<p> Silent No More Luke 19:28-40</p><p>Being a member of the clergy can be a challenging job. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ can be seen as challenging by those outside the faith, and by those who claim to be Christian but have not humbled themselves before God. But it is a job and a calling which comes with unusual perks which more than make up for the challenges. And I say “unusual” because most people might not consider some of these “perks” as all that valuable.</p><p>For example, one of the most important perks, as far as I am concerned, is that I can come into this sanctuary, sometimes late at night, and I can just sit silently in this room with the lights off. That may not sound like much to most people, and maybe even to most ministers; but my friends, it is worth more than you can imagine.</p><p>I know that it can be dangerous to call this a “desirable perk.” There is an old proverb which says, “Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.” Telling people this is a perk, that sitting in an empty room late at night is a valuable thing to do, can seem a little crazy. People want a good reason to do something, especially when it seems that you are not doing much at all.</p><p>People might understand it, if I said I come in here to hide from the bickering and madness and business of the world. But that’s not why it’s a perk. It can be easier to hide from people by going to a sanctuary, but most people aren’t looking for me late at night.</p><p>People might understand it, if I said I come in here to find a quiet place to think. But that’s not why it’s a perk. It can be easier to think if you cut out the distractions and the noise, but I have found I can think under just about any conditions.</p><p>People might understand it, if I said I come in here to be refreshed, if only for a few moments. But that’s not why it’s a perk. It can be easier to recharge when you are removed from the action, but there isn’t a lot of church activity in the middle of the night.</p><p>No, the perk is found when I come to listen. This room, this space, these walls, have a story to tell and a witness to share. There is a richness and a joy which calls me into a deeper relationship with God and with you, if I am only willing and able to listen.</p><p>Most people only hear the boiler and pipes expanding and contracting, or the climate control units kicking on or off. They might hear people walking by on the sidewalk, or a car moving down the road. They might hear the wind blowing, or the rain falling. But to really listen in this room, you have to ignore all those sounds. Instead, you have to listen to the plaster on the walls. You have to listen to the stones speaking.</p><p>It is in this room that babies have been baptized and we made commitments to help raise them in the faith. That promise is in the plaster. It is in this room that children have tried and tested our faith to see if it was genuine. That witness is in the walls. It is in this room that couples have stood before God and promised to love each other, no matter what. That sentiment is in the structure.</p><p>It is in this room that prayers have been offered, and sermons preached, and hymns have been sung. That proclamation is in the presence of this church. And it is in this room that we have remembered the lives of our saints and celebrated that they are now with God in ways we all hope to be ourselves one day. That faith is in our foundation.</p><p>If we know how to listen, if we take the time and humble ourselves, God is always speaking in this room. That experience of hearing the silence on fire with the presence of God is humbling and affirming. When we strip away all of the human-made sounds so that only God can be heard, sitting in this room is life-changing, and spirit-renewing. That perk is worth more than the world can ever know.</p><p>We should all want to sit in this room and listen to the silence speak to us, whether it is late at night or on Sunday morning in the midst of worship. Many people don’t want to do this because they think the silence means there is nothing to hear. But what it really means is that we are not ready to listen to what God says.</p><p>Sometimes, we don’t listen because we are too busy shouting what we want to believe God would say on the issues of the world today. Sometimes, we don’t listen because we have “baptized” the truths of the world and believed it to be the same as the voice of God. Sometimes, we don’t listen because we have heard instead the whispering of ego which validates our own will as the will of God.</p><p>We like to think we have heard God in the thundering, and shaking, and fire. Most people think this is the way God chooses to talk to us today, and it is not in me to limit how God can be at work in the world. But like Elijah, I believe there are times when we need to listen for the still small voice that the world cannot hear.</p><p>This is important for us to know because Jesus rode into Jerusalem at the beginning of a week when absolutely everything talks – and most of it claims to be the voice of God. There are songs, and rituals, and palm branches, and soldiers, and sacrifices – and all of them are shouting. Some of them are shouting to fill the silence which exists only because they do not listen to God.</p><p>Just as we expect to sing “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus” on Palm Sunday, the people expected certain songs to be sung as they approached the Temple. We know these songs because we have them in the Bible. The songs of ascent are found at Psalms 120-134. </p><p>In many ways, we still sing these psalms. “In my distress I cry to the Lord.” “I lift my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’” These familiar lines, and many more, are from these songs of ascent, which still speak to us of God’s power and presence. We still hear God speaking to us through these songs.</p><p>But sometimes, we hear what we want to hear in these songs. Many of the people in the valley gathered for Passover heard what they wanted to hear when they sang of God’s power and presence. When they sang of God’s deliverance, they expected a military and political deliverance from the Roman occupation of the land. They expected a spiritual and religious deliverance from the heavy burdens imposed on them by the priesthood. They expected God to send them someone who could be their deliverer.