The Desert as Preparation for Encounter

Fr. Tommy Thompson

Advent 2B 2017

December 10, 2017
In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

On this second Sunday of advent, the Gospel of Mark calls us to come to grips with the great figure of John the Baptist.  It’s really impossible to grasp the significance of Jesus without passing through the cleansing bath of John the Baptist.

John made his appearance in the desert of Judea.  What is it about deserts in the bible anyway?  Moses spends years in the desert before taking up his work...Elijah sojourns in a deserted place at a crisis point in his ministry...of course the Israelites have to pass through the desert forty years on the way to the promised land.  Jesus himself spends forty days in the desert before beginning his public ministry.  And throughout Christian history monks and other deeply spiritual and committed Christians have secluded themselves in caves and primitive shelters of the desert. 

What is it about deserts?  

Well they’re places of simplicity and poverty...where everything is stripped down to the basics...places where distractions and attachments are eliminated.  Both of those are important: distractions and attachments...because when distractions and attachments are eliminated or at least limited, we hear the voice of God calling. 

You know, if we are honest with one another, much of our lives are taken up by diversions or distractions....we are preoccupied with so many things...only when those things are set aside, do the really important things emerge.

Attachments: wealth, power, pleasure, honor...they are shouting at us, luring us, tempting us all the time. 

What is God saying?  What does God want?

Sometimes we need to go into a silent and deserted place to hear.  A place where the distractions and attachments are set aside.  That’s why spiritual people have an instinct for the desert. 

Advent for us is a kind of desert time...we are preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ.  So we pray, we fast, we are called to simplify life.  And this is so difficult and so radically different than the culture around us.  In the world around us, the run up to Christmas is a time of enormous distraction, where the attachments of wealth, honor, pleasure, and power are put before us as much as ever before...

We are meant to strip ourselves down during advent...

So let us do that even now...let us quieten ourselves so that we might hear what the prophet says in that quiet desert place void of distractions and attractions.  silence.

And what do we hear?  repent...reform  your lives...it cuts to the heart of all of us..because we all know our lives are not where they should be...the quality of love that is supposed to be within us...i mean a complete absolute self-forgetting love...its not there and we know it...we’ve all fallen into patterns of self-absorption, greed, and attachment; So out of the desert the Baptists’ voice cries...out of that place of clarification and simplification come the words “reform your lives....repent...change.”

We all know it don’t we...if we go into the desert...if we allow a stripping down...we know the voice that wells up from deep within will have to be dealt with...the voice of God the Spirit.

The word “repent” here means “Go beyond the mind that you have.” “Have  your whole way of perceiving the world transformed.”  At the most fundamental level, repentance means, “Stop thinking about your life as your project.” And start thinking, “My life is not about me; My life belongs to God and serves God’s purposes.”

You see, all of life’s distractions and attachments are subservient to the basic position that “my life is all about me.”  My life is a project of self-satisfaction...

John the Baptist calls us to turn around, to have a complete change of mind, attitude, of thinking... “No my life is not about me...my life is about God and God’s purposes.” 

When true repentance happens, no longer do we care about all the trivial matters we find ourselves complaining about all the time...rather, a sense of purpose...mission...characterizes our lives...we serve something so much greater than our own cause...and our lives become characterized by gratitude and joy...not pettiness and complaint.

My life is not about me...it is about God.  This is, truly, the call of John the Baptist.

In Mark’s Gospel, people were called to repent...because what was happening was earth shaking...life altering...something for which Israel and the world had been waiting to happen for oh so long.

The text says, “the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”

The entire momentum of Jewish life was toward the holy City and its temple.  The temple, was the dwelling place of God...where sacrifice was performed for the forgiveness of sins...therefore you see what is going on here... a scene change is taking place...an acknowledgement that something else is the case...a revolution was underway...John was luring people away from the customary place of encounter...

Why? Because he was communicating to them that a new and definitive place of encounter was arriving...in fact had already arrived! 

Everything temple represented: forgiveness, reconciliation, union with God, instruction, judgment... was now fully expressed in someone who was coming...someone who John was announcing. 

And so we begin to understand some of the metaphors John was using: “I am baptizing you with water, but someone who is coming after me is mightier than I; he will baptize you with holy spirit and fire.”

Water baptism was a kind of cleansing...a preparation for encounter with God.  In the temple you went through a special bath....a cleansing ritual to prepare you to encounter the Lord.  What John is telling us is that “the one who is coming is so much more than another prophet who speaks the Word of God.  The one who is coming is the Word of God!  He’s much more than a teacher who bears witness to the life of God...because He is the life of God!   And that’s why he can “dip you” (that’s what baptism meant in the Greek...to “dip into”).  This one can dip you into the very love of God.  In other words, “He can baptize you in the Holy Spirit.” 

