“From now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.”
What a challenge Paul’s instructions are in the First Letter to the Corinthians. I know he is right that the present form of the world is passing away. Even though he said this two thousand years ago and we are still here, he isn’t wrong. The present form of the world is always passing away, almost by definition. We focus so passionately on our having and wanting and winning and losing, and it’s surely right for Paul to remind us that we are focused on the wrong things, things that are not real. Even though we have come to understand the idea of Jesus’s return differently than Paul did, Paul isn’t wrong to call us to attention, to give us a sense of urgency.
Still, these words are challenging. Not just hard to live up to, but challenging in their core intention, that we should somehow live as though the world we are in is not real to us. It’s not hard to picture this going wrong. Disregard for the world around us sounds like all the worst examples we can think of, of a grim, disdainful, Christianity. It sounds like not caring about what happens here on this earth. It sounds really cold.
When Hank Aaron beat Babe Ruth’s record for career home runs in 1974, two things were clear: that he was one of the all-time great baseball players and that white fans were not going to allow a great black athlete to live a peaceful, successful life. Chasing a record in baseball is always stressful, but Aaron, famously, suffered grave threats to his security and that of his family: “My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats,” he later told the New York Times, “and I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp. I had to duck. I had to go out the back door of the ball parks. I had to have a police escort with me all the time. I was getting threatening letters every single day.”
There is no way to make this story less painful, and it should never be repeated, though of course it gets repeated all the time in the ongoing history of great black leaders. What I’m wondering about this morning, though, is whether Hank Aaron’s clear-eyed assessment of the sin of racism has anything to do with the way that St. Paul is asking us to live in the letter to the Corinthians: “from now on” enjoins Paul, “let…those who rejoice [live] as though they were not rejoicing.”
Hank Aaron didn’t necessarily take up that stance because he believed Jesus was coming soon. He was forced to live as though he were not rejoicing, because he had such a vision of the sin of the world. “All of these things have put a bad taste in my mouth,” he said, “and it won’t go away. They carved a piece of my heart away.”
His racist tormentors carved out a piece of the great heart that had led him to toil unceasingly to perfect his game. He was the last player brought up to the major leagues from what they called the Negro leagues. He battled racism all through his career, but those tormenters in the early seventies really took something from him. They carved out some of what made him chase Babe Ruth’s record in the first place. Some of what made him dare to use the gifts God had given him to their full glory. Some of what it meant to be a hero.
Hank Aaron played through the death threats and the disillusionment. He retired a couple of years after breaking that record, exhausted and embittered, with an offensive record that still inspires awe. This isn’t a story about everything ending well. It’s an honest story.
What he became is something we need to know more about. He had the heart of a peerless athlete who also carried the broken heart of the world. He knew that the world in which he lived and worked and played so greatly was also a world gone wrong. And he spoke courageously of that truth. He let both things be true, the greatness of his skill and the hollow feeling it gave him to win in a world that was so utterly wrong.
Did he expect the imminent return of Jesus? I don’t know that he did. But did Jesus draw near to him? Of that I am absolutely certain. Because a moment in which we see the sin of the world clearly is a moment in which we are close to Jesus. Any moment of truth, whether it’s about the culture we live in or the painful reality of our own heart. Jesus is very close to the heart that has a piece carved out of it.
When I hear Paul’s words from Corinthians this morning I think of a kind of voluntary asceticism. I think of Christians who carefully practice relinquishing the good things of the world, Christians who know that they are living for the kingdom of God and not for the kingdom of this world. I don’t think of baseball players. I don’t think of people who are just exhausted by sin. Baseball is just a game, and in the end it doesn’t matter at all what happens or doesn’t happen in a ballpark. The whole point of a game is that when it’s over, it’s over, and you start again with a new reality next time. The passing away of the present world is more or less like a ballgame.
What we know, any of us who love the game, is that profound statements are made during those nine innings. We care so passionately while it lasts. Every pitch, every batter, every out. It matters to the players on the field and to the fans in the stadium. Echoes from the contest call out to the wider world. The grandfather in his workshop with the radio on, on a hot summer afternoon, is as present to the sport as anyone there in person. In his solitude, his attention focused, he is breathing with the game, hoping against hope, thrilling to a victory. A child somewhere dreams of taking the field in her turn.
We care so passionately while it lasts. And everywhere around us in this life are people who play injured, in body, mind, and spirit. Maybe most of us know this truth on some level: that the world is broken and it is the place where all our truth is told.
Who dares to have the heart of a champion in this world? Who can hold the passion of accomplishment or the ache of loss, knowing that this broken world is the place where God happens for us? Who dares to admit that a champion in this life will not always feel whole, that those who break the records know how hollow their accomplishments are?
It’s not cold, this living for the coming of Jesus. It’s not distance from the world. It’s heartbreak. And it’s hope.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/01/23/hank-aaron-racism-home-runs/
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30759337/hank-aaron-lasting-impact-measured-more-home-runs
Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
24 January 2021
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia