By Richard S. DenUyl, Jr.
Sentinel Contributor
“Behold, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?”— Isaiah 43:19
Whenever I hear those words, I think of my grandfather. His name was Simon. His favorite cocktail was a Manhattan. I have fond childhood memories of him fishing out the bittersweet maraschino cherry and sneaking it to me when my mother wasn’t looking. Even though he never went to college, my grandfather did pretty well for himself. After a tour of duty in the war, he was broke—literally bankrupt. Eventually he got a job in the mailroom of a large aluminum company. He would hand-deliver letters to all the departments, including the top management. They got to know him by name and began to take an interest in him. Over the years, he was promoted several times until he finally became president of the company. His was the American Dream of the good old days.
Forty years later my grandfather put on his gold watch and retired. Looking back, he had no regrets, except for one—a big one! He told and retold his “bittersweet” story many times, almost always while finishing his second Manhattan. It happened during a golf tournament. He was introduced to a man by the name of Walter. Over the course of that weekend, Simon and Walter hit it off. But they were very different. Simon was a hard-working, by-the-book traditionalist. Walter, on the other hand, was a bit of a dreamer, someone who liked to try new things. On the last day of the tournament Walter looked over at my grandfather and said, “Simon, I have a business idea, and I would like to invite you to be one of my founding investors.” To which my grandfather replied, “That’s great, Walter, what’s your idea?” Walter answered, “I have been dreaming about creating an animated cartoon company for children
and adults.”
Laughing out loud, my grandfather politely declined. A few years later Walt Disney became a household name. Needless to say, my grandfather never got over it. Hence the double Manhattans!
“Behold, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?”
Where would the world be if it weren’t for people who embodied those words? Where would we be without men and women who took a risk, defied the status quo and forever changed history by doing something new? People like Thomas Edison or the Wright brothers? People like Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.? People like Bach and B.B. King, Steve Jobs and Sheryl Sandberg? Where would science and medicine be today without those types—people like Galileo and Darwin, Louis Pasteur and Marie Curie?
“Behold, I am doing a new thing.”
As we begin a new year, those words should be our personal mantra as well. The older I get, the more I catch myself becoming stuck in my ways. For example, whenever my wife suggests that we try a new recipe or vacation destination, and I protest, she accuses me of becoming “ossified.” She’s right. The key to a joyful, fulfilling life is constantly trying new things no matter how old we are, lest we become ossified, body, mind and soul.
“Behold, I am doing a
new thing.”
Religion is no exception. When Isaiah spoke those words on behalf of God, things were not good. The people were in exile, feeling powerless and hopeless. Much like today, confidence in organized religion was at an all time low. In times like this, our inclination is to blame it all on the surrounding culture instead of asking ourselves, “What can we be doing differently?” In times like this our impulse is to hold on to what we know. And yet, according to scripture this is exactly when God is calling us to do a new thing.
During one of the most difficult times in American history, President Lincoln sent a letter to Congress that contained these timeless words:
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise—with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
And so it goes: The religious dogmas of the quiet past—of the good old days of my grandfather—are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, we must think and act anew. We must free ourselves up to move forward.
It is the belief that God is not simply way back there in history and tradition; rather, God is a step ahead of us, leading us to new beginnings—to new life. It is embracing and celebrating the fact that our God is a progressive God.
It is a theme that permeates the Bible. Consider Noah: Starting a cartoon company seems pretty mainstream compared to building an ark in your back yard, especially when you live in the desert. Or Abraham and Sarah: When God told Sarah she would be the mother of a new nation as a senior citizen, her first reaction was to laugh out loud the same way my grandfather laughed out loud at Walt Disney.
And finally there was Jesus. Time and again he reinterpreted the religion of his day. Time and again, throughout his ministry, Jesus chose people over tradition, which is why he plucked grain and healed on the Sabbath. And if that wasn’t enough to rock the old religious boat, Jesus even had the creativity and the courage to expand sacred ritual. Like that night in the upper room when he forever linked Judaism with Christianity by using a Passover Seder to introduce The Lord’s Supper.
I love the way the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead put it:
“The art of a free society is in the fearlessness of revision. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision will ultimately decay.”
The church is no exception. A church that does not combine reverence to its symbols along with freedom of revision will ultimately decay as well.
The distinguished Christian historian Martin E. Marty once said, with a twinkle in his eye, “The last seven words of the church will be: ‘We never did it that way before.’”
All kidding aside, those may well be the last seven words of the church, unless we heed Isaiah’s first seven words instead.
“Behold, I am doing a new thing.”
The Rev. Richard S. DenUyl, Jr., is the senior pastor at First Congregational Church Greenwich.
