The Third Dimension 11/23/41
Scripture: Genesis 28: 10-22
Text: Genesis 28: 16; “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.”
[I am indebted this morning, for much of what I shall say later on in this sermon, to a brother minister, Rev. Charles J. Wood.]
I think that the high school course which I enjoyed more than any other was plane geometry. The study of plane surfaces, how to measure them, how to discover and prove their relationships one to another, did not appeal at all to some of my friends; but I found it fascinating. I think that it is a distinct lack in my education, however, that my geometry rests with the plane surfaces - with length and breadth; with angle, circumference and radius; with square, parallelogram, rectangle, triangle, circle, and so on. The study would have become more complicated, and presumably much more interesting, had I gone on to the study of solid geometry. For the addition of another dimension - height - makes geometrical shapes much more interesting and fills them with far greater possibilities.
I have always been a lover of the western plains, having been born on the level land of South Dakota. Land which stretches off as far as eye can see, to a horizon much like that of the limitless ocean, may disturb those who are not used to it. But it pleases me.
However, since my boyhood, I have traveled and lived where there are mountains to lift the eye sharply upward, stern mountains of rugged granite; mountains verdure-clad and inviting; chilly mountains, snow-capped, while all is warm and sunny below. And I confess that land which has height added to breadth and distance also inspires me greatly. Added to my love of the prairies, is certainly now the love of the mountains as well.
I think that I appreciate now, what Charles J. Wood talks about when he says that the more dimensions in which life is lived, the more interesting it is. I suspect that those who talk about and understand, a fourth dimension, have an exciting interest that all the rest of us are missing.
Now, if a third dimension (that of height) can add so much of interest to geometry and to the life of a prairie-dweller, what can it do in areas other than geometry and geography? What about the quality of life, for instance?
What do we really know about Methuselah? It is written that he lived 969 years. During that astonishing span of life, he presumably raised a family, for “he begat sons and daughters.” (And of course life could never be completely dull in a family with sons and daughters!) But that is absolutely all that is recorded of him. He lived in the dimension of length.
On the other hand, what do we know of the life of Jesus, crowded as it was into a bare 33 years? It was so filled with the dimension of height that the writer concludes the book of John with the remark that if all the acts Jesus performed had been written down, the world itself would not be able to contain all of the books required. Jesus demonstrated for all peoples and all time what can happen to a life when it adds height to the dimensions of length and breadth.
Something can be said in favor of getting height. Most of us don’t know enough about it. We know something about the length and breadth of things. We live there, buy and sell there, build our houses and our occupations there, and traffic there daily. And we are pretty busy there. We know relatively little about a third dimension; and when it comes to a fourth or fifth dimension, well we just give it up! Anyway, what practical value could they have?
Well, just this; perhaps some of us are beginning to suspect that the freshness, the joy and thrill of living gives place to a listless, flat, indifferent attitude toward life because we are content to live bounded by only two dimensions.
Consider a little further what two-dimensional living does. Charles Wood suggests that we make a mental experiment of our reading for a while. How many modern books promise great things as you begin reading them! The characters are real enough and the story interesting. But you get through without any particular inspiration and close the covers, as you would lay down most of the newspaper, with a mental “so what?”
I never felt flatter than I did at the conclusion of a performance of the play, “Tobacco Road,” in a theater in New York. The author of that play certainly succeeded in creating real characters who moved through an equally real existence at a drab, and sometimes disgusting, level. To me, there was no more height or inspiration in the whole performance than there is in a domestic barnyard. (And while I’ve spent some time at work in barnyards, I do not look there for poetry!)
Do you know the fable about a wild duck used to flying high and far? One evening, he alighted in a barnyard with some tame ducks. He ate their corn and liked it. And he continued to live there day after day. Quite suddenly one day his former companions flew overhead calling him to be up, join the formation, and be away. He spread his wings, in answer to the urge within, and flew as high as the roof of the barn, then fell to earth again. He had grown too fat on the farmer’s corn. The next time his companions flew over and called, his urge to be away with them was weaker. Finally, he felt no urge at all when they called from the heights.
