"The Power of Meditation"
Tap into the peace of Christ and find power.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Text: Mark 6:30-44
It was about 18 months ago that my wife and I decided to be radical. We went out on a ledge - almost literally - and bought a treadmill. I got on that treadmill just like so many neophytes do and in the first 20 minutes I wore out every organ and limb in my body. Feeling that this was certainly not an instrument of God, but more like an instrument of the devil, I didn't get back on it for a few more days, but when I did, I did exactly the same thing. I didn't realize that you could actually adjust the speed, and that 12 miles per hour was a little quick to begin with! I also didn't realize that there was an off-button that would just stop it, because once I got on at 12 miles per hour, I felt I should just keep going until the set time had elapsed.
Finally, I decided to consult a professional and went back to the place where I bought it. The man there explained how to use the onboard computer to slow down the speed, set the pace and the time and so on. Then he said something that has been of inestimable help to me over the last 18 months. He said, “You know, rather than just getting on that treadmill and running your heart out, it is better for you to take a burst and then stop, rest, let your heart settle and get back on, get your heart rate up again and then rest and settle. He said, “If you do that, you will find that you will be able to get your resources back. The muscles will be able to get all the nutrients back in them and you will be able to go for three or four times as long.”
You know, since getting that advise, I have found the treadmill to be wonderful. But there is a time to get on and there is a time to get off. There is a time to run your heart out and there is a time to let it rest and build up again.
Not long ago, I was reading the diaries of Sir Winston Churchill. During World War II he lived under the most incredible stress and tension, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As the war expanded to other parts of the world, news would come in at all hours as to what was happening on other continents. Churchill had to find a way to deal with the pressure. One of the things he decided to do was to take a nap every once in a while. Even though he often didn't get a full night's sleep, he found that those naps were enough to keep him going, to give him the strength to face the challenges of each day. So, with those cat-naps, which we would now call power-naps he was able to sustain himself through a rigorous, challenging and daunting task.
My friends, I think it is equally important today to have similar periods of rest in our lives. Not only physical rest, but also emotional rest and spiritual rest. We are living in one of the most driven and most complex ages that the world has ever known. There is an impulse to our world today that is absolutely beyond what our forebears could ever have imagined. News, information, technology 24 hours a day. It is incessant.
A recent summary of work habits discovered that 15 per cent of people feel that they can never take a vacation from their jobs, simply because the demands are too great and the needs are too onerous. Of those who did take a vacation, 24 per cent said that they couldn't take all the time allotted to them because they felt the demands of work required them to be on the job. In other words, when there were moments for rest, when there were moments for quiet and peace, people still didn't take them. Such is the drivenness, psychologically, of our society, a drivenness that continues to put stress, strain and the agony that goes with it on people's lives.
In today's world, I think that it is all the more important to take time, not only for physical rest, not only for psychological rest, but to take the time that we are given for spiritual rest. I think part of the sickness of our society is the result of people not taking the time to meditate, to pray, to be still and to be quiet.
In one of his books, the great Reformation leader Martin Luther said that there are three things Christians need to do. In Latin, the first is oratio, the second, meditation, the third, tentatio. The first means prayer, the second is mediation on the word, the third is dealing with the tensions of life. He said that everyone who wants to live a deeply spiritual and Christian life must have all three ingredients in their existence if they are going to grow in the nurture of almighty God. I think that prayer and meditation and dealing with the tension of life is an integral part of our spiritual journey. It's an integral part of our spiritual life. Nowhere do we see this more poignantly than in the life of Jesus himself.
I've looked through the New Testament and realized something: There is a pattern to Jesus' experience. More than 20 times during his ministry, before he was embarking upon an enormous challenge, he took himself aside and prayed. Sometimes he went into the wilderness, sometimes he went up to the Mount of Olives, sometimes he just went into the desert with his friends, but before he began really difficult tasks, Jesus of Nazareth took the time to pray and meditate.
In this morning's passage we read just that. It was a prelude to a powerful moment in his life. “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught.” And then, because so many people had been coming and going and they had not had a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Now, it is no coincidence that this occurred right before the great miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. When the crowds were hungry and demanding his attention, and were wanting him to do great things for them. They were hungry in their bodies and in their souls. Beforehand, Jesus took the time to be with his disciples, to be silent, to be quiet, and to prepare himself and them for the challenge ahead.
My friends, when we face great and seemingly insurmountable challenges, one of the most powerful things we can do is take the time to set ourselves aside and to pray. It is the prelude to power.
This isn't something that just happens by accident; it is something that has to occur intentionally. Today you don't just find rest or find peace and quiet or find a moment where you can be on your own. On the contrary, I believe it takes a degree of discipline. Just as Jesus took the disciples to himself and went into the wilderness so, too, we have to make sure that we take the time to commune with God and to meditate and pray.
