A Taizé Thursday . . . The sermon is in the silence
Thursday, October 15th was a cold morning. I layered my clothing to keep warm. The skies were clear, hardly a cloud as I made my way to the Church of the Reconciliation at 7:20 a.m. There are very few in the church at this hour. The cold, I am sure, is making it difficult for people to arise from the warmth of their blankets.
At each service, after the scriptures are read, there is a long silence. The sermon is in the silence. If we are to take seriously the hearing of the word then we meditate on its meaning and its application to our lives during the silence. At first it is easy to find the mind wandering during the silence. Self conciousness, even awkwardness wants to rule. As each day passes with its three services one is invited into the silence and into its purpose of reflection on the word of God. The comment one hears most about Taizé is how people gradually came to embrace and value the silence.
We live in a world full of noise. Silence invites listening–to the Spirit, to the Word, to what God might be speaking in our souls. The minutes of silence, sometimes as much as ten minutes becomes a time of peace and solidarity for the silence is not experienced alone, it is experienced in the midst of 2,000 others, it is experienced in community. And so the silence is the sermon and the sermon is the silence.