I Samuel 2: 26; Luke 2: 47, 50, 51, 52

Tradition and innovation

Today is our New Year’s service and I want to talk about doing things in a new way. I want to talk about innovation.  Yet I am doing so in the setting of 2000 year old Church with a deep tradition.

Ivo van Hooven is a Belgian director directing Arthur Miller’s play “A view from the Bridge.”  Van Hooven understands the tradition of the theater and it is because he understands it that he seeks to change it.  The current play has some of the audience on the stage. There are no props: no couches, no tables, no lamps, no costumes, no shoes even. The actors are barefoot. The director wants the play just to be about emotions, about relationships, about honesty and also about energy.  Innovation comes out of the tradition of the theater.

We all have our taste in art.  Some like abstract art, some like impressionism, some like realism or romanticism. There is no right one.  A year or so ago I saw an exhibition in the Dali Museum in St.Petersburg FL.  It was a comparative study of Salvador Dali, the surrealist, and Pablo Picasso.  They were contemporaries and they were both Spanish.  It showed an early period in their art which was much more realistic.  Their paintings weren’t that different.  Those painting showed that they were both accomplished and skilled artists who could paint like the masters before them.  From there on, though, they went their separate ways. Dali remained in Franco controlled fascist Spain while Picasso refused to go back and he lived nearby in Southern France.  Picasso went into cubism and Dali into surrealism. Totally different approaches.  But what they did was go from the tradition to innovation. They didn’t start with the art they were famous for. No, they worked out of the tradition.  Innovation came forth out of tradition.

The singer Tom Jones was never a favorite of mine, but after I saw a late night interview with him, I appreciated him a lot more.  He grew up in Wales a Presbyterian. At age 12 he contracted tuberculosis and spent two years lying in bed recuperating.  At 16 he was married with a child.  When he was ill listened to the radio all the time. One of his favorite singers was Mahalia Jackson and his teachers were amazed that Jones sang the Old Rugged Cross not like a Welshmen but like an African American Gospel singer. Gospel and blues affected his popular singing career tremendously. He explained how similar things happened to Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. They tapped into the African American musical tradition which came out of the church.  Tradition again led to innovation.

Friends, in I Samuel the young man Samuel comes of age in a kind of godless time when there were very few visions.  The family of his mentor Eli had behaved badly and there was a kind of moral wasteland.  Nevertheless Samuel followed the tradition that Eli in his time had followed.  Innovation happens as a result of the tradition, not separate from it.  The same is true of Jesus. Jesus first learns all He needs to learn in the temple from the experienced scholars who make studying the scriptures their life.  Time and time again Jesus refers to those scriptures and then He innovates. He questions the interpretations, he exposes hypocrisy in the way the people manipulate the text to oppress and exclude people. This is still going on today. People manipulate Bible texts to exclude and to oppress.

So friends, innovation comes out of tradition, but there are a few other things I would like say about innovation.  The first is that it is liberating.  There is something tremendously freeing about making a fresh start, doing things that haven’t been done before.  This is true of music, this is true of architecture, this is true of art, this is true of ministry, this is true of Samuel and of course of Jesus.   Second, it can be very risky.  If you have a way of doing things that sort of works, that has people’s attention and cooperation, then changing can be considered weird or dumb or downright dangerous

This is true of music, this is true of architecture, this is true of art, this is true of ministry, this is true of Samuel and of course of Jesus.   So innovation has to do with tradition, with liberation and with risk.

As a congregation we are taking risks. When it comes to this residency program, we are being completely innovative. Yes there are other church residencies, but one with a multicultural focus and on-campus living is new.  So there is tradition, yes it is freeing because we don’t just do things the same old way, but at the same time it is risky.  It’s the inevitable consequence of innovation.  Stephanie Paulsell writes (Faith Matters):”We need places to pray as if someone were listening, to study as if we might learn something worth writing on our hearts, to join with others in service as if the world might be transformed. Churches are places to learn to practice, with others, a continual conversion of life,  permanent openness to change.”  Friends, as the New Year comes upon you, how will you innovate from your own tradition, how will you free yourself, how will you take risks? May God give You guidance.