Sight, Perspective & Focus
Romans 8:12 – 25; Matthew 13: 24 – 30, 36 – 43
Last Monday night at the Taizé service I entered the time of silent meditation. I closed my eyes as usual, but my concentration wavered. I opened my eyes and focussed on the wooden cross on the floor, which has tea-light candles at its four corners. It helped me meditate. Then I focussed on the candlelight. The rays of light changed as I changed from wide-open eyes to nearly closed eyes. It was fascinating. Squinting through my eyelids the candle flames diffused into shafts of light. I lost some clarity of vision but the shafts of light were pretty. They altered in length. Then I returned to wide-open eyes focussing on the flame. It was clear and well defined. It danced. I wondered, is this a little lesson God is giving me? With eyes half closed or almost closed we see the candlelight differently. It looks pretty, but our perspective is limited. We don’t see clearly. I realised that with semi-shut eyelids the light is diffused and scattered, but with wide-open eyes the light is concentrated and CLEAR
I reflected on that and on one’s life. Are the semi-closed eyes something akin to when we’re tired, troubled, anxious, overwhelmed, sad and distracted? We don’t see life too well when there’s a lot going on and we’re stressed. Our perspective on what’s happening is unclear and diffused. When we are rested, confident, less pressured by cares and concerns we both see and hear more clearly. I realised how the physical diffusion of light is symbolic of perspective on life when we’re stressed and vice versa.
I thought on Monday night at Taizé, that God was giving me something for a sermon. I didn’t know then what the set text was for the week. I just knew I had two funeral services to conduct and it would be a full week. There were other important items on the agenda too. I wondered what the text was, but my third funeral the next day had occupied my thoughts and sermons and texts were far from me. Well on Tuesday evening I came to the lectionary text and there it was. The text was about sight, perspective and focus. I felt God had prepared me.
Jesus’ walking on the water is a story that encompasses the experiences of sight, perspective and focus, each seem like the same thing but they are not.
Sight is the physical action of seeing
Perspective is seeing something in its right proportion, in relation to other things, and from a particular point of view.
Focus involves concentration and establishing a clear definition.
The disciples saw Jesus walking on water. We are told that they were terrified. Let’s recognise they were already ‘battered’ by waves. They were close to survival sailing. It would be something they had encountered on the water before. They would have been fearful but not paralysed by fear. Fear generates a rush of adrenaline, the heart rate quickens and the sense of flight or fight increases. Scripture tells us they cried out in fear at the sight of Jesus. They thought they were seeing a ghost. They were in danger and seeing a ghost! Did they think it was an omen of their own misfortune? Such thoughts may have rushed through their minds. Their state of mind was not easily disposed to a healthy perspective.
What gave them perspective was the voice of Jesus. We read that immediately following their cry of fear Jesus spoke and said, Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” [Mt 14:27] They only regained perspective when they heard the voice of Jesus. His familiar voice gave them perspective.
We can talk about perspective in a number of ways. For example when reading a text one needs literary perspective to understand it. Literary perspective is about seeing the text in the context of the characters, the larger life situation and maybe the historical setting. Perspective is like looking through a camera lens. One can zoom in and see the small detail or zoom out to see the bigger picture. Theoretical perspective is about establishing one’s assumptions about life. Theological perspective is like that too. One can read the Bible with the firm conviction – assumption – that God is an angry God or the Bible is a book of rules, or the Bible is literally true, or the Bible is a love story. Each of these assumptions will skew what we read. The important thing is to evaluate our assumptions and broaden our outlook. When it comes to personal perspective the state of our emotions, our health and our environment all play a vital part in determining our perspective. It falls to us to manage our emotions and health. It is very hard when things about us are not quite right, when we don’t feel well, and we feel threatened. Then our perspective shifts. We imagine the worst. In the latter part of this week a personal matter struck us and I was very stressed. I stopped to pray and to practise deep breathing to try and get balance and perspective, and to a large extent it worked.
Once the disciples this image of Jesus into perspective, impetuous Peter asks Jesus to call him. That was an act of utter faith in Jesus on Peter’s part. Jesus calls Peter, “Come”. Peter steps out of the boat and he too walks on water “towards Jesus” [Mt 14: 29]. Peter is focussed. His is looking at Jesus. He is walking on water. Then his focus shifts. Peter noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” [Mt 14: 30]. Jesus reaches out to Peter saying to him, “Why did you doubt?” While Peter focused on Jesus he did amazing things. When his focus wavered he sank beneath the water.
This story tells us that when we control our emotions and calm ourselves, things fall into perspective. When we focus on Christ Jesus we gain strength and energy. Possibilities emerge that we would not naturally imagine.
This story reminds us of three important stages of seeing. The first stage is what we see. We see something and depending on our assumptions, emotions, level of calmness or anxiety we may read the situation either inaccurately or accurately. How many times have we caught ourselves imagining the worst possible outcome? In one sense doing that is not bad because it may get you to consider more carefully the situation. For example in financial ventures I have always imagined the worst-case scenario and asked myself ‘can I manage that’? If I can and the venture has manageable risk and I don’t put others or myself in danger I will proceed. I do that with the sports I enjoy because they have an element of risk in them. But at those times my emotions are not spiralling. Once the emotions get out of hand we reach that point where perspective is lost, and our conclusions are poor and our decisions unprofitable. We can’t see the wood for the trees.
The second stage is getting a perspective on what we see. Today I would like us to consider more carefully the difference between seeing something, getting that something into perspective and focussing on the issue. I want to suggest that our spiritual exercises of worship, prayer, study, and fellowship along with the disciplines of reflection, service, giving and mindfulness all help us to walk-on-water, so to speak. Our worship lives lift us up and that give us perspective along with our study and reflection. Prayer and meditation are centring exercises. They make us conscious of ourselves before God and others. To pray and wait on God has the effect of calming us and helping us listen. When things seem to be going wrong that is exactly what we need to do – pause, breathe deeply, speak to God and listen. Listen for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, to others and yourself. The disciplines of giving and service will help lead to a disciplined life. The disciplined person is most likely going to handle stress more easily than the one who is undisciplined.
There will be times when we begin to sink. There will be times when we are overwhelmed and very stressed. However when we feel ourselves sinking Christ Jesus will always be there to lift us up, but he will ask us, “Why did you doubt?” We need to have that question put to us, because it is not a reprimand but an affirmation that while we look to Jesus our possibilities are greater than we can imagine.
Looking to Jesus increases our possibilities beyond imagination.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 13/08/2017
pgwhitaker@tpg.com.au
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au