That is a fable. Yes, but it is a true story of a life, built for three dimensions, that lived in only two, until the ability to rise was atrophied. How pathetic it is, when the call from the heights falls of deadened ears. Do you remember how Jesus wept over the beloved city: “O Jerusalem,---how often would I have gathered thy children together---but ye would not.” [Matthew 23: 37].
Our scripture reading this morning reveals what happens to a man when he suddenly discovers that life has a third dimension. This man was tricky. He lived by his wits and, in his way, prospered thereby. He added to the length and breadth of his own life by tricking his own brother out of the family inheritance and his father’s blessing. Judged alone by his bank roll, or its equivalent, he was certainly a successful man.
But see where his two dimensions brought him! Hunted by his wrathful brother, fearing for his life, bothered by a guilty conscience, Jacob finds himself alone in a strange and desolate spot with nowhere to pillow his head for the night except a stone. But in such a place, and to such a man is revealed the fact that length and breadth and horizontal distance are by no means all of life. In a vision of his dreams he sees heaven itself open up and angels ascend and descend. The discovery of height revolutionized the life of Jacob. It didn’t cure him entirely of his habit of trickery. He was still to be more than a match, at the game of wits, with his father-in-law. But it made him a great man in spite of his meanness.
It is a great moment when anyone discovers the heights; when he realizes that even the God who sustains him, while dwelling very near and intimately with His creation, inhabits even more surely the heights of aspiration.
The most important miracle wrought in the universe, is the individual person. A teacher was trying to impress her class with the marvelous growth of science and invention. She asked the question of her class, “What is here today, and is important, that was not here fifty years ago?” Quick as a flash, a little girl replied: “Me! teacher, me!”
And I guess she was right. God has worked through countless ages to develop and refine human personalities. How dare we take the marvelous resources and possibilities of human life and try to crowd them into two dimensions! Built to fly like a wild duck, we have no business being content with only the barnyard!
Look at the hell brought to the earth today by the length of conquest and the breadth of power. At best, more conquest and more power can go no further than to counteract. The only treatment that can cure the ill and drive out the demons is the discovery of a third dimension to life - a veritable ladder reaching up to heaven. We must not suspend our religion for the duration of our personal distresses or the duration of the war. The intensification of religious appreciation and practice is the only hope of permanent cure.
Did you see a cartoon picturing two babies parked near each other while their nurses talked? One baby leans out of his carriage and says to the other, “Hey, fella! Did ya hear that Anaconda went up two points today?” Well, if he is going to make his living playing the market, he had better be good at it. But I hope that in addition to the dimensions found in the market quotations, and even those on the sports page, he will add an appreciation of art or music, and that he will let his religion lift it all into another dimension where he was certainly created to live.
We are made to think great thoughts. We need to do some higher thinking about this world and this universe and our personal relationship to them. If we can think some of God’s thoughts after Him perhaps we can rise above the fear of the terrible things happening just now. Possibly those who think to the heart of things do not fear what is happening on the surface of things.
To be sure, we must think about our jobs, the war, our appointments, whether stocks go up or down. These are essential thoughts. But they should not, by any means, exhaust our thinking.
We need, amid some current indifference to religion, to do some third-dimensional thinking about religion. We need, first of all, to recognize that gnat-straining and camel-swallowing, creed-baiting, hypocrisy, complacency and self-righteousness, are not religion at all - are perhaps worse than no religion. We need to think of our religion as a profound philosophy of life that definitely bears on what we do all of the time. Religion remakes life; causes it to be lived from great heights! It makes life noble, sincere, helpful, sympathetic, to live from lofty peaks. Only that which is Christ-like is worthy to be our religion. That is the only kind of religion worth bothering about. It enables us humbly and honestly to think more highly of our selves. It makes us conscious of belonging to something much bigger than our individual lives.
How momentous would be this service this morning if someone here discovered this third dimension to his life! There must be many of us here who ought to make this discovery. It is an entirely personal affair with each of us. And its discovery would help us to remake the world!
Even as we lie down on life’s hard and cruel stones, may there come the vision that shall compel us to say with Jacob - “Surely the Lord is in this place!”
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, November 23, 1941