What he is coming to do is to fill us up with the divine life.  He can set us on fire with a whole new manner of existence. This is why they are coming out  to the desert to be baptized by John.  They are preparing for an encounter like never before...they are preparing to encounter the fulfillment of temple -- the long expected Day of YHWH...when the Lord would come to save His people. 

And that’s just what we are preparing for – an encounter with the incarnate God who came to us first in humility as a babe in Bethlehem, who comes to us now as the risen and enthroned King of the cosmos and who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. 

May our visit to the desert this day be the first of many visits for the remainder of this advent season.  May we prepare the way of the coming of the Lord in our own hearts and most especially in community together so that when the Lord does come, we may be gathered by God as citizens of the new heavens and earth where wolf and lamb lie down together.  And may the hospitable space that our lives create for one another in grace, give the world a signpost of this new age even now.  Amen.

Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King

Fr. Tommy Thompson

The Solemnity of Christ the King

26 November 2017

In the Name of the one, true, and living God: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is such a joy to be standing before you today on Mount Pulpit.  From this mountain, I get a fuller perspective.  So, I’m going to reach into my cassock pocket now and pull out my iPhone.  It has this super cool feature on it called “panorama mode.” When I activate this mode from the heights of Mount Pulpit, I can simply scan the scene I want to share with others and it creates one panoramic photo that gives the big picture of what I see from up here.   

Today is a kind of panoramic day.  Today is the last day of the Christian year, a relatively new feast day in the church called, “The Solemnity of Christ the King.”  Many of us don’t know what to do on this day, as it seems very redundant...Christ was enthroned already on the feast of the Ascension...and the upcoming season of Advent will be centered upon the culmination of His reign on earth.  So, I think the best way to celebrate today’s feast is to recapitulate the story, or, to get out our smartphones and scan the entire scene that we’ve lived in this year so that we might share that big picture of good news with others and be ready for the journey that starts afresh next week with Advent.

Throughout the entire year, the Gospels have focused heavily on the Kingdom of God and its rightful King, Jesus, the Christ, our Lord.  The claim that Jesus is King of a Kingdom that is not of this world is the primary reason Jesus ends up on a Roman cross. The claim that Jesus is king upset the first century world in two ways:  Firstly, according to the Roman Empire, there can only be one Lord and one King -- the Caesar.  By claiming to be king, Jesus claims that Caesar, is not.  And Caesar will have none of it.  The politics and reign of Jesus threaten the politics and kingdoms of this world.  That’s one side of the coin.  The other side is the Jewish one.  People confess Jesus as Lord and Messiah; rumor has it, he is the one who is to come. But the problem for first century Jews is that Jesus didn’t match their list of expectations for the ideal candidate as the Messiah King of Israel.  The Messiah King is supposed to march into Jerusalem on a mighty white horse with sword and shield and army ready to conquer in the name of the LORD – to take back the holy city from the pagan authority.

Kings are supposed to be waited on hand and foot, to wear the finest clothing, eat the finest food, enjoy the finest of the arts -- kings live it up...Jesus doesn’t even have a place to lay his head. He hangs around with drunkards, gluttons, no-name misfits. He doesn’t seem to be concerned with gold or silver, fine clothing, impressive horses, or large palaces. Is THIS the king of Israel who is to come, the one through which all creation will be restored?  Jesus message about an alternative kingdom with an alternative way and an alternative king upset the equilibrium of the first century world. 

I mean just look at the panoramic of Jesus’ life -- the story that we’ve been telling all year, beginning with Advent and ending today with Christ the King.  His story began when the angel Gabriel appeared to a virgin named Mary.  A young woman, not someone that people at that time were venerating, that’s for sure...insignificant in the eyes of most...but this lady, of all ladies, is THE favored one -- the ONE that the Father saw worthy to be the living tabernacle for His one and only Son, Jesus.  From a virgin, the Son of the Most High will come forth and he will take the throne of David and will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end!  The story begins in the most unlikely of circumstances.  In the world’s eye, this is not the way a king is brought into the world.  But, as Mary said in her song of praise, God is turning the world upside down (or maybe the correct way of saying it is – turning the world back right side up).  He is scattering the proud...bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly...filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty.  This is the true remembrance of the covenant God has made with Abraham...and God is making good on that, through this Jesus who will reign forever and ever. 

The Son of God, very God of very God, God from God and Light from Light, takes upon himself human flesh through the faithfulness of the Blessed Virgin and appears here on this sod as Emmanuel -- God with us.  Born not in a palace or castle, but a cave with animals and shepherds.  Immediately we find that this King plans on getting his hands messy in our lives.  He refuses to live in the ivory towers...He is inaugurating the alternative kingdom that will reveal that all others are mere parodies or imitation that falls way short of the real thing that Jesus has come to reveal. 

