The Fifth Sunday after Trinity
“And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.”
Over the course of a year in University I took a few courses, somewhat on a whim, on the Russian writer, Dostoevsky, whom I sometimes quote in sermons. The first course was on a whim, the second was very intentional – I liked the material, but it was taught by one of those teachers whose love of teaching and love of the material they teach inspires you to love it to. The kind of teacher who could make a course on watching paint dry the most interesting thing you’ve ever done.
I don’t remember the book exactly, but whatever book we were reading and whatever portion of the novel we were at for that week, we were talking about silence, or at least that’s what he wanted us to talk about. To prove a point he came into the classroom where there were about a dozen or more of us, sat down and folded his hands in front of him, and said nothing. And he continued saying nothing. And the discomfort began to grow, and people began to fidget, and eventually fidgeting gave way to smiling and smiling to the kind of awkward and uncomfortable laughter that isn’t about something being funny, but is actually just about the release of tension that you’re holding.
When he finally broke the silence minutes later he pointed out to us how hard silence can be. We know it’s hard because now, maybe even more than ever before, live in a world saturated by noise; if it isn’t the TV droning in the background, it might be the radio, if not that then a podcast, Spotify, or whatever. And even if there’s no physical noise, there’s the mental noise that comes from our distractions with devices – if you think of physical silence as doing nothing, we’re always trying to plug that gap by picking up phones and scrolling. They now say that in fact boredom is vitally important as its in these down times that our brains do a kind of vital sorting of information, without which we lose focus, patience, and grow in anxiety; many online are advocating for sitting in a chair in front of a blank wall with no stimulation for 30 minutes, just to hit the reset button.
But being silent for silences’ sake isn’t enough, is it? And that isn’t what we hear about today in the collect; instead, the collect talks about quietness, Godly quietness, to be specific. It prays that we may, in this world be peacably ordered by God’s governance, and that the church may serve God in all godly quietness. Elsewhere we hear of quietness from the Prophets; Isaiah write,s “in returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength”. David writes in Psalm 131, “Lord, I am not high minded…I calm my soul and keep it quiet, like a weaned child with his mother.” Or Isaiah again, “The effect of righteousness is peace, the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.”
The Quietness we pray for from God, the quietness in which we hope to serve God is not silence but the quietness, or stillness, that comes from trust. Think back to that feeling when you were a child and scared to go somewhere – a basement, an attic, the barn, the woods, somewhere dark. Remember the chaotic feelings inside of you, the fear of things that weren’t really there, your imagination running wild. Now recall the calm that descended on you when a parent or loved one took your hand, when you knew you were safe. Nothing changed in that fearful place, everything you were scared of might still have been there – but you didn’t feel the need to be afraid any longer, you put your trust in the one with you.
Our service of God through all that we do – here in the Parish or in our personal lives – and even just in the decisions we make, should be done not out of a fear of what might go wrong, but out of a trust that we are upheld and supported by something bigger than us. The trust comes when we acknowledge that we have no control over things – then we can find joy in letting go.
This Sunday falls within one of those octaves I talked about last week, those 8 days of celebrating some particular Saint, except today it falls within the octave of the celebration of two important Saints – St. Peter and St. Paul. It’s odd that we celebrate the two together, one of only three instances of it in our church year, especially because unlike Simon & Jude who laboured together in Persia and their remains being entombed in the same place, or Philip and James whose remains were returned to Rome on the same day, Peter and Paul shared no major connection. They didn’t work closely together, their remains are in the same church (some) but the feast isn’t about that.
Instead we think about Peter and Paul together because we understand their faith and their witness to who Jesus was to be pillars of the church. Also important is the fact that both Peter and Paul were disciples who found new identity through Jesus: Saul, the Pharisee, who became Paul, and Simon, later called Cephas (rock) , and Peter. Peter was the one who answered Jesus and said “You are the Messiah”, and it’s on on the rock of his confession of who Jesus is that Christ established the church. And while we like to think of our own faith as being like that of Peter – strong, sturdy, unshakeable like the granite shores around Peggy’s Cove, really our faith is probably more like the red sandstone around our shores: flat in places, crumbly, prone to erosion and, as a building material, needing frequent maintenance.
But take heart and remember that Peter the rock was also Peter-the-denier, doing the very thing he swore he wouldn’t do in his denial of knowing Jesus, the pain of which seen in his bitter tears – has our own faith ever buckled under pressure? Have we let anxiety or fear win the day? Was Peter, in that moment, lacking the Godly quietness of trusting that even if it might cost him his life, Christ was with him like a parent holding his hand?
Look at the Gospel for today, the story of Simon Peter’s calling, and that of James and John. Increduloulsy launching out with Jesus in the boat and lowering their nets after an exhausting night in which nothing was caught – hopelessness. How have we, like Peter, allowed doubt to get the better of us, not trusted or believed that God can do it?But Simon Peter relents and obeys and what is returned is more than any of them could ever have imagined. And this moment is this incredible revelation to Simon, of who it is that stands in his boat, a revelation not through his words but through what he does for Simon, even in Simon’s doubt.
Now our red sandstone faith often crumbles under pressure, and not much of it, and Peter’s crumbled hard under pressure, but long before any of that happened, Christ’s faithfulness to Peter and to us is shown in this moment when despite his weakness, his doubt, his incredibly shakeable faith, Jesus reveals his presence and his power and his care for Simon here on the sea. And it’s knowing this – which we don’t always – that can bring us to Godly quietness, that calmness of soul and heart that doesn’t let waves of doubt overcome us, that gives us the strength to face uncertain or even fearful times, big changes in our lives, the other side of which (like through a dark basement) we can’t see.
What marks those who followed Christ so devoutly and closely, who even though they surely at times felt unworthy due to the shakeableness of their faith and would, like Peter and Paul face arrest and execution, was this strong and quiet confidence – knowledge – that no matter what happened to them, as long as it was in service to Him, they were held, and there was nothing to fear.
There is no easy way.
Following Jesus will demand everything from us. Even to drop our nets and forsake all.
This way will lead, as it has for so many before us to heartache, to the death of our desires, to suffering for righteousness sake, and to our giving up our lives in some way or another, for his sake. But it is the only way that can lead to new life. To a new identity in Him. And to that Godly quietness that each and every one of us is so desperately seeking.
