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LeapingApril 29, 2007 Fourth Sunday of Easter There’s a new biography of Albert Einstein [1] that has received quite a lot a play within a wide variety of media of late. Partly this attention is due to the quality of the writing, and partly it’s due to the subject. Author Walter Isaacson has been reviewed very positively and he’s been interviewed by a number of television hosts, including Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, which I happened to tune into one evening not long ago. But then, not only is the writing lucid and penetrating, but Einstein himself is such an iconic character that he remains fascinating to generations that have come of age since his death in 1955. Indeed, I suspect the vast majority of Americans would know the name, Albert Einstein, which is rather astonishing when you consider that he’s a physicist and not a celebrity, a la Britney Spears, probably the next most famous person in American culture. Though I haven’t seen it myself, I’ve noticed there’s a new television program entitled, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? I imagine that most 5th graders as well as their parents would recognize the name Albert Einstein. In 1999, Einstein was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Century;” again quite a feat given his egghead credentials and the fact that, while widely known, most people couldn’t really explain exactly why he’s so famous, other than saying something like, well, he was a scientific genius. But that doesn’t quite capture the esteem in which he’s held by his peers, the most accomplished of whom have said things like this: Einstein’s theory of general relativity “is probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made;” another giant in physics called it, “the most amazing combination of philosophical penetration, physical intuition and mathematical skill” in human history. From penetrating the invisible world of subatomic particles to the far reaches of the cosmos, Einstein’s leap of creative imagination has impacted our lives in incalculable ways and set a course for human discovery and development ever since 1905, when E=mc2 became boldly imprinted within human consciousness. It’s the relationship between freedom and the creative leap that captured Isaacson’s focus in a recent interview with Thomas Friedman. He said, “The whole theme of…Einstein’s life was that the only way to have creativity and imagination is to nurture free thought – rebellious free thought. If you look at Einstein’s major theories, all of them come from taking rebellious imaginative leaps that throw out old conventional wisdom….” [2] Well, I got to thinking about that this week – the rebellious free thought that led Einstein to his imaginative leaps and the impact that has had on humanity. And, a couple of things occurred to me. The first was that he had to be very conversant with old wisdom in order to transcend it. For instance, his mastery of calculus (before he was fifteen, I might add) became part of the bedrock of his intellect. He had to become completely conversant in scientific language and thought, it had to become his symbolic way of communicating. The sturdy and brilliant work of Isaac Newton who formulated our original notions of gravity had to be absorbed before recognizing that gravity, space and time were all interrelated. So there is very much the sense that he was deeply steeped in scientific awareness of his day, and actually dependent upon this informed, orthodox awareness. Then, of course, he had this willingness and exploited his freedom to rebelliously challenge the scientific orthodoxies of his day. Without that leaping there would have been no progress. Without that willingness to explore the unknown territories with intellectual abandon he would not have gained the astonishing insight. This complete familiarity and comfort with the orthodox and simultaneous willingness to leap beyond it is the paradox that I wound up thinking about. And it occurred to me that this paradox has relevance in nearly every arena of our lives – this thorough knowledge and comfort with existing wisdom in tension with a willingness to leap into the new. We really cannot thrive without both sides of that equation.
