Taizé

By Mary Davis, Seminarian Intern

Good morning, and happy Mother’s day. This is a perfect day for me to be preaching specifically about Taizé, because I can honestly say that the best gift I have ever received from my children and husband was the freedom and space of 12 days last summer to experience Taizé.

Taizé, as you may or may not know, is the name of a monastery in the Burgundy region in France, founded in 1940 by Brother Roger as a place of refuge during World War II. It is an ecumenical monastery, which means the brothers (or monks) are from differing Christian traditions, both Catholic and Protestant, and people – pilgrims – up to as many as 6,000 a week come from all over the world to learn, worship, and experience Taizé.

Now as I’m sure you’ve noticed week by week, these candles, which represent the weeks of Father Poppe’s sabbatical journey, are growing closer and closer to being fully illuminated. And because 11 candles are lit, we know that he has already completed the first two legs of his journey, first to South Africa and next in England, and now he is heading into Europe for his final sabbatical month. The monastery at Taizé will be one of his final stops. And because we, here at St. George’s, have intentionally mirrored pieces of his journey, next week at this 10:30am service, we are going to participate in a Taizé worship service of our own. So today, this sermon is part of our preparation for that worship experience.

I went to Taizé because it was one of the “cross-cultural” courses offered by my seminary. Taking a “cross cultural” course is a requirement for my MDiv degree at Drew, and believe me, Taizé was very “cross-cultural.”

Let me attempt to paint a picture for you of life at Taizé. First of all, Taizé, though very isolated geographically and surrounded by rolling hills and fields of wildflowers, is packed with pilgrims who flood the monastery every week, speaking every imaginable language. The people bring with them their theologies, their understandings, their life experiences and of course, their questions, and they also bring with them tents – yes, tents - and only the bear necessities. Most of the pilgrims are between the ages of 16 and 35, but for those older pilgrims, of which I was no doubt one, there are rustic cabins with bunk beds that sleep between 12 and 14 adults. Needless to say, until Taizé, I didn’t know sleep was such a luxury.

There was always enough food, but it was just enough. Two chicken nuggets, a roll, a spoonful of vegetables or a piece of fruit, for example, was one meal. We ate out of a bowl with only a spoon. No forks. No napkins. And although there were a few circles of folding chairs, and a few sets of boards, or planks, set out on crates where people could sit, most of us sat on the ground to eat our meals.

Also, as you might imagine, with so many people in one place, communal living means that every person who arrives is put to work. At Taizé, chores range from the innocuous - serving meals or handing out songbooks during worship, to the distasteful – like cleaning the toilets and showers, for example. I preached about it here at St. George’s last summer, but for those of you who missed that sermon and are curious, yes, my small group’s chore for the week was to clean the bathrooms. And then there’s the central structure of Taizé, the Church, which is named “Church of Reconciliation.” The structure has had to grow over the years, so several periods of renovation allow it to accommodate all 6,000 people at once. Before worship, young people are stationed at each of the doors to the church, holding signs with “Silence” written in many languages, reminding the hordes of people to enter silently. I would be remiss if I led you to believe the chapel at Taizé was some grand structure. It is a carpeted warehouse. Truly. Dimly lit, sponge painted walls, and an understated altar with some icons, greenery and many candles. There are a few benches along the side walls of the church, but virtually everyone sits knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder on the floor during worship three times a day.

So are you getting a picture in your mind yet? Rustic, diverse, and oftentimes, downright uncomfortable are some of the ways I’d describe Taizé. And yet, I stand here today to say that it was the most powerful spiritual experience of my life. Everything I held on to –

my love of architectural beauty in worship,

my saturation with the English, Episcopal liturgy,

my love of food,

my desire for comfort,

my ease with language –

all of it was stripped from me within the first few days. And once I got over my desire to constantly whine about all of this to anyone who would listen, I realized that this stripping, this pruning – using language from the Gospel lesson today - was the whole point. I was living today’s Gospel lesson, being pruned and cleansed, and in the process, learning that the absence of so many outward distractions allowed me to lean on God as my only sustenance, the vine which enables me to live, and live fully. Suddenly, God was beyond language, beyond liturgy, beyond sleep or even beyond bodily comfort. Taizé is a place where, in my experience, everyone brings with them their diversity and their humanity, while at the same time, we stop arguing or debating about the divine mystery, and just give into it, becoming one with each other and that divine mystery.

Worship, which happens 3 times a day at Taizé – morning, noon and night - begins with the call of the bells. Bells ring, telling everyone on the hillside to put down whatever it is they are doing and head to worship. We will begin our own worship here at St. George’s next week with a simple ringing of bells, which invite us to enter, still our minds and our bodies, and focus on worshipping God. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of time to greet your neighbor later on, perhaps during the Peace, or after worship at coffee hour.

As soon as the bells quiet and everyone has gathered, the service begins with a simple, sung, chanted song. These songs, or chants, repeat themselves, over and over again, using simple lyrics and simple tunes, and they are often taken from scripture. The point of these chants is that their simple melodies and lyrics are easy to learn, and by singing them over and over, and over and over again, you no longer have to focus so hard on the words or the music, and before long, the song becomes a prayer. These prayers then stick with you, and pray themselves in you throughout the days and nights.

Because people from all over the world visit Taizé, worship is a multi-lingual event, a true expression of hospitality for those who have come from so many different countries and continents. Though most of our service will be in English, we are going to have the Gospel read in several languages. And several of the songs, or chants use Latin words. Latin is used in a large number of Taizé chants. It is a language claimed by no one country or people, and so it’s considered a ‘universal’ language. Again, going back to that Taizé notion of hospitality.

One interesting, and unique, thing about Taizé worship is that instead of preaching, there is an extended period of silent reflection during the time when a sermon would ordinarily take place. This is why I am here today, a week before our actual Taizé worship, doing my talking and teaching now.

Try to imagine, if you will, 6,000 people, from all over the world, in an extended period of silent prayer. At the beginning of the week, as the pilgrims all arrive and adjust to monastic life and pace, there is certainly a struggle for the crowd to settle down. Bodies shift and papers shuffle. There’s reflexive coughing, because our vocal chords can hardly settle down and believe that there’s an extended period of silence. Ten minutes feels like an eternity. But by the end of the week, the shuffling and noise all take a back seat to silence, and silence is allowed to penetrate even our densest layers of protection. Silence transcends both liturgy and language itself.

I’m sure this is not news to you, but our human appetite for making noise, at least according to my experience, is evidenced by so many for whom virtually every day passes without even one moment of silence. The television is turned on at the first waking moment. The television is the mechanical lullaby at night. Car radios, MP3s, iPods, and cell phones all contribute to our world of noisy bombardment, and even our corporate worship experience seems to parallel this reality. Have you ever noticed silence in worship? Heads, bowed in prayer, suddenly pop up, and begin looking about . . . what is this thing, silence? Silence in worship is often considered a ‘mistake,’ an awkward and stressful pause that must be rectified and stuffed, as quickly as possible, with ANYTHING - sweet relief from words or music, or even movement. We begin our lives in silence, noise being virtually beat out of us at birth, and we end our lives in silence, and every moment in between seems to be ‘plugged in,’ an expression of the collective fear of silence in our lives.

The silence at Taizé helped me acknowledge the fact that we actually have a choice to participate, or not, in this worldly echo-chamber. Choosing silence, in fact, is a first step in discovering the religious power of silence. It is a learned skill, something we actively choose to do, and it’s a skill we can develop. Our Gospel lesson today, in fact, reads, “Abide in me, as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” Silence clears out some space, prunes the branches which bear no fruit, and opens up life from the vine – silent space for God.

But what exactly is silence? Is it really the absence of noise? Is it absolute stillness? In a crowd of 6,000 people, is silence even ever possible? I’m here to tell you no, that is not the silence I’m talking about. In fact, my very definition of silence was changed because of Taizé. One afternoon, my group of 12 pilgrims from Drew’s seminary, had the privilege of speaking with one of the Taizé brothers, Brother John, for a Q&A session. He was originally from the US, [Brooklyn, I think] so the conversation flowed easily. One member of our group asked him, “So, what do you do during the silence?” We all eagerly waited for his response, knowing it would be profound and insightful, since not only had he devoted his life to poverty in this monastic order, but he had also, in large part, devoted much of his life to silence. Again, I hung on his every word, especially since I was about to enter 3 days of silence myself. He said, “I do what everybody else does, I wait for it to be over.” At first, I thought, what an odd response. I was really disappointed. But the more I reflected on those words, I realized how profound his words really were. Brother John was no different than me, and no different from the 5,999 other pilgrims journeying at Taizé. He was saying that silence does not have to be some profound experience of divine presence. It doesn’t have to be a time of blessed revelation. And silence certainly doesn’t have to be a time where all noise and movement cease – of course, it certainly can, and has been all of those things to me! But Brother John took the pressure out of and off of silence, and stripped it down to the very basics. The strength and power of silence that I found in Taizé was an inner silence, a quieted soul, an inner stillness found in spite of outside noise or movement. And when it’s over, it’s over. It’s not a magical moment of revelation or rapture. Silence at Taizé enabled me to live more fully into today’s Gospel lesson: Silence was God’s tool to prune and cleanse me of so many outward distractions, and in that process, I discovered that God was my sustenance, the vine which gives me life.

So, as Bernie experiences the silence and worship of Taizé, my hope is that we too, here at St. George’s, will open up our own time, space, and hearts in the days and weeks to come, to learn and re-learn about silence for ourselves, and incorporate the language of silence into our worship here as well. Amen.

© 2009 Mary Davis