Don’t Look Before You Leap

“This invention has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” Thus read an 1876 Western Union internal memo, regarding a new-fangled thing called the telephone.  Now you can understand why our own Parish Building is the ‘former’ Western Union Building.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” David Sarnoff’’s associates back in the 1920s in response to his urgings for investment in something called ‘radio. ‘

“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” Gary Cooper said this about his decision not to take the leading role in a little film called “Gone With The Wind.”

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Recording Co. in 1962, rejecting a new band from Liverpool called The Beatles.

“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.” So said Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.

None of the above people or organizations had faith in unproven things.  They were afraid to take a leap of faith and make an investment.

Have you heard about the impala? No, not the Chevy Impala. No, I mean the antelope known as the African impala. These residents of southern and eastern Africa are amazing leapers. They can jump to a height of over 10 feet. One leap can cover a distance greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent animals can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3‑foot high wall. You see, impalas will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall.

That’s a wise, conservative approach to life. Don’t jump if you can’t see where your feet will fall. We have an adage about that, don’t we? “Look before you leap.”

How different that approach to life is from the life of faith as described in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

How’s that for a working definition of faith? It’s the very opposite of “look before you leap.”

Faith is jumping without being able to see where our feet will fall.

That’s the kind of faith the writer of Hebrews is commending in Hebrews 11, also known as the ‘faith chapter.’ It starts with Abraham. He was a man of faith because he went where God told him to go even though he did not know where that might be. He was not a man of faith simply because he believed in God. He was a man of faith because he believed God when God made him a promise and he acted accordingly.

Then Hebrews lists other faithful greats, including Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, Samuel, and David.

The world is desperate for people of faith. Wouldn’t you agree with that?

Some of you may be familiar with a movie called Amistad. This film was based on the true story of a group of African slaves who were brought to this country in chains under the most inhumane conditions imaginable. They were imprisoned on the ship La Amistad.

As the ship neared this country, one of the slaves, a man named Cinque, was able to free himself. With his help the other slaves were also able to throw off their chains, and soon they took over the ship. However, not knowing how to read maps, they were tricked by the ship’s navigators, and were subsequently recaptured and taken in chains to New Haven, Connecticut, where they were put on trial as murderers and thieves.

Over the next 27 months, these survivors of the Amistad began a new voyage through the court system of the United States. In the end, former President John Quincy Adams defended Cinque and his fellow slaves before the United States Supreme Court.

Adams went on to invoke the names of our founding fathers. He also went on to invoke the names of the early Supreme Court justices. One by one, he spoke the names of the great men who had sat in the seats of justice. After calling out each name, he spoke a single word, “Gone.” “Gone.”

When he finished calling out all of the names of their illustrious predecessors, he looked at the Supreme Court and said, “All of them are gone! Who among you is ready to step into their legacy and defend freedom? Who is prepared to take the place of our ancestors and become great, in the name of God, and this great nation once again?” Adams was issuing a sterling reminder of the faith that their ancestors had in freedom and a challenge that people of his time demonstrate that same kind of faith.

One week later, the Court delivered its verdict. With one dissent, the justices stood tall and exonerated the Amistad prisoners. The court declared that the Africans had never been lawful slaves and that they had been kidnapped and illegally transported. Their mutiny was, therefore, an act of self-defense.

This is an amazing story of courage on the part of the Court and John Quincy Adams. Adams was expressing the same sentiment as the writer of Hebrews. The author of Hebrews cites his ancestors and all the great heroes of the Bible who stepped forward when the times demanded it and the writer says, “Friends, that’s faith! That’s what it looks like. It’s not simply believing in a dead creed, it is serving a living God.” “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is jumping even when you cannot see the Father’s arms ready to catch you below.

The world sorely needs people of such faith today. We need people of integrity, people of courage, people of candor who will do the right thing, not the expedient thing.

If you and I do not champion God’s kingdom, who will? That’s the thing about heroes of faith. They’re not very special in their own right. They’re special because they believe God and act accordingly. That means that you and I could be heroes of faith – if we listen to God’s voice. And, if not us, then who will do what needs to be done?

National Public Radio has a program called “This American Life.” In an old episode, host John Hodgman conducted an informal, unscientific survey in which he asked the following hypothetical question: if you could choose, which would you prefer, the power of flight or the power of invisibility?

Think about that question for a moment. Would you rather be able to fly or be able to become invisible?

What John Hodgman found surprised him. No matter which power the people he talked to chose, they confessed that they would use their newly discovered powers in purely self‑serving ways. Their plans weren’t heroic at all. No one wanted to use their powers, say, to put an end to organized crime or to bring hope to the hopeless. Instead, Hodgman found that his interviewees concocted schemes that would use their new super powers to satisfy their own personal desires.

Typically it went something like this: People who chose being invisible would sneak into movies, steal cashmere sweaters at fine department stores, spy on their coworkers, stalk their exes, eavesdrop on conversations or slip onto airplanes for free rides.

People who chose being able to fly would stop taking the bus; they would give up their cars. They would check out the bar scene by flying in and around, hoping to gain attention. They would fly off to Paris, or Prague, or Rio. When they could have chosen to use their powers to do something heroic, they instead chose to do something trivial and self-serving.

Well, we can’t be invisible and we can’t fly. But still, God has much for us to do.

When he was inaugurated as president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

You and I can do heroic things – if we dare to live out our faith. All we have to do is be willing to jump even when we cannot see where our feet may fall. We can be like the African impala and imprison ourselves behind a three-foot wall of doubt.  Or we can make the leap. For faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.