I imagine the same is true in nearly every sort of vital career that’s represented in this room. I mean, as you think about your own, would it not be correct to say that there is a language, a culture, and informed orthodoxies that need to be learned within your field, and then, if you are to thrive, a willingness to embark on rebellious imaginative leaps? I suppose that might sound a little over the top for some of you, but you get the point…. And then, naturally, since I’m a preacher, and since scripture was mine to read and prepare, I thought about Jesus; by birth and training a very knowledgeable Jew, steeped in the Torah, becoming a teacher of astonishing authority. He knew the law inside and out. It was the air he breathed and the water he drank. It was his symbolic language of greatest depth. The wisdom he passed on was anchored within the orthodoxies of his day and he valued, even cherished them. They were his own. Still, as you well know, those orthodoxies could not contain him; he moved beyond them, calling upon those who would, to follow him into creative, rebellious leaps. And indeed, he went where no one had gone before. Yes, there had been whispers, hints, even strong leads within the tradition he loved, but nothing to prepare for what Jesus actually proclaimed in the content of his life, suffering, death and resurrection, let alone his wondrous wisdom. Following all this required a spiritual imagination of incredible range. And it still does, for those of us today who are willing to consider such a thing. And, of course, there were many in his day that could not go the distance with him. They needed the security of rigid certainties. Jesus was much less about rejecting the orthodoxies, and much more about leaping beyond them. So, for instance, the little snippet we heard from John’s Gospel in which Jesus refers to himself as a shepherd falls within a longer sequence we name, “Jesus, the Good Shepherd.” Well, given that we’ve coupled that with the beloved 23rd psalm today, written centuries before his own time, we can sense how relevant that imagery was for Jesus’ audience. The 23rd psalm that begins, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” was part of the symbolic language of his time; it captured both an individual’s relationship with God, as well as all of Israel. Jesus was steeped within this symbolic language. He didn’t reject it at all; in fact he completely embraced it and then he leapt beyond it, stretching its meaning in ways that required a kind of rebellious creative imagination. Immediately following our passage, the very next line says, “They took up stones to stone him..” That’s because those who were challenging him could not take the leap and felt their certainties threatened as a result. Well, friends, we don’t have to look very far to see that sort of drama played out in our own day. In fact, we don’t have to look any further than the church. I hope she doesn’t mind the attention, but just think for a moment about the presence of Cathy Gilliard in her role among us. And I ask you, would she have been sitting up here 50 years ago, 30 years ago? Are there churches in our land in which she could still not fulfill her calling? And, would it not be an accurate statement that her presence here required rebellious imaginative leaps of lots of different people over many years, including herself, I might add? And as you think about this, you discover that these leaps were not so much about rejecting the wisdom of the orthodoxies, as they were a more complete embrace of them and then moving beyond. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a prime example of this same movement. His iconic “I Have a Dream” speech is completely scriptural. It is utterly Christian in the best sense of the word. Martin King was steeped in the tradition. It was the air he breathed and the water he drank. He was fully immersed in its orthodoxies and then leapt beyond. And the old drama played out once more. There were those in the crowd in his day who wanted to take him out and stone him to death because their rigid certainties had been so threatened. And, in the end, they had their way with him. But in the meantime, the door onto a much larger way had been opened and it would never be shut again. I’m thinking that the church today suffers from two versions of one-sided thinking. On the one hand, we find those who seem committed to their rigid certainties, afraid to make the rebellious creative leaps that are everywhere suggested within their wonderful tradition, and wind up living a religion largely about exclusion and privilege. And on the other hand, I see those who have rejected the wisdom of the ages out of hand, the wisdom that’s found in deeply imbibing upon the tradition. They’re all about the leaping, but miss the obvious condition that, if they stand on a flimsy platform, their leaping can be hardly productive. That’s why, friends, its important to learn your language, to crack open the pages of this book, to engage one another in fruitful spiritual exploration, to worship regularly, to learn firsthand the movements of grace for yourselves. The breakthroughs come as we learn our ABC’s and our calculus of the spiritual life; as we sit at the feet of Jesus and his disciples, as we listen, and watch and pray; as we do our homework. And then, always looking for the new in-breaking of Spirit in our lives and in the world that comes to us like an irresistible call, something that quite frankly, can’t be ignored regardless of where it takes us. It stands to reason that those of us who would be followers of the way that Jesus opened would learn to model ourselves on the pattern he sets. And that pattern is woven from a love of the tradition and a willingness to move beyond it. It’s a both/and, not an either/or. Transformation occurs in the creative imaginative tension between these two sides of the equation. If we do this work well, we will find ourselves in the curious position of being neither fish nor fowl. We will be in neither camp, or in both, I suppose, depending upon your point of view. But mostly we’ll find ourselves vitally alive and thriving, if not always agreeing, maybe occasionally engendering some hostility as, in the words of St. Paul, we strain forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Friends we’ve got some homework to do and we’ve got some glorious leaping ahead…. You can sense that, can’t you? Previous sermon: Shocking, Awful, Violent • Next sermon: Something Seems To Be Going On All past sermons |
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