00:00:09.540 - 00:00:18.210

it's always a pleasure to come into this pulpit and an honor. I think you will find in ministry that a lot of times when you go into a pulpit, you think of all the people who have

00:00:18.210 - 00:00:30.000

been here before you and you will never have a more humbling thought in your life. I'd like to say a special thanks today, first of all to Maryland irons Maryland is sitting up here, she's a

00:00:30.000 - 00:00:45.570

dear friend of ours and a member of the last church. I served the President Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas was our soprano soloist in the music program for over 30 years, although obviously started young and has

00:00:45.580 - 00:00:57.020

some with the Dallas Symphony and other places has a wonderful gift. And her husband Jack is up there in the balcony, memorializing the whole thing. Jack can't sing worth a lick, but he's the nicest

00:00:57.020 - 00:01:11.070

guy in the world. Secondly, I'd like to thank dr robert, Alan Hill who is the Dean of Marsh Chapel at boston University, who has written the two extended pieces of liturgy and that is with

00:01:11.070 - 00:01:23.740

his permission. He was delighted that his things would be used at Austin Seminary. Listen now to the word of the Lord as it comes to us in the Gospel. According to Luke chapter 19 Reading vs

00:01:23.740 - 00:01:37.830

. 28 through 40. Listen for the Word of God, after jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem, okay, when he had come near Beth Fiji and Bethany at

00:01:37.830 - 00:01:49.510

the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples saying go into the village ahead of you and as you enter it you will find tied their occult that has never been ridden. I'm

00:01:49.510 - 00:02:06.180

tired. Bring it here. If anyone asks you , why are you on tying it? Just say the Lord needs it. So those who were sent departed, founded as he had told them as they

00:02:06.180 - 00:02:19.870

were untying the colt, its owners asked them, why are you untying the colt? They said. The Lord needs it. Then they brought it to jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt

00:02:19.870 - 00:02:30.190

, they set jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road . As he was now approaching the path down from the mount of olives, the whole multitude of the

00:02:30.190 - 00:02:46.560

disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen saying, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory

00:02:46.570 - 00:03:08.060

in the highest heaven. Some of the Pharisees and the crowd said to jesus teacher. Order your disciples to stop, he answered. I tell you if these were silent, the stones would shout out,

00:03:09.940 - 00:03:37.120

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks Peter Gade seems I'm a bit late preaching on palm sunday on holy week, Tuesday actually I'm not late. I'm almost a year early because I've taken the liberty

00:03:37.120 - 00:03:53.860

of jumping on down the liturgical road a whole year to year sees election eri gospel reading for palm passion , sunday luke's account of jesus triumphal entry. Mhm . Here we see jesus riding on a colt as

00:03:53.860 - 00:04:08.280

prophecy by Zechariah in through the golden gate which is on the eastern side of Jerusalem's Temple Mount. That gate was long associated with the return of elijah in the coming of the messiah in those days. For

00:04:08.280 - 00:04:20.270

that reason, it was popularly known as the golden Gate, partially because the golden of the rising sun would shine in through it in the early mornings. Incidentally, that gate has been closed up ever since

00:04:20.270 - 00:04:36.460

. Suleiman. The magnificent sealed it in 1541 to ensure that the Jewish Messiah would not come. Yeah , well I've chosen Lukes reading because it's ST luke who adds a curious addendum to the text that I

00:04:36.460 - 00:04:47.940

think is fit for holy week. As jesus approaches the Golden gate, riding in Jerusalem, looking for all the world like a king and a rather humble alternative to the other parade on the other side of

00:04:47.940 - 00:05:03.830

town. If you read Marcus borg, you know all about that, the romans coming in with pomp and circumstance and as he approaches amid the cacophony of sounds and praises, the religious authorities complained to jesus

00:05:03.840 - 00:05:25.480

teacher, tell your disciples to stop. It didn't much like this anti empire ragtag celebration, this countercultural alternative on the east side of town. And frankly , they didn't much like this, jesus either like

00:05:25.480 - 00:05:46.630

Solomon, they would have sealed up that day that they could have, but it's jesus response then that fascinates, I tell you, he says if these keep silent stones would shout out if the shouts ever

00:05:46.630 - 00:06:08.560

died away, even the ensuing silence. But still tell the truth, jesus answer fascinates me. It always has, What exactly does he mean? For years, I've had this stone on my shelf,

00:06:09.940 - 00:06:23.890

I picked it up right outside the sealed up golden gate in Jerusalem. It's very heavy and I picked it up 30 years ago because I thought to myself , I wonder if this stone was there. I

00:06:23.890 - 00:06:42.440

wonder if it was there to hear jesus mysterious answer that stones like this would rise up and preach. I wondered whether maybe it was kicked aside by the hoof of that cult and then I wondered if the

00:06:42.440 - 00:06:58.300

followers had indeed fallen silent and the cheers had suddenly stopped with this stone have gotten up on its haunches and somehow shouted out the praises of God. Yeah , you know, that sounds a little ridiculous.

