Homily 2.13.16

Scripture Readings:
DT 26:4-10
Rom 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13

Journeying into the Desert with the Desert Ammas

In our faith tradition, we have many rich symbols and wise ancestors who help to guide us on our spiritual journey. One such symbol is presented in our Gospel today: the desert. And the ancestors whose wisdom I draw on to help guide us as we explore this reality of the desert in our own lives are the 3rd and 4th century mystic women: the desert mothers or desert ammas. I invite you to journey with me and these wise women as we dig into the gospel today and explore what it looks like to create desert spaces in our own lives, and what comes up for us when we do. 

In our Gospel today, Jesus spends 40 days in the desert. In the lives and tradition of the 3rd/4th century desert mystics, they spent their whole lives in the deserts. Most likely, you aren’t going to pack your bags, hop on a plane, and go camp out in the deserts of Egypt for the next 40 days; so what does it mean for us today to journey into the desert? We can think about the desert as a place of space and time. It isn’t so much somewhere that we go to, but a reality that we create in order to go deep within to look and listen to what is going on inside of us. 

Mary Earle lays out in her book: The Desert Mothers, concrete ways that we too can create desert spaces in our own lives. The first step is to find a space in your home or daily routine where you can create a “cell.” In the desert tradition monastics were counseled, “go to your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” For them a cell was a small hut or cave, for us it could be a corner of a room, a closet, or even a certain stair on the staircase. A cell is a space that you set aside for your practice that you can visit daily to engage the practice of silence and reflection. 

Once you have your spot, you create a routine, setting out a block of time, could be just 10 min to start, where you go to your cell with no other distractions and sit in silence, to notice what thoughts cross your mind, what is going on inside of you, reflect on your interactions with others and how God has been present in your life in the last 24 hours. During your times of silence, keep a record of what comes up to notice patterns and remind yourself of what you’re working on, what you need to watch out for. The desert ammas teach us that “the work of the desert is to collaborate with God to become the person you were always meant to be.” 

You can think about the desert, as a mini-retreat space. Now perhaps we think of retreat, and thus the idea of going into the desert, as an escape, as a leaving behind of the rest of the world and just being alone. But that’s not the reality of what Jesus experienced in the Gospel today and it’s not our own reality of journeying into the desert. I find a helpful explanation of what it really means as explained by Thich Nhat Hanh, who reminds us that when we go on retreat, or we practice meditation, or we enter into the desert, it is not to escape society, it is to enter more fully and engage society, because we carry the world with us. Amma Matrona has a similar saying, “We carry ourselves wherever we go and we cannot escape temptation by mere flight.” When we journey into the desert, we aren’t leaving anything behind, especially our temptations, we are creating space to really notice the world we carry inside of us, notice what distracts us from who God created us to be, in order to make the changes necessary to better love myself, love God, and love others. This is the heart of the desert ammas’ practice. Their practice, and our challenge in following them, is to perfect these three areas and restore these relationships: with our self, with others, and with God. And I would encourage us to expand “others” to mean all of creation, because there is much healing to be done not only within inter-personal human relationships, but in our relationship with all of God’s creation.

So we have this goal or vision: create desert space in our own lives in order to engage with what is going on inside of us in order to restore our relationship with our self, with God, and with all of creation. But there are things that get in the way, temptations that we are better able to notice and name when we enter into the desert, temptations that distort these relationships and make us commit what according to the desert ammas is the greatest sin: “the sin of forgetting - forgetting that God brings us into being and that each life is a treasure… Because when we forget that we are crafted by divine skill, we lose the sense of our own sacredness and the sacredness of our neighbor and all that has been created.” 

The three temptations Jesus experienced in the desert reflect this as well. Jesus is tempted in body, mind, and spirit to distort his relationship with himself, with others, and with God, his own Abba. We too are tempted in multiple ways every day to this sin of forgetting who we are and that all life is a treasure to be valued. What the opportunity to journey into the desert offers us, is a chance to create space to confront these temptations and choose love, just as Jesus did. I too am tempted to act out of my own self-interest, to consume for my own satisfaction without regard to the needs of others. I too am tempted to make choices that will lead to recognition, praise, and glory rather than choosing what is best for the collective liberation of us all. I too want to put God to the test as I cry out how can you let this suffering continue or why don’t you do something, forgetting that we are the living body of Christ in the world today. And I often make these choices unconsciously, because they have become habits, or patterns, part of the air I breathe. Going into the desert offers us a chance to step back and go deep, to become conscious of our unconscious behaviors and choices, to face with honesty, courage, and humility those parts of us that might not be so pretty, which opens up the space for real transformation to happen. 

We don’t often think of the desert as being a space where life thrives, but it is only by spending time in the desert that we can truly free ourselves to live the fullness of the life that God has created for us in harmony with all of creation. And while our desert practice is an individual practice in many ways, the wisdom of the desert ammas reminds us that this practice benefits the whole cosmos; we enter into the desert to restore our own beauty and grace for the life of the whole world. So I encourage you to join Jesus in the desert this Lent, create a cell, take time in silence to listen and reflect. Let us face our own demons and temptations, in order to choose love and restore our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with all of creation. 

Amen