of spiritual elite. If contemplation means deep consideration, purpose or intention, then every congregation should be engaging in periods of contemplation in order to determine the purpose and intention, the reason the congregation has for *being*. Far from being an odd thing that only a few people do, it should be something we all do. The church offers us seasons, such as Advent and Lent, to take advantage of the opportunity to do some “intentional reflection”, and pay attention to God.

But contemplation doesn’t just mean silence. It also means times of speaking. Testimony. There’s another scary word for us, because we get in our head visions of televangelists rattling off rote “testimonies” of faith, and calling people into emotional commitments to something, whatever. Testimony is another thing, like silence, that we don’t do in the church. We think faith should only be a private thing. And of course, in the United Church, we don’t “do” testimony. We don’t say what we believe, unless it is included in an order of service, and we say it all together so no one sticks out. I wonder if any of us would have the courage to stand in front of our congregation, and say openly what we believe. Well, of course I can - to a point. Preaching, teaching and leading are all parts of testimony. Confession is a part of it, of course. But I am thinking of testimony in terms of telling others about our journey in faith, how we got to where we are now, what this community of faith means to us in the journey.

The disciples and followers of Jesus, in the Book of Acts, went from place to place testifying to their faith. Acts 8 says “When they had testified and proclaimed the word of God, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.”

Diana Butler Bass talks about the advertising campaign of the United Church of Christ, called “God is Still Speaking”. She notes that the Christian story is not about distant historical events, although these are part of the basis of faith; rather she says the Christian story of the power of faith is something which has relevance here and now. Stories of discovering faith, living faith, struggling faith and risky faith.

She notes sociologist Anthony Giddons claims that each of us not only ‘has’ a biography, we live a biography. The great philosopher Hegel spoke of the universe unfolding; likewise, our lives unfold as we live them. In fact or lives, and our faith journeys, are narratives. When we are able to see ourselves in the narrative, we can gain confidence in speaking about it.

I wondered, as I wrote this, how many of us spend time in contemplation, reflection on purpose and intent; and how many would be willing to speak about their life journey in front of others. Or book leads us to churches where people are willing to risk. In this Lent, a time of meditation and reflection, would we be willing?