Sunday, September 7, 2025

Scripture: Mark 1:35-39

Sermon Title: Silence and Solitude

By show of hands, how many of you are retired? By another show of hands, how many of you feel busier now than when you were working? And now, whether you are retired or still working, how many of you feel busy?

All right, so I think this sermon series should be for all of us.

A few months back I read this book by John Mark Comer called “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.” I highly recommend it. It’s really all about this idea of how busyness is taking us away from time with God, and how we need to engage in spiritual practices to help us connect with God.

And at the time I thought, this would make a great sermon series. As a working mom with two small kids, I certainly could relate to being busy. I worried though, does this even apply to an older congregation? But the more I talk to retired people, I’m learning often, many feel busier in retirement than when they were working. So, I’m hoping this series applies to all of us, no matter what stage of life we might find ourselves in.

With the school year starting up, life feels busy for me as a mom. But it’salso busy in the life of our church. Summer’s a little quieter in most churches everywhere. Programs are on break for the summer; people are on vacation. Especially here in Florida if you have snowbirds, the snowbirds are gone.

Fall and back to school brings back church programs as well. We’re kicking off Sunday School today after worship today. We have 2 children’s Sunday School Classes and 2 Adult Sunday School Classes. This past week, United Women in Faith started back up their monthly meetings. Choir and Bells started back up a couple of weeks ago. Disciple Bible Study is starting this Wednesday. The Wednesday Morning Bible Study is starting back.

We’re having some F.A.I.T.H. House Meetings. We’re hosting Charge Conference next month.

Am I missing anything?

It can be easy in this season to feel busy. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed. Even when these are good things.

And so, this month in the midst of the busyness and craziness, we’re focusing on some spiritual practices to help us slow down and meet with God.

I’m calling this series “Soul Rest.”

In May, we purchased our first home. And one of the things I really like about our home is our front porch. We also have a beautiful oak tree in the front yard that you can see from the front porch. My dream for the front porch is to get a porch swing and make this my “reading porch.”

Now I won’t pretend to be more spiritual than I am. I read a lot of fiction. So,this will be a place for reading novels too. But I’d also love for it to be a place to sit, read scripture, pray, and journal, especially after the weather cools down.

It’s my dream that this porch would be a quiet place to meet with God as well.

In today’s scripture we see Jesus going off to a solitary place to meet with his Heavenly Father. The scripture tells us it was very early in the morning, while it was still dark that Jesus got up left the house, and went to a solitary place to pray.

Our scripture this morning came from the Gospel of Mark, and if you’ve spent much time in the Gospel of Mark, you know that Mark is a busy gospel. Mark’s gospel resonates with our busy schedules. In just this first chapter of Mark, we see Jesus being baptized by John, Jesus being tested in the wilderness, Jesus announcing the Good News and the Kingdom of God, calling his disciples, driving out an impure spirit, and healing many.

I’m exhausted just summarizing the first chapter of Mark. Is it any surprise that after all of that, Jesus needed to go off by himself in the quiet early in the morning and connect with his Heavenly Father in prayer?

It’s interesting, we really have just this one verse about Jesus’s quiet time, and then we have the disciples coming to mess up his quiet time.

It says Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they find him, they say, “Everyone is looking for you!”

Everyone is looking for you. As a pastor I can relate to that. As a mom I can relate to that. I’m sure many of us, whether our work was in the home or out of the home can relate to that idea of everyone looking for us,especially in those moments when we are looking for a moment of rest.

Last September, Jesse and I were blessed with the opportunity to go with our Bishop Tom Berlin and two busloads of pastors and spouses for a Welsey Heritage Pilgrimage in England. We went around to many historic Wesley sights. And one of the sights that seemed to impact me the most was Wesley’s childhood home in Epworth.

It was here that we learned more about John Wesley’s mother Susanna Wesley. Susanna Wesley gave birth to nineteen children, but only 10 made it to adulthood. And we learned lots of stories about Susanna Wesley, but one story about her was that if the maid or her children saw her with her apron flipped over her head, that meant she was praying, and they werenot to disturb her.

You see Susanna Wesley, mother of many children even found time in her day to pray and connect with God. It might not be sitting on a porch swing;it might not be retreating to a beautiful mountain view at sunrise. Sometimes connecting with God might simply be sitting in a corner with an apron over your head.

But through Susanna Wesley’s time to connect with God, she instilled in her children the desire to connect with God as well. And because of this, in many ways we can call her the Mother of the Methodist Movement. Her discipleship led her children John and Charles Welsey to lead a movement of God.

