Rules to Flourish By - Reverend Canon Julie Price

Reverend Canon Julie Price | 2 Kings 6: 8-23, Acts 17:15-end

My primary, paid role is hospice chaplain and you might be surprised to hear that human flourishing is something that we are very keen to encourage in the hospice.

We want every patient to be able to flourish with whatever life limiting conditions they may have, in the time that they have left.

But of course, whether you believe that is possible or not will depend on your definition of flourishing.

A brief google search describes flourishing as developing rapidly and successfully or thriving… but for those of us who try to live in relationship with God, flourishing is more about living in Shalom or in God’s wholeness.

Shalom is often translated as peace but it is a peace that is more than just a sense of tranquillity.

It is the peace that includes things like a sense of completeness, wholeness and being held whatever else might be going on that is good or difficult.

And both of these definitions of flourishing have a part to play in the hospice.

Speed is of the essence of course in responding to symptoms and building trust…but enabling a patient to find wholeness and well-being and thrive despite life limiting and terminal illness can take time and will differ for each individual.

But whether we are talking about the charged atmosphere of the hospice or the more normal rhythms of living at home… one way of attempting to flourish and encourage shalom is, I think, to listen and keep silent.

So, for my offering in this sermon series on Rules to flourish by I would like to suggest silence, for ourselves, for our communities, church and secular and for others.

For it is my belief that we can grow and flourish where noise diminishes and communion with God and each other is given space to deepen.

When we are silent, we can really hear what God or the other or just our own hearts are really saying.

It’s a well-known trope that ‘silent’ and ‘listen’ are anagrams of each other but they don’t necessarily follow one another.

Someone can be silent and not be listening at all whereas if you are really listening you have to be silent.

I think it was Rumi who said that the quieter you become the more you are able to hear.

So, have you noticed how noisy the world can be or how noisy our minds can be?

We are often over-stimulated and anxious.

I wonder how many of us put on the radio or t.v. ‘just for company’ or find that the ambient noise of our environment…

… such as traffic or machines has become so much a part of us that we hardly even notice it.

You might be interested to learn that noise pollution of any kind can be linked to stress responses…with increases in the levels of cortisol and adrenaline, sometimes leading to anxiety and depression and sleeplessness to name just a few common stress problems.

And added to the ambient noise of our surroundings, we seem to live in a world that is on constant broadcast.

A world where it is considered a right to express every opinion, whatever the cost to others might be.

But silence offers us space and time to evaluate a situation, listen to ourselves and God and truly hear what is being spoken…and only then decide if a response is needed.

When reading the Book of Job, had you noticed that Job’s three friends, on reaching him after hearing of all his troubles and setting off to comfort him… first sat with him in silence.

We often focus more on what they eventually said, but we are told that they first sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights… and no-one spoke a word to him for they saw that his suffering was very great. (Job 2:13).

When we intentially sit with silence, we are completely attentive to ourselves or to the other.

We notice body language and open up space to find the words that need to be spoken.

It was only after the seven days of silence, that Job then spoke out his pain.

Silence offers us space, grace and connection if we are prepared to see it as a gift and not as punishment or restraint.

So, I would like to explore each of these points a little more as we add silence into our tool-bag for human flourishing.

Firstly, space.

Silence can be interpreted as an absence, as nothing, as waste.

Listening into this silence can feel frightening or uncomfortable.

But have you ever been trying to explain something to someone and as you wrestle with the words or feelings in your head… your listener jumps in with their own ideas and interpretations?

As a result, you may find your mind loses its thread and the moment is lost to say what was needed.

Many people find this silence as absence, as emptiness, as a gap that needs to be filled… but perhaps it can be reinterpreted as a space… a space without distraction and full of possibility.

That silence that seemed empty is a space full of opportunity to hear our deepest thoughts… feel our deepest feelings that may lie buried beneath fear, shame or just the exhaustion of trying to keep everything together… and as we learn to stay with the silence, we may learn to hear the voice of God also.