</p><p>When Jesus came riding across the valley, the people were expecting a king to lead them in this deliverance. Many of them lifted their voices in song, to declare their hope that Jesus could deliver them. Many of them waved their palm branches, the equivalent of a national flag in a culture that forbids idolatrous images. Many of them prepared the road from Bethphage to Jerusalem for the coming of the king by making the path smooth with their coats. But to be that kind of deliverer is not why Jesus rode across the valley and to the Temple on this Palm Sunday.</p><p>As in everything else Jesus did, he did it because of his faith in the God who is with us. He did it because of his hope in the God who holds the future. He did it because of his love for God’s people, revealing the promise of a future with God. Jesus rode to redeem them from their sin, and to save them for a holy life with God.</p><p>This is what Jesus had taught them. This is what Jesus had shown them. This is what Jesus had done for them. But still they had trouble listening to what Jesus was saying to them.</p><p>The crowds weren’t listening to Jesus because they were too busy shouting what they wanted to hear God say: Here is our military messiah, come to establish our kingdom on earth. The Romans weren’t listening to Jesus because they had baptized the truths of the world that “might makes right,” and “those in power are the chosen of God.” The Pharisees weren’t listening to Jesus because they had listened to the whispers of ego to validate their own will as the only true will of God.</p><p>That is why, in our reading, the Pharisees ask Jesus to silence the crowd. They don’t want to listen to the crowd, either. And there is actually good reason to not listen to the crowds, but it is not for the Pharisees’ reason. And Jesus lets them, and us, know this, in a few short, “on fire,” words.</p><p>Jesus responded, “If they were silent, the stones would shout.” I used to believe, as perhaps many of you have, that Jesus was referring to the kind of miracle where the stones of the road, and the stones of the fields, would start to sing. I used to think that what the crowd was shouting was right and good and holy. I used to think that if God had made a way for this witness to take place, and the crowds were silenced, then God would find another way for this witness to be heard.</p><p>So, why not shouting and singing rocks? If Jesus can turn stones into bread, he can certainly turn them into shouting and singing witnesses who pick up where the crowd left off. But there is a problem with that interpretation.</p><p>What the crowd was shouting was not right and good and holy. It was close, and for most of us, it was close enough to being right and good and holy. But what the crowd shouted wasn’t right and good and holy because the crowd wanted a kingdom much less than the kingdom of God Jesus proclaimed. The crowd wanted a territorial kingdom rid of persons and powers which threatened their preferred way of life. The crowd wanted a kingdom blessed by God, but then left alone to act in the ways of the world.</p><p>So it doesn’t seem likely or faithful that Jesus was referring in his response to an alternative method for shouting down the Romans and the Pharisees. For someone who was about to die on the cross for the sins of the world, as the ultimate and faithful end of his earthly ministry, this doesn’t seem like a time to compromise everything he had said and done up to this moment, for a message that was “close enough.”</p><p>Instead, I think Jesus was making a scriptural reference when he referred to the stones shouting. It is a scriptural reference most of us would never embroider on a pillow, or put on a bumper sticker, or share on Facebook or Twitter. It is not catchy or uplifting, and it isn’t found in our list of favorite passages to inspire or motivate us. After all, how many of us spend much time studying the prophet Habakkuk, and his struggle with the question of why God allows the righteous to suffer while the wicked prosper?</p><p>That was, and still is, an important question to struggle with, which is why we see Habakkuk’s thought in Paul’s letters, and John Wesley’s sermons, and in Jesus’ response to the Pharisees. We read at chapter 2, verses 9-11, “Alas for you who get evil gain for your house, setting your nest on high to be safe from the reach of harm! You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. The very stones will cry out from the wall, and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.”</p><p>I believe Jesus was saying, “If the crowds were silent, we could listen to the witness of the plaster on the Temple walls. If the Romans were silent, we could listen to the affirmation of the Temple stones. If the Pharisees were silent, we could listen to the proclamation of the Temple stones. If the crowds were silent, and the Romans were silent, and the Pharisees were silent, we could listen to God speak to us.”</p><p>And what we would hear is what we have heard from God in the gospels. We would hear “love God; love your neighbors.” We would hear, “This is Jesus, my Beloved; listen to him.” We would hear “glorify the name of Jesus.”</p><p>We have a witness to share. If we forget our witness, we can listen to the stones of this church shout out the good news of Jesus Christ. We can hear the plaster proclaim, and the walls affirm, that God has come into our midst, that God is involved in our lives, and that God calls us into a holy relationship with God and each other. All we have to do is listen for the stones to sing out!</p><p>We are about to glorify the name of Jesus in our next hymn. But I want to give you permission to come to the chancel rail if you need a moment of silence to listen to God tell you that your sins are forgiven, and that this is the way God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.</p><p>UMH 193 “Jesus! The Name High Over All”</p>