Sermon

INTRODUCTION: In 1999, Albert Einstein was named Time magazine's "Person of the Century." A poll of prominent scientists named him the greatest physicist of all time. And in popular culture, the name "Einstein" has become synonymous with genius. So what kind of life did this greatest physicist of all time lead?

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879. He died in 1955, at age 76, after experiencing internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an aortic aneurism. One insight to the kind of person he was that he took along to the hospital the start of a draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel's 7^th anniversary.

He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning. His remains were cremated and his ashes were secretly scattered. Before the cremation, Princeton Hospital pathologist Thomas Harvey removed Einstein’s brain for preservation and neuroscientific research.

So if you would, let us look within the parameters of those 76 years – from Ulm, Germany to Princeton, New Jersey – and see what we can learn about this unique scientific giant of the 20^th century.

More pertinently, he was a Jew in Germany in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. As students of history know, the Holocaust that began with the rise of Hitler’s Nazism in 1932, and ended with Germany’s defeat in 1945, was not a coincidence triggered by the political accident known as Adolf Hitler. No, the world – including the U.S. of A., but particularly Germany – had a bitter and brutal history of discrimination and persecution of Jews. There’s even a special word for it: “anti-Semitism.”

Einstein’s parents were non-practicing Jews, but in a pattern typical of European nations to this day, school children had to have religious education in government schools. Because we don’t have public religious education, Americans are deeply religious on the one hand, but profoundly ignorant of religion on the other. Whereas Europeans, thanks to the kind of compulsory public religious education that Einstein had, the children of Europeans know much about religion but wouldn’t be caught dead going to church or synagogue.

As a child, Einstein was a participant in that system. In one community, he attended compulsory Christian religious education, and in another, special arrangements were made for him to be taught Judaism. The end result was that he