Jesus grows and is nurtured by the holy family, becomes a man, passing through every phase of human life for us, and then shows up to announce that he is about to do an earth-shattering new thing called the Kingdom of God.  “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand -- repent and believe in the good news.”  The rest of the Gospel we heard from that point early on in the season after Epiphany until now was a fleshing out of what the good news of the alternative kingdom is all about.  He commands unclean spirits to come out of the oppressed and the oppressed are freed; people quickly began hearing about Jesus so they began flocking to him, bringing all who were sick or oppressed and Jesus cured them.  Even when Jesus’ journey took him to the outskirts of town where the untouchables resided -- those who were deemed unclean by the religious authorities -- Jesus didn’t keep his distance but engaged the unclean and restored them to fullness of life in the community.  One time, when the passover was near, Jesus went into Jerusalem and did not seek to make a favorable impression on all the big name Jewish leaders.  He rubbed elbows with em alright -- but he did so in such a way that would not win him points to become the next big thing in Jerusalem.  He marched into the temple where he found injustice and overturned the tables and drove the crooks out.  He dared to take his disciples not only into the sea, but to the ‘other side of the tracks’ if you will...on the way he calmed the storm and when they had arrived to the other side, Jesus freed a man from a legion of demons.  Even when he was tired and exhausted, he showed us what a real King does for His people.  He carried on and went with Jairus to heal his little girl who was at the point of death.  While on the way, an unclean woman took a risk and went out into the crowd and reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed.  It was this woman Jesus affirmed while others would have berated her for breaking the rules.  What an alternative Kingdom!  What king does these kinds of things?  The lowly are being exalted and the mighty and powerful and being knocked from their thrones!  Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts.  He touched the unclean and made them well.  He engaged Gentiles in conversation, them leaving knowing their lives would never be the same. 

And then there’s that Gospel lesson in Mark that lays it all on the line.  “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and put it among them and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  Children--the visible expression of this kingdom.  Not warriors, not the rich and powerful, the smartest, the bravest—no—children! those who have no status in society,  the most vulnerable, innocent, imaginative – children!  These are the ones that Jesus says are sacramental – a visible expression of the Kingdom.  By welcoming these little ones we welcome the One who sent Jesus.  This is not a kingdom from this world -- Jesus told the truth to Pilate! 

Kings of this world do not get their hands so messy.  They do not love their people with such fervor, with such unshakable love that they are willing to lay down their own life so that all might be restored/renewed.  And this is the culmination of the entire story of God’s saving activity that we rehearsed during the Great Three Days from Maundy Thursday to Easter morning. The alternative kingdom was too alternative -- its presence in this age that is passing away pushed the buttons of evil like nothing ever before and evil rolled up its sleeves and gave love incarnate its best punches.  And on the cross, love -- God -- true humanity was crucified and God found himself in a dark, cold tomb.  Yet God’s love proved more powerful than evil and on the third day love sprung forth from the cold grave of our sin when Jesus rose from the dead as the first fruits of those to rise to everlasting life.  He ascended beyond the veil into the heavenly realm where he has been enthroned as the king of Israel and the King of the entire universe and his kingdom will last for ever and ever! 

But that’s not the end of the story.  On Pentecost, God the Spirit descended and empowered disciples everywhere to live the kingdom Jesus inaugurated in the here-and-now.  With the coming of the Spirit, we learned that, just as God did in the beginning when he created us in his image and likeness, so God invites us to cooperate with him in bringing about new creation -- the fullness of God’s kingdom on earth.  With Pentecost and the Sundays thereafter, we learned that there is a meantime – that the Kingdom of God is both already and not yet; and in the meantime, the baptized are called forth from the womb of the kingdom of God (aka the baptismal font) to live the alternative kingdom in the midst of an age that is passing away for the glory of God and for the transformation of God’s world. 

What a beautiful yet sobering panoramic photo!  When we look at the life of our Lord and King Jesus Christ, we know that the road that leads to eternal life in goodness and love won’t usually be easy.  It will be hard.  There is nothing about shouldering a cross and following Jesus the Crucified that is easy.  Which is why we need these panoramic days. Because when we see the big picture of Jesus, life, death, resurrection, ascension, the pouring out of the Spirit on Pentecost, and the ultimate re-appearing of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven to put all things to rights, all is put into perspective and we know that faithfulness, even when it leads to persecution and suffering, is leading to newness because our Lord is no longer in the grave but is coming again to make all things new.  Therefore, as Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, nothing we do in the name of Christ and for the sake of this alternative kingdom will be wasted. So be steadfast and immoveable in the Lord as we mark the close of the church year and endeavor to begin the journey with Christ the King afresh next Sunday with the seasons of Advent. 