00:06:58.300 - 00:07:11.950

I know, but you know, there's biblical precedent for it. And the psalms where even the hills and the trees shout for joy, you, biblical scholars call it personification. You know, assigning human

00:07:11.960 - 00:07:27.950

traits to inanimate objects. A poet once gave us These lines have the rocks on the hillside voices and the Claude's under trampling feet to the cobblestones, utter a message and the pebbles tell secrets. Sweet!

00:07:29.340 - 00:07:46.560

Yes, the hills and the veils have voices. The rocks on the wayside, speak and tell her the March of the Ages and of him whom the nations seek. Or perhaps that wasn't jesus point.

00:07:46.640 - 00:07:58.920

Maybe he wasn't a literalist after all. Maybe jesus was merely saying that if his followers fell silent even in the silence of the inanimate stones, after all , the words have faded away, the truth would

00:07:58.920 - 00:08:16.680

still be self evident. Perhaps so, because I found it. Perhaps you found that silence is often the most eloquent of sounds. Creatures like me tend to forget that like so many others, we fill

00:08:16.680 - 00:08:31.150

the silent spaces with words and sounds and noise. We preach is major in words after all. Once at a general assembly meeting, a group of old friend, pastors went out for dinner together, it's

00:08:31.150 - 00:08:48.010

the best part of general assembly. The conversation turned to the subject of retirement and what we wanted to do once we retire. By the way, I mentioned nothing at all about teaching seminary, but once

00:08:48.010 - 00:08:58.820

said he'd like to play more golf. Now. That said she'd like to travel Now. They said she might like to do an interim or two. And then the curmudgeon of the group said in a

00:08:58.830 - 00:09:20.610

rough, gruff voice. You know what I'd like to do when I retire? I'd like to shut up. Silence is our most endangered species, even in church, even in worship, almost a century

00:09:20.610 - 00:09:37.510

ago, Ian Forster, in a passage to India referred to poor little talkative Christianity and we preaches who hang around seminaries, know what he meant. Perhaps the most columnists most countercultural word is in the 46th

00:09:37.510 - 00:09:52.250

psalm, be still be still and know we're almost never still all through the bible. There are these poignant silence is that we tend to miss In revelation at the end of the story, going all the

00:09:52.250 - 00:10:11.880

way to the end after the opening of that final 7th seal, there's a half hour of sheer silence , Ecclesiastes chimes in. There's a time to speak in a time to keep silence or elijah, there

00:10:11.880 - 00:10:24.890

was earthquake, wind, and fire. And then the soundest sheer silence. Yeah. In a few short days, pontius pilot will ask jesus face to face what is truth? And jesus, well,

00:10:24.890 - 00:10:46.860

answer with the most eloquent silence ever heard and at that moment, who can doubt that the stones cried out, be still and no, as I've said , we preachers tend to forget about the importance of

00:10:46.870 - 00:11:03.860

the silence. So silence is pretty rare in our worship, as rare as in the rest of our lives. And if that's so, I think we're doing something perhaps wrong because our people, if truth

00:11:03.860 - 00:11:18.510

be told are starving for rich, nutritious silence. I love that off quoted description by fred Wagner of the preacher just before the sermon begins, do you know it? The preacher climbs the steps into the

00:11:18.510 - 00:11:28.420

pulpit with his sermon in his hand, we would add her. He hikes up his black robe at the knees so he won't trip over, trip over it On the way up the steps, he feels

00:11:28.420 - 00:11:43.650

as though he's swallowed an anchor. The preacher deals out his sermon card notes like a riverboat gambler. The stakes have never been higher. Two minutes from now. He may have lost his listeners completely,

00:11:43.650 - 00:12:09.440

but the silence in the church is deafening because everybody's listening to it. Everybody's listening. Even the preacher , you know, the most profound part of the message on many sunday mornings may well be the silence

00:12:09.450 - 00:12:24.880

of expectations that suspends in mid air before your first word is uttered. Your preacher should not minimize that special moment. Don't step on it. Don't go filling that silence with words before you let the still

00:12:24.880 - 00:12:43.880

must speak, because even if the rest of your sermon falls flat, the silence of the Stones will speak profoundly and with great eloquence. Carl Barton once said that in that moment of silence before the first

00:12:43.880 - 00:13:01.630

word of the sermon, what hangs in the ear are great, profound questions. And the biggest question is, is it true? Is it true that God is present? Is it true that there's a

00:13:01.630 - 00:13:18.970

word from the Lord today? If you really think about it, you will work very hard to make the first words with which you break the silence something meaningful. Something that does that silent expectations justice.