But apparently Susanna Wesley’s children were better behaved than the disciples. The Wesley children knew not to disturb Susanna when her apron was on her head.

The disciples on the other hand had no problem disturbing Jesus.

Maybe this should encourage us. Jesus showed a lot of grace to his disciples. Maybe it’s a good reminder to us all that God is never bothered by us seeking God’s attention.

And then Jesus gets up and says let’s go to a nearby village where I can preach, that is why I have come. And after this we see him heal a man with leprosy.

All this happened in just the first chapter of Mark.

Jesus’s life and ministry was busy. And Jesus was able to do his ministry, he was able to teach and preach and heal and drive out demons, because he spent time in the presence of God. Because he got away and prayed. Because he took time in the early morning while it was still dark to spend time with his Heavenly Father.

John Mark Comer has this to say about Jesus and his quiet time. “The busier and more in demand Jesus became, the more he withdrew to his quiet place to pray. In seasons of busyness, we need more time in the quiet place, not less, definitely not less.”

And so, if Jesus, the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, felt it necessary to get away and have quiet time to pray, to connect with his Heavenly Father, why would we think we could get through the busyness of life without taking the time to connect with God?

We must take time to connect with God. Let me repeat that. We must take time to connect with God. Even when we’re busy. Especially when we’re busy.

Our relationship with God is just like our relationship with people in our lives. The more time we spend with our parents, spouse, children, friends, you name it, the closer we will feel with them. The more time we spend connecting with God, the closer we’ll feel to God. You can’t feel close to someone that you don’t take time to spend with.

Now for you morning people and early risers, you’re probably loving this image of waking up while it’s still dark. But for my non-morning people, for my night owls, you probably hate this image. But I just want to encourage you. You don’t have to get up early. Whenever you make time to sit in silence with God and pray is good. Do what works best for you.

But I do think there is something about starting your day with prayer. There is something about starting your day in scripture. There is something about starting your day in quiet with God. So whenever you wake up, whether that’s early in the morning before dark, or closer to noon, try starting your day with prayer and silence. And see if you notice a difference in how connected you feel to God.

God is always there. But we can do things, things our Methodist Founder John Wesley called the “means of grace” that allow us to be more open to God’s grace in our lives. It doesn’t mean we pray, read scripture, or journal to earn God’s grace. No, God’s grace is freely given. It is undeserved. Nothing we could do could make God love us any less or any more.

However, we do practice spiritual disciplines because it helps us to connect to God’s grace. It helps us to feel God’s presence in our lives. We could even say spiritual practices help to awaken us to God’s grace in our lives.

So this week, I want to challenge you, find some quiet time with God.Practice silence and solitude.

Like Jesus, it could be early morning before everyone else wakes up. Or maybe if you’re a night owl, it’s the last thing you do before bed. Or like Susanna Wesley, it’s in the middle of the busyness of life, and you just put an apron over your head to connect with God for ten minutes.

Maybe, for us in our busy world, silence and solitude can happen sitting in the car, sitting in the parking lot between appointments. If you get some place early, turn off the radio, and sit in silence with God for 10 minutes or so. Pray and connect. Be awakened to God’s grace. And be amazed at what happens.

Right now, I’m spending a lot of time in my minivan. Especially taking my girls to school, dance, class and other activities. And maybe when I’m sitting in the parking lot, waiting for dance class to get done, I can turn off the radio, put down my phone, and just spend time in silence and solitude connecting with God. I’m going to challenge myself to do that this week.

But whatever silence and solitude looks like for you, wherever the place might be, whenever is the best time of day, I encourage you to take time in your day for silence and solitude. If 10 minutes sounds way too long, start with 5 minutes. If 10 minutes sounds too short, start longer. Start wherever you need to start and try to work your way up each day and each week to spending more and more time in the presence of God.

The Book “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” is one where I found myself underlining most everything in it.

But I want to leave you with this, and while it’s a statistic on young adults, I think it could be truer and truer of people of all ages. I see you all posting and sharing stuff on Facebook, I know it’s not just young people.

“A survey from Microsoft found that 77 percent of young adults answered ‘yes’ when asked ‘When nothing is occupying my attention, the first thing I do is reach for my phone.”

And this is what the author has to say about this.

“This new normal of hurried digital distraction is robbing us the ability to be present. Present to God. Present to other people. Present to all that is good, beautiful, and true in our world. Even present to our own souls.”

So this week, let’s try to silence the distractions in our lives. Let’s practice silence and solitude to that we can be present to God, others, and present to our very own souls.

Through silence and solitude, let’s be awakened to God’s grace in our lives.

Amen