QUIET, PLEASE
a sermon based on Psalm 46
by Dr. David Rogne

A waitress at a roadside cafe had to listen to the blaring of the juke box for most of her shift.  Listed among the selections on the juke box, however, was selection number seven, which had no name.  "What's number seven?" a customer hollered.  "Oh, that's three minutes of silence," answered the waitress.  "When things get too hectic and nerve-wracking, I put a quarter in and push number seven, and for a few minutes no record plays at all."

There are plenty of times in the harried circumstances of our lives when we would be glad to put a quarter in something for a few minutes of peace and quiet.

The writer of the 46th Psalm speaks of the enormous pressures of his time when he writes:

        "We will not fear, though the earth should change,

         Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

         Though its waters roar and foam,

         Though the mountains tremble with its tumult."

He goes on to speak of raging nations and tottering kingdoms.  There are few Psalms with more blood and thunder in them than this one.  It seems to have come out of a time of tumult and violence.  And yet, at the heart of the Psalm stands this verse:

        "Be still, and know that I am God!"

The Psalmist apparently figured out where to put his quarter, and he not only found quietness, he found God in the bargain.  I invite you to consider the meaning of his words for us.

The first thing I want to point out is that "Be still" means "to get quiet."  Unfortunately, most of us have learned to avoid quietness.  Have you ever noticed how many words we have for noise?  There is clamor, clutter, bang, roar, din, rattle, blare, hubbub, jangle, outcry, tumult, and many more.  Any experience that is described by that many synonyms must be quite prevalent in our society; and of course it is.

Years ago it was the transistor radio, which some call Japan's revenge for losing World War II, that demonstrated that we were an age that couldn't stand silence.  It was an ever-present companion even to those places where the sounds of silence used to be cherished and enjoyed:  on a beach, in the back yard, on a walk or a bike ride, or even jogging. Today, the same sounds are broadcast over personal radios or are placed on  i pods, but mercifully, they are supplied only to the ears of the subscriber.

Still, the elevated sounds are there and people get used to them.  I remember seeing a Blondie comic strip in which Dagwood lay down for a Saturday afternoon nap while the radio was blaring, his wife was vacuuming, the dog was barking, and the children were screaming.  When his wife saw that he was sleeping, she turned off the radio and vacuum, and sent the dog and the kids outside.  It was then that Dagwood woke up; he was awakened by the silence; and he brought all the sources of noise back in so that he could sleep.

People even associate noise with religion.  The Plains Indians thought of God as speaking through the wind.  Other primitive people have thought that God speaks in the thunder.  Ask people today if they have had any contact with God and they will often say "no," because they conceive of a religious experience as something visible and audible.  I was watching a television talk show some years ago on which the comedian, Woody Allen, was being interviewed.  Backstage something fell over with a resounding crash that shook the stage.  Allen stood up holding his heart and saying, "My God, I think I've just had a religious experience."  People are like that, they think that when God speaks it has to be loud.

But the Bible teaches that religion is quiet.  In this Psalm there is that strange word "Selah," which appears several times.  It is usually left out during public reading of the Psalm because it seems to contribute nothing to the Psalm.  This morning it was read  so that we might consider it.  It seems to be an instruction to those who are reading or listening, and it appears to mean "rest in contemplation after praise."  In other words, "Keep silence and think."  That is the kind of instruction we need!

Silence can be creative.  A Quaker meeting, where people gather in silence, can be meaningful.  The silence of a walk in the park helps one see connections he had not seen before.  Disraeli said, "Silence is the mother of truth," and often it has been.  The American painter, Grant Wood, once confided that "All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow."  Moses heard God speak out in the silence of the desert.  Paul heard a voice that no one else heard.  Jesus said, "When you pray, go into your room and shut the door..." (Matthew 6:6)  "Be still," says the Psalmist, "and know"--about yourself, about the world, and about God.

"Be still" also means "desist"--stop what you are doing--at least for a while.  Busyness can be a curse.  Once while traveling in Europe, my wife and I were sitting in an outdoor cafe in Zürich, enjoying the peacefulness of the evening and the beauty of the setting.  It is a common pastime in many parts of Europe:  people spending several hours over a cup of coffee.  Two German business men sitting at our table fell to talking with us about differences between life in America and in Europe.  They said that it appeared to them that people in America were on the go far more than people in Europe.  I agreed, using the evening's relaxation as a case in point.  "People in America are too busy to do this kind of thing," I said.  "Busy doing what?" they asked.  "Well," I responded, "we go to a lot of meetings, because our organizations are very democratic and require our presence." 

