Contemplation of Mortality

When I come to Psalm 49:10-13 in my prayer Psalms, I often think of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Ozymandias. The pursuit of ego gratification and temporal greatness is hardly a new phenomenon, but it seems to have taken center stage in the public arena in recent years. Both the Psalmist and Shelly are clear that the corrective for this trend is contemplation of mortality.

When we look at the wise, they die; fool and dolt perish together and leave their wealth to others. Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they named lands their own. Mortals cannot abide in their pomp; they are like the animals that perish. Such is the fate of the foolhardy, the end of those who are pleased with their lot. 

The monastics knew the spiritual benefit of contemplating our mortality. Some monasteries have their cemetery outside the entrance to the refectory where they take their meals. Often the next grave in line has already been dug and is ready for the next monk’s passing. Thus they must contemplate that even as they take the meals that sustain their lives, they are mortal and will go to their graves in turn. In some more intense monasteries, monks actually build their own coffins and sleep in them until they are used for burial. The picture is a fresco from the Basilica of St. Benedict in Subiaco, Italy. It shows a monk guiding young people in contemplating their mortality by showing them three dead bodies: one fresh, one decaying, and one skeletonized.  Perhaps you have seen old grave stones with the inscription, “As you are, I once was. As I am, you will be.”

All this may seem morbid to us in our age of death denial. But the Psalms (e.g. 39, 90) frequently recommend contemplation of mortality as the route to living each day well in healthy relationship with God, the people we love, and the world we inhabit. The hints of what may come after this life are few and vague in the Hebrew Scriptures. Their emphasis is not on imagining details of a future eternity but on trusting ourselves to the God who guides us in this life to secure us for that eternity. Just this one line in Psalm 49:15 articulates that faith.

God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. 

Interestingly, perhaps significantly in terms of my meditations today, the Epistle from the Lectionary for next Sunday explores this mystery in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44. This strikes me as so much more profound and satisfying than the song I Can Only Imagine that has become popular in some circles for funerals.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

We are so prone to individualistic perspectives that we miss that mortality is not only for each of us personally but for the human institutions in which we live. In terms of human and even Western history, the United States is very young, and as wonderful as it may be, or we wish it could be, it is not the Eternal Reign of God. It is temporary and one day will pass from the scene, as have all others before it. That should not cause us distress any more than contemplating our personal mortality should. Rather, it should motivate us put all the falderal of pursuing greatness in perspective focusing on justice and peace, compassion and prosperity not only for ourselves but for all people.

Ozymandias 

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.