Walking The Way | Silence and Solitude | Week 3

Redeemer Weekend Sermons

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Walking The Way | Our Practice | Week 2 | May 26, 2024

Teacher: Dave Brown

/> Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

—Matthew 13:18-23

/> Music and silence—how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell—though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express—no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise—Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress.

—C.S. Lewis

/> Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdraw to lonely places and prayed.

—Luke 5:15-16

/> In the world there are many other voices speaking—loudly: “Prove that you are beloved. Prove you’re worth something. Prove you have any contribution to make. Do something relevant. Be sure you make a name for yourself. At least have some power—then people will love you; then people will say you’re wonderful, you’re great.’ These voices are so strong. They touch our hidden insecurities and drive us to become every busy trying to prove to the world that we are good people who deserve some attention.

—Henri Nouwen

/> Solitude confronts our escapism.

/> In solitude we not only encounter God but also our true self.

—Clowning in Rome

/> The discipline of solitude allows us gradually to come in touch with the hopeful presence of God in our lives, and allows us also to taste even now the beginnings of the joy and peace which belong to the new heaven and the new earth.

—Henri Nouwen

/> We practice solitude to know and be known.

/> Why is it so important that we are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It’s important because it’s the place in which we can listen to the voice of the One who calls us the beloved. Jesus says to you and to me that we are loved as he is loved…To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of our being and permeate our whole life. Who am I? I am the beloved. If we are not calming that voice as the deepest truth of our being, then we cannot walk freely in this world.

—Henri Nouwen

/> We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check….The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

—James 3:2-8

/> Why do we insist on talking as much as we do? We run off at the mouth because we are inwardly uneasy about what other think of us.

—Dallas Willard

/> The practice of silence helps us to listen and to observe, to pay attention to people. How rarely are we ever truly listened to, and how deep is out need to be heard. I wonder how much wrath in human life is a result of not being heard.

—Dallas Willard

/> We practice silence to listen and to serve

/> Far too often we are busy trying to “do something.” Perhaps it would be better if instead we learned to “be something.”

/> We cannot be human if we are not existing in the present, for the present is where God meets us. If we avoid the details of the actual present, we abdicate a big chunk of our humanity.

—Eugene Peterson