Do you remember that character, the Mad Hatter, in the film "Alice in Wonderland?"  He was always looking at his enormous watch and saying, "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!  No time to say 'Hello,' 'Good-bye,' I'm late, I'm late, I'm late."  That is us.  We've got places to go, people to see, things to do, jobs to worry about, meetings to attend, families to care for, mortgages to pay, term papers to write.

It is not easy for us to slow down.  The radio or television may be turned on as soon as we get up in the morning, cajoling, urging, entertaining us as we get ready for the day.  We are told about the weather, the freeways, the tension in the world.  When the mail comes, it is filled with suggestions, pleas, calls to action.  Do this; join up; attend here; hurry there; write immediately; take advantage; mark carefully.  Good causes appear, friends invite, and suggestions abound.  The result is that we are pulled apart spiritually and find ourselves frustrated, confused, and weary.  To all this the Psalmist urges us to "Be still and know," be still and there are some things you will learn.  In fact, it is safe to say that the knowledge of the deepest things in life will never come to a person who does not learn to be still.

Stillness and depth go together.  Some years ago I was with some cowboys rounding up cattle.  Whenever we crossed a river, it was where the water was rushing.  When I inquired about that, the foreman pointed out that where the water is rushing you can better judge its depth.  Quietness and depth go together in a river, as do activity and shallowness.  It is the same in people:  the more active we are, the less depth we develop.  Our depth will be in proportion to our quiet moments.  Be still, stop, desist, says the Psalmist, if you want to know who God is.

A third thing "Be still" means is "to get alone."  Unfortunately, we learn to avoid solitude as we grow older, because we confuse it with isolation.  In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster contrasts the two by pointing out that:  "Loneliness is inner emptiness.  Solitude is inner fulfillment."  Isolation is usually inflicted on a person, whereas solitude is freely chosen.  Isolation is a negative aloneness, whereas solitude is a positive companionship with the forces of silence and the Mysterious Presence of the universe.  Such solitude does not come about by accident, it is intentional.

Solitude can be enjoyable.  I can remember building a tree house when I was a child.  Sometimes I would share it with playmates, but other times I would provision it with sandwiches for an extended stay, pull up the rope ladder, and enjoy being inaccessible.  Sometimes it would be necessary to stay home from school because of a cold.  I can remember throwing a blanket over a card table to make a private cave.  It was enjoyable to have a space that was all my own.

Then something happens that takes away the enjoyment of solitude.  We become socialized.  In the last chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh, the little boy, Christopher Robin, is saying good-bye to his toy bear friend, Pooh.  He is off to school, and has to say good-bye to the free play they called "doing nothing."  It is now time for doing things like learning about " . . . . people called Kings and Queens, and something called Factors, and a place called Europe, and an island in the middle of the seas where no ships came, and how you make a Suction Pump (if you wanted to), and when Knights were knighted, and what comes from Brazil."  Pooh asks sadly if he will ever do "nothing" with him again.  Christopher Robin replies, "Well, not so much.  They don't let you."  The more we get socialized, the harder we find it to be alone with our thoughts, the harder we find it to enjoy solitude.

And yet, it is in solitude that we come to grips with life.  Henry David Thoreau went out and lived by himself for two years in a small cabin by a pond called Walden.  In one of the most famous paragraphs he wrote in the journal he kept at Walden Pond, Thoreau explains why he went there.  It was "because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.  I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life . . . . I love to be alone.  I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

Sir Isaac Newton discovered a law of gravity in a falling apple--but he was in a garden, alone and quiet, when he saw it.  Lord Kelvin took an early morning walk across a field and thought about the dew that protected the grass.  From that quiet, solitary, morning walk came the process of refrigeration.  "Be still, and know"--about the world, and about yourself.

The real cause of our lack of faith today is not the convincing nature of irreligious arguments, but the superficiality of noisy lives, lives that are too busy to wonder and stand rapt in awe.  Our God is one who stands at the door and knocks, and if we will open, God will come in.  But to hear the knock, we must, at least occasionally, be still.

I close with this.  In my home state of California there is a mountain pass that connects the Los Angeles basin with the San Joaquin Valley.  On the downhill side of the pass, just before  the little community of Grapevine, there is a series of signs which read:  "Runaway Truck Ramp One Mile."  Then "1/2 Mile," then "1/4 Mile," and finally the ramp itself, a long track filled with gravel leading off the highway and graded steeply upward, so that a runaway truck could go barreling on to it and come safely to a stop.  What a relief to any truck driver who truck has lost its brakes!  Instead of careening down a mountain to certain disaster, the trucker would know there was safety ahead, and a quiet stopping place.

When our life seems like a runaway truck, when we're running helplessly, too fast, too dangerously, it is possible to be guided safely out of the fast lane, if we will heed the signs and pull off onto the safety ramp:  get quiet, stop what we are doing for a while, get off by ourselves, be still, and know that God is near.