My experience of hearing God is that He doesn’t shout, but whispers.

It is only when I successfully stop all my noise do I give space for God to speak.

We know well that Jesus would withdraw to a quiet place to pray and hear His father speak… and Luke tells us that one night as He was preparing to call His disciples, He spent the whole night up a mountain praying. (Luke 6:12)

Maybe you manage silence very easily and can also spend hours listening into the space… but if you are anything like me, the minute I try to remain silent and listen for God’s whisper or really hear what someone else is saying…… my head is full of noise… I fidget and fret and only after recognising my own anxiety at the space that’s opened up am I able to regain the space for real listening.

But if we persevere, this silence, this space, will open up and we will receive it as grace…a gift to one who needs to be heard.

So, silence is grace.

It is a gift to give someone the time and space to see what is true and new or just needs to be told and so very few people give us this gift.

They are usually much more keen to tell us what they think or what we should think…And we are often much more impressed by people who have a lot to say.

Those of us who believe in the power of silence can be seen as opting out, being overwhelmed or just a bit dull… maybe not really achieving anything.

But as we remain silent, offering this gift, this grace, we find that those we are listening to settle into the silence too… and find the words they really need to speak or perhaps see their situation in a new light… that may even be a revelation to them, or us of course if we are the one trying to find the words.

I was listening to a patient the other day who told me that they had never spoken out their whole story to anyone.

Over the course of an hour, they drew the threads together from earliest childhood to mature adulthood understanding themselves better in the process… and seeing that the guilt that they carried was not theirs to carry.

What a privilege to hear that and what a gift to enable that.

And as we truly listen to another and hear their story, we find ourselves connecting with them… relating to them in the most profound and intimate way.

It is, in my opinion, an expression of love…and that is true of listening to another person, or to God.

As we connect with them, we recognise that we all inhabit this one world and are all God’s creation who He loves… we are not alone.

And so, this silent space that is gracious also helps us to connect at a deep level with others and sometimes those others are not like us… they might think and live differently to us…they might not believe what we do… we might struggle to find a connection with them.

In our reading from Acts, when Paul had the opportunity to speak to the philosophers of Athens and they truly listened to him… some of them allowed themselves to believe that something truly new had been revealed to them.

In the silence of their listening, God spoke to them through Paul and touched their hearts, enabling them to seek to hear more.

Paul was talking to people with very different beliefs about life and God to him.

Among them, the Stoics and Epicureans also didn’t believe in the same things but were both looking to also achieve human flourishing or a state of Shalom.

Put very simplistically, the Epicureans sought flourishing by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain…whereas the Stoics put more emphasis on rationality, self-control and living in harmony with nature.

Neither of their ideas coincided with Paul’s Christian beliefs about the nature of God and His relationship and activity within his creation… but they were ready to hear some new idea so they gave him space to speak and were gracious in their listening.

But in that moment, they connected and something new and exciting was possible for them that would also be ultimately lifegiving for some of them.

When God speaks to us and we are gracious and give Him the space to reveal something new to us, it doesn’t matter if we are in the market place, the hospice or just in our homes… God is always ready to receive us, connect with us and speak to us for He can only meet us in the present moment and in our present circumstances.

So how might we include silence in our practice to help us flourish?

Hours of silence, even several minutes may be beyond us… we have to be realistic… but I challenge anyone not to find a minute or two every day to just rest, turn off the noise and remain silent.

Perhaps have a silent meal once a week…or maybe sit in silence before a service, not to prepare but just to be.

Or when we are with other people try really hard not to jump into the silence when they are talking…you may just be the source of silence that someone needs to hear themselves or God speaking.

A ‘Rule of Life’ can sound heavy and restrictive but keeping silent for just the shortest of times built into a busy day can ease the mind and be ultimately liberating.

I believe that the world needs more silence, for the benefit of ourselves and the communities that we live in.

The world needs people who really listen, who will take the time to hear their own pain and the pain of others so that peace, shalom, flourishing can become a possibility.

Maybe we can be those people.

Amen.