That is why we have ministries in this congregation such as the labyrinth, which is an intentional, focussed way of meditating. It is a way of walking on a path towards the goal of greater awareness of ourselves and a greater communion with and awareness of God. But so many of us do not take the time to do that. We do not step aside from the busy-ness of this world to meditate and to pray. Then we wonder why things are going wrong, why there is all this noise, why we can't be still and quiet.
I read some fascinating statistics not long ago about how tough it is in a Canadian city to find some peace and quiet. For example, did you know that the hum of power lines can be heard upward of three kilometres? That a chainsaw cuts through the quiet for more than eight kilometres? That road noise can travel 12 to 16 kilometres? (That's not including the noise of the 401, which travels all the way to Cincinnati, Ohio, I think). That a coal-fired power plant can be heard as far as 24 kilometres away and that a major airport can cast what is known as a “noise shadow” longer than 80 kilometres? And we wonder why we live under stress! We wonder why we live with noise and why we don't have peace and quiet. When you combine all those things around us everyday, the cumulative affect has anonymously devastating impact on our lives. The noise of the world not only affects us psychologically and physically, but also spiritually. Because we get so hyped-up, we don't take the time to be quiet and still.
The management guru Warren Bennis, made this observation in his book, “Why Leaders Can't Lead:”
The leader in this world should incorporate a reflective arena into his or her structure of life so time out for musing is mandatory. I'm not speaking here of the sort of treats that organizations have recently become so fond of, because they are usually the same old routine just in a new location. If people in authority stop regularly to think about what they are doing, they would have the kinds of fresh insights that they now pay consultants dearly for.
I read a fascinating piece in a business magazine a few years ago about a very well-known company that makes more billions of hamburgers than anyone else. The corporate executives are asked to spend at least one hour a week on the top floor of their building. On the top floor there is a bed and rather than a solid roof there is a skylight. They are to lie on this bed for an hour and look up at the skylight. (That's the kind of job I would like on a regular basis!) Now, they are not to nap; to think, they're to use their imaginations, to use their minds to ponder new things. The corporation believes that if their top executives don't take the time to be still and quiet, then their imaginations can't work. And if their imaginations can't work, how will they ever develop anything new? They will just be on a treadmill going the same old pace.
So it is with our life in God. When you look at the great people in the Bible and the history of Christian faith, you see they are the ones who have taken the time to meditate, to pray, to set themselves apart for something great to happen.
Moses was in the wilderness on his own when he saw the burning bush. Isaiah was alone when the seraphim and cherubin placed the coals on his tongue. When he was out in the wilderness with God, David said, “And I will meditate on your word both day and night.” Then the psalms came. Such is the power of those who realize that they need to set some time aside to be with God, to be still, to be quiet.
Whether you walk a labyrinth, or whether you set some time aside in your home just to be quiet, or whether you go somewhere to get away from the noise, the need for meditation and prayer is an essential ingredient in a powerful life.
I like what a former minister said here about this subject: “People need recreation in order that they can have re-creation.” They need to get away and have a break in order that they can be re-created in the image of God.
Sir John Templeton, who founded the Templeton Fund and who has set up scholarships and awards for progress in religion, is not someone with whom I agree on everything. There are a few points he makes to which I take exception, but on the whole I think the man is absolutely right. He says that he starts every board meeting with prayer. Not to ask God to give the corporation great and glorious profits, but to acknowledge and to recognize that we are not alone in this world and no matter how good we are and how knowledgeable we are, we must turn and recognize the support and the love and the power of almighty God. Sometimes, my friends, that means that we have to turn inward and we have to look at our souls. Sometimes meditation means that honest assessment of who we are in the presence of the living God.
I think one of the great problems with our treadmill society today is not just that we do not have an awareness of God, but that we don't have an awareness of ourselves! We are so busy doing, so active accumulating, so driven to do those 20 minutes at the maximum heart rate, that we don't ever come to terms with who we are.
Meditation and prayer allow us to go inward as well as outward. But if we only go inward we are still left to our own devices. If we only go inward we do not have the opportunity to turn to a greater resource and a greater power. Jesus didn't just take the disciples to one side in order that they could just have a meal and a rest. He took them to one side so that they could prepare for greatness, and that greatness was what God, and not they, would do.
There is a wonderful Irish poem that I have repeated at more than one funeral and even at more than one wedding, that is worth repeating here. It is what I hope you will do today and what I hope you will experience today. I hope, particularly, that the young parents and their families will take this poem away with them today. If you want to give your child something that is going to last, let me tell you, you can give them all the activities in the world that you want, provide them with the greatest education, the greatest social stimulants, the greatest travel opportunities, you can open all the doors wide for them, but if you don't give them a sense of themselves and if you don't give them the peace of God, you're leaving them as empty vessels:
Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you
Deep peace of Christ, of Christ, the light of the world to you
Deep peace of Christ to you.
My friends, when you pray in that spirit, great things for God can be done. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.