00:13:20.140 - 00:13:41.130

Let me give you a little advice. Don't follow the grand silence with charlie Brown was saying to lucy , do the silence justice. Listen carefully to the message of palm passion sunday, as good as the

00:13:41.130 - 00:13:58.290

shouts of Hosanna. Maybe the eternal silence of the Stones, The silence of the spheres is likely the more profound. Poor little talkative Christianity. That's us . We often think of religion as being all about

00:13:58.290 - 00:14:13.170

words. It is based on the word, but that isn't always translated into words. You know, sacred texts, prayers, sermons, liturgies, doctrines , explanations, theologies that we can explain and systematize

00:14:13.170 - 00:14:30.670

and file under headings like incarnation, redemption, justification , sanctification, providence, the office, theon funny , the odyssey judgment, grace and hope. You can systematize theology, but you can never systematize silence

00:14:33.640 - 00:14:41.660

. During a sabbatical. A few years ago, I experienced a rare season of silence for me. I spent a week up at christ in the desert monastery of the Benedictine community, up in the canyons

00:14:41.660 - 00:14:58.100

and mountains of northern New Mexico. It was a silent week. The silence at first felt disconcerting, almost deafening, but little by little as I gave into it, it became a great comfort. The

00:14:58.100 - 00:15:11.530

only time you heard a human voice was occasionally over lunch when the abbot or another brother would do spiritual readings one day, the Abbot reminded us that silence is a fundamental discipline in all the world's religions.

00:15:13.940 - 00:15:28.200

Perhaps the most fundamental of disciplines, He said that silence is not just the absence of word is it is an alternative consciousness, he said. The ego gets what it wants with words. It prefers immediate

00:15:28.200 - 00:15:48.110

answers, full clarity, absolute certitude and moral perfection . But the soul finds what it needs in silence . It is silenced that allows us to be at rest expectant. Open silence is a living presence that

00:15:48.110 - 00:16:04.820

creates a resonance within us to the Holy without it , he said, people have no ability to understand one another. Saint jOHn of the Cross said that silence is God's first language. In the last church

00:16:04.820 - 00:16:15.640

I served Preston hollow. We had a marvelous and gifted director of music. Terry. Price Terry has given me permission to mention him today. Terry is a dear friend, a great musician, one of

00:16:15.640 - 00:16:33.000

the gentlest and kindest people I've ever known. In a cruel twist of events. Several years ago, Terry was diagnosed with tinnitus. Not only does he hear a constant ringing in the ears, But for

00:16:33.000 - 00:16:48.160

a musician he hears too discordant notes one in each year, and everything above a certain frequency is garbled , terrible thing for a musician. Terry will retire this summer simply because he can't do it anymore.

00:16:48.340 - 00:17:04.860

And none of the treatments that have been tried have lessened that inner noise. The saddest thing about Tinnitus is that it robs a person of the Gift of Silence. Terry has not heard silence for years.

00:17:07.340 - 00:17:22.250

The sound the noise, the discord is always there . I pray for him, and I asked you to, and if you can experience silence, if you can hear silence here, Thanks and imagine what

00:17:22.250 - 00:17:36.790

life would be without it. There's a wonderful book by George Plushnick entitled The Pursuit of Silence, listening for meaning in a world of noise in it. He tells of being in Israel during its annual commemoration

00:17:36.790 - 00:17:52.290

of the holocaust, a day when there is a two minute period of absolute in activity and silence as people paused to remember the millions who died, he describes the feeling completely of being completely overwhelmed As he

00:17:52.290 - 00:18:08.760

watched the traffic lights change color, with no car responding, nobody's stopping, nobody's starting. People froze where they were on the sidewalks to bow their heads in silence and Krajisnik wrote, Silence seemed to create

00:18:08.760 - 00:18:26.320

a hole in the present into which the unspeakable past poured in a flood, swallowing our individual lives at the end of it, The trivia surrounding those two minutes sounded painfully loud. I wanted somehow to live

00:18:26.320 - 00:18:48.670

up to that moment of suspension. So now we're in Holy Week by now, Tuesday, the shouts of Hosanna have completely died out. There are so many silences in the days of Holy week. Tomorrow

00:18:48.670 - 00:19:06.100

Wednesday is sometimes called spy Wednesday because it may be the day when judas crept out silently to make his deal. The 30 pieces of silver thursday's, there's the silence of jesus, washing disciples feet friday.

00:19:06.100 - 00:19:22.400

The terrible silences of across the awesome silence of death , saturday. The silence of grief, the silence of the in betweens and then that holy silence of expectation that fills the air just before the preacher in

00:19:22.400 - 00:19:45.640

tones that easter proclamation, he has risen. Don't miss the silences of Holy Week. They speak more loudly and more clearly than the words. If these should ever keep silent, the very stones would cry

00:19:45.640 - 00:20:07.790

out. Perhaps they would, and if they did , their language would be an astounding and eloquent silence . The silence of Creation, the sheer silence of Elijah, the holy stillness of the psalmist, jesus

00:20:07.800 - 00:20:27.890

silence before pilot. A half hour of silence in heaven, the silence of the spheres. And even if words, our many wonderful words fail us, the silence of the stones, silence of self evident

00:20:27.900 - 00:20:36.550

grace will shout the truth to the rafters. Let