On a mountain closer to Jerusalem

2^nd Sunday of Lent: Gen 15.5-12, 17-18; Phil 3.17-4.1; Luke 9.28-36
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Paul’s Hospital and Church of the Incarnation

[NB. No PODCAST for this homily...I couldn't get the recorder to work at Mass!]

Lord! It is good that we are here! Here in your house. Here in your desert. With you and your family. With the Spirit and all the possibilities of your Love. But why are we here, Lord? In this desert: without, leaving behind, giving away, going further and further toward that bone-dry waste, in this desert of fasting and prayer? Why are we here? Jesus went into the desert to be tempted by the Devil. He went so that he could be tempted, tested against his knowing who he really is, tested against his trust of the Father, his patience, his willingness to walk the bloody, sorrowful way to the Cross. The Devil started small, where most of us fail, with our stomachs, and then he went Big: power, prestige, wealth. Jesus calls on the Word and teaches the Devil. Jesus does not so much resist the temptations as he skillfully turns them upside down and reveals their goodness. Nothing wrong with bread. Nothing wrong with worship. Nothing wrong with calling on our guardian angels. There is nothing wrong with any of these per se if they are divinely ordered and used for their proper ends. The Devil gets his righteous lesson, but remember how that gospel reading ends: “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Jesus for a time.” For a time. And that is why we are here! The Devil’s back.

Lord, it is good that we are here. Here in your desert. With you and your disciples. All your students and friends. We are fully awake and ready to hear, fully awake and ready to listen—a bit nervous, a little frightened maybe, but we’re here. We see Moses and Elijah and Jesus in their glory and we hear them talking with Jesus about his exodus to Jerusalem. We offer to build shrines in honor of the prophets, but we do not know what we are saying. The cloud comes and the shadow darkens the sand and we all hear the voice from the cloud: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” And everyone is silent……….are we fully awake? Can we be silent?

What does it mean to be “fully awake” and to be “silent”? Notice that Peter, John, and James see the glory of the three men before them once they become “fully awake.” Having fallen asleep while Jesus prayed, they awake to this glory and say, “Master, it is good that we are here…” Being fully awake in Christ then is not simply a matter of not being asleep. Being fully awake is a matter of attentiveness to Christ’s presence, a focused effort toward seeing and hearing and listening to Christ every minute, every second of your day. Being fully awake is being alive with the Spirit, electric white and dazzling! Can you confess that it is good that you are here? Here in this house? Here in this desert? Here with us?

Being fully awake is also about being completely aware of what would make us into fools, that which pulls us away from Christ and pushes us toward a truly empty desert. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, warns against the “enemies of the cross of Christ.” These enemies run to their own destruction, worship their appetites, and revel in what brings them shame. They minds are possessed by “earthly things.” You’ve heard me call out these “earthly things” before, all those “ism’s.” It’s become a litany for me. In fact, I’ve made it into a real litany.

A Litany Against the Enemies of the Cross of Christ

(Please stand)

Let us pray: “Lord, your servant Paul warns us against scratching our itchy ears with alien philosophies and foreign religions; he also warns us not to conduct ourselves like those who are enemies of the Cross of Christ. Clear our hearts and minds and keep us fully awake so that we may hear your Word as we pray: Save us, O Lord!

From…

…the pride of materialist science and all its future Frankensteins… Save us, O Lord!

…the gluttony of petite bourgeois consumerism and fashion and war…

…the greed of corporate and governmental irresponsibility and the nanny State…

…the lusts of Hollywood, its minions in TV and radio and the idolatry of celebrity…

…the sloth of self-help psychobabble, New Age junk, and religious syncretism…

…the envy of Enlightenment “freedom” and the prison of reason without God…

…the wrath of secular diversity, tolerance, and moral anarchy…

Save us, O Lord from these enemies and keep us fully awake. In Jesus name. Amen.

OK. A bit a fun. But I hope my point is clear: to be fully awake is in large part to be fully aware of what the faith is and isn’t, what defines us and what pretends to define us in order to destroy us. Our citizenship is in heaven, true, but right now, we live down here, and in the meantime, we have to be awake to our personal enemies, our daily temptations, and the enemies that work on a much larger scale. Lent, the desert, is where we go to confront these enemies head on! And there we will find the Lord already victorious.

We’re fully awake. Now, what does it mean to be quiet? Being quiet is not just about being noiseless. There’s silence, of course; but there’s stillness as well. Waiting. Not being tensed to spring into action. Not being ready to race or hurry. In fact, being quiet means being fully awake and completely empty, empty of an all-consuming Self, empty of disobedience and capital dissent; empty of inordinate desires for prestige, power, and advantage over others; empty of despairing, self-loathing, and resentment. Being quiet in the desert is about slowly shuffling your feet in the walk to Jerusalem—no proud marches; no eager skipping along, racing to the end; no arrogant stomping in defiance of authority; just humble walking. In silence. Fully awake. Without. And with Jesus.

The Devil is here too, of course. He left for a time. He’s back. And that’s why we’re here in the desert: to meet the Devil so that we can be tempted; and we’re here to see Christ in his glory and to listen. So, let me ask you: do you run from temptation? Why? Are you afraid of sinning? Or are you afraid of what might tempt you? I mean, do you fear what you desire? Do you think fear is enough to drive away something as powerful as desire? Or does fear sweeten desire, pushing it into the forbidden and the inscrutable, thus turning a mere temptation into an obsession? Fighting temptation is pointless. That battle is won already. You are free; you do not have to sin. So, don’t. Look carefully at what the Devil is tempting you with. He will always tempt you with an apparent good. Look at the temptation. What’s good there? What has the Liar twisted? Untwist it. Find the Good and give God thanks for that Good. Turn an occasion of sin into a grateful event!

Master, it is good that we are here…with you, with each other. On the mountain, he showed us his heavenly glory and pointed us to Jerusalem. So, one foot in front of the other. One step, one step. And the cross comes closer…clearer, louder, rougher. And the enemies collect as they always do. Stand firm. Stay awake and be quiet. Keep watch in silence, ready to hear and see and obey his Word.

The cross pulls us to Jerusalem. Easter morning is dark still.