A Different Perspective

PROPERS:          EASTER 7, YEAR A    

TEXT:                 1 PETER 4:12-14; 5:6-11

PREACHED VIA RECORDING AND INTERNET TO HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, MAY 24, 2020 – MY LAST SUNDAY THERE.

This is offered as a meditation and not a sermon.

ONE SENTENCE:        The trials through which we are going are recurring theme in history; the provenance of God is the overriding principle.       

                                    

            This is my last Sunday with Holy Trinity as a supply priest.  Please accept my heartfelt thanks for how you have welcomed me into this congregation.

+ + +

            Let me focus on the now. We may treat these days as a unique experience in human history.  Despite previous times of the Spanish flu, the Smallpox pandemic, and the Black Plague – and countless others – we see this time as unique.

            Would that it were so.

            These are strange times, for sure.  Likely, we have never personally experienced similar times and, likely, we will not again.  But perspective and kerygma – that is, proclamation – can give us a sense of eternal hope – even in the midst of these challenging times.

            The world in which the early church formed was one of tumult for the budding Christian movement.  The church began in an era of open hostility.  There was hostility from the religious leaders.  There was hostility from Rome.  And the many pagan religions looked down upon Christians.

            And in the era in which 1 Peter was written, most of the opposition was class-based in nature.  Most Christians in the area the author of this letter was addressing were the lower classes – many were slaves.

            So, rather than the organized persecution which would come later, these early Christians faced slights, criticism, and ostracization. It is a bitter pill to swallow – but Christians would face worse.

            Like those early Christians, we face challenges that are not as bad as they could be.  This is not the Second World War, nor is it the Great Depression.  But we are facing trials that the author of 1 Peter could identify with, as could the early Christians.

            However, in the midst of those first century difficulties, the Christians embraced hope and faith.  They did so by recognizing they had a different lens through which they looked at the circumstances of that day. Theirs was a different perspective from the world which surrounded them.

            It is a perspective I embrace.  It was described so well by the late Jesuit mystic, Anthony DeMello, in his meditation “The River.”  Hear his words:

I look up at the sky and see the morning star

burn brightly in the heavens.

I imagine what it sees as it looks down

on me and my surroundings

and this portion of the earth.

I visualize what it must have seen

a thousand years ago today…

five thousand…

a hundred thousand…

five million years ago.

I attempt to see in fantasy

what the morning star will see

a thousand years…

five thousand…

a hundred thousand…

five million years from now

on the anniversary of this day.

I pass in review the various stages of my life –

infancy, childhood, adolescence,

adulthood, middle age –

in the following fashion:

I search for the things

that seemed immeasurably important

at each of these stages of my life,

things that caused me worry and anxiety,

things that I stubbornly clung to,

that I never thought I could live with

or without.

When I look back from the distance of today,

how many of these loves or dreams or fears

retain the hold they had on me in former years?

Then I review

some of the problems I have today,

some of my present sufferings,

and of each of them I say,

“This too will pass away.”

I think of the things I cling to

or that I am possessive of.

I realize that a day must surely come

when I shall see them differently.

So of each of these attachments too I say,

“This too will pass away.”

I make a list of the many things I fear,

and of each of them I say,

“This too will pass away.”

To end, I see myself embarking on my daily tasks

with earnestness

and fervor

with which I plunge into a drama

or a game,

absorbed, immersed, but never drowning.

            There is real wisdom and perspective in his words.  It is a perspective – much like 1 Peter’s – which each of us could adopt in these days.

+ + + 

            I am reminded of riding with my mother in her car in 1958.  The radio was on.  From the radio came the rich and soulful sounds of Mahalia Jackson, singing a song that was very popular then.  I loved that song.

            That song reflects the wisdom and perspective – the deep and profound faith – of 1 Peter and Anthony DeMello.  We need to hear those words today:

He’s got the whole world in his hands,

He’s got the whole wide world in his hands,

He’s got the whole world in his hands,

He’s got the whole world in his hands.