In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

Homily on the Aid of our Lady, The Blessed Virgin Mary

The Rev'd Tommy Thompson

St. Clement's Church, Philadelphia

Sunday Vespers and Benediction

24 September 2017, 4pm

In the Name of the one true God: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

Greetings to you in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a high honor to be here with you on this day as we celebrate the clemency of our Holy Mother – the Queen of heaven, the Sweet Virgin Birth-giver of God.  

As I reflect on the meaning of the very title, “Our Lady of Clemency,” I’m struck by the persuasive power of our Lady- that her very presence as an intercessor of sinners grants to us a position before God that is truly undeserved.  That’s what clemency is all about, after all, isn’t it.  To be granted clemency means to be granted a lesser punishment that what our actions deserve, or to be pardoned altogether. 

I am reminded of those times as a child, when I’d stay overnight at my grandparent’s house in Nashville, TN.  We were always up to something, us boys.  There was always some new level of mischief for us to unlock, so to speak.  And somehow, some way, my dad would never fail to learn of the trouble we made.  Just as he was ready to let us have it, my sweet grandmother would step in.  As his mother she had a way with my dad that no one else did.  She could get us out of anything.  She was always the comforting, motherly caregiver.  She made us appear more angelic than we really were or than we ever deserved.  “Now, don’t be so hard on them – they’re just boys.  It is okay.  I talked to them.  They know better. They won’t do it again…”  Her pleas that spared our rear ends (literally) produced the desire, at the very least, to strive do better next time.

There is just something about a mother or a grandmother, isn’t there?.  Her entire life is a life of hospitality for her children.  And her children know that their mother is a place of receptivity, warmth, and safety--an open space where they can be and grow without fear.  Children instinctively know that it is from the bosom of their mother that they will be nurtured to life and grow and flourish in the world into which their mother nursed them…

I like the way Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov describes the Mother of our Lord: “The Mother of God stands between heaven and earth.  She intercedes for the world and offers our petitions before the altar of God’s throne.  She is love and compassion, mercy and care, intercessor and defender.  She does not judge, but has compassion for everyone.  Hers is not to be the righteous judge, or the judge of righteousness, but to intercede as a mother.  And at her Son’s awesome tribunal she intercedes on our behalf with the Righteous Judge to ask for forgiveness.” 

Hers is not to be the righteous judge…but to intercede as a mother.  That was the comfort I received from my grandmother who had the power to get us off the hook time and time again, and that is the comfort we receive from our Lady to whom we pray, “O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.” 

The Mother of God and Queen of heaven cares for and loves the world so much because the world is inseparable from her holy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.  This week as I was preparing for tonight’s sermon I was awestricken as I gazed upon the icon of our Lady and our Lord known as the “Sweet Kissing Icon.” It is the most tender icon we could ever read, emphasizing the tender and trusting relationship between the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. 

As you gaze into the icon, you see her love...her protective gaze...nothing will come between her and her Son and his holy mission.  She holds Jesus there...every icon of Mary we have she’s with Jesus.  And if anyone understands the incarnation, it is Mary.  She knows what and who she holds as she embraces Jesus with such tenderness – she holds the world – His passion – in her very bosom. 

Isn’t that the beauty of the mystery of the incarnation? In Jesus Christ, God has taken upon Godself the flesh of the whole of humanity.  Jesus represents us all before the Father.  He is the new humanity.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, does not therefore only hold her son in this icon, but she holds the world for which he was born and for whom he died and rose again.  We all are right there in the arms of the most loving mother and she will not let anything come between her and her Son, the new humanity.

Bulgakov goes on to say, “If only human eyes could perceive the Mother of God’s presence in the world, they would know what transfiguration is mysteriously taking place.  If they could only see her tears, their cruel hearts would be shaken into warmth.  For no heart is so frozen as to remain unmelted in the face of her loving care” 

One thing I’ve learned as I’ve watched my wife become an amazing and loving mother is that there is nothing like the love of a mother.  When a child is hurt, the mother feels her pain in her own soul.  When a child is joyful, the mother’s heart is full.  This is the love our Lady has towards us.  I like the way Alexander Schmemann puts it: “As Mother, she brings into her own heart all our sorrows, all our sufferings, all unbearable pain of our earthly existence” (Schmemman, The Virgin Mary, 36). 

May our eyes of faith be opened that we may see our Lady for all she is.  She pleads for our pardon – for clemency.  She will not let anything stand between her and her Son.  May we not forget that because she holds her Son in her bosom, she holds us in her bosom - for whole world is inseparable from her Son, we are his mission – his passion, therefore we are her mission and passion.  And may such a vision of our Lady of Clemency’s loving care for us engender faithfulness among us so that we might make our mother proud and her heart swell with joy! 

O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.   Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God – That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. 

In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Amen.