One of the things that is disrupted during this pandemic is worshipping together with others in the same room. Something happens when we pray and sing and praise God together with other people in close proximity that is different when we do these things alone or separated from each other. Sometimes I’ve joked that when we are praying along with other believers, we get a better signal, more bars show up, than when we do this on our own. Of course, God can always hear us when we pray, but something profound takes place when we do this with others.
Silence can be an important part of worship. Some years back, I was pastoring a church that had silence as a formal part of every worship service. In my first few weeks there, I was told I needed to allow more time for that silence than I what I’d been giving. “Don’t rush us through that part of the service, Pastor” I was told. “We need time for that silence to open us up.” In our world today, we often fill in the silent moments too quickly. Silence can be a wonderful time to become more open.
In a recent article in The Christian Century, Chris Palmer writes that the moment in a church service when we are most aware of the people around them is not during the hymns or collective prayer. “It’s when the pastor asks us to confess our sins in silence and then holds that silence for what seems like an eternity. The deeper the silence, the more powerful the liturgy…it gives room for God to speak.”
It helps to find that silence with others, but we can also find it on our own. I hope that sometime today –or several times this week– you might make some room for silence. Some room that is not filled up with noise, or talking, or the interior chatter that usually fills our minds but rather a place where we can be reminded of the Psalmist who said, “For God alone my soul waits in silence, from him comes my salvation” (Psalm 62:1)
Grace and peace,
Rev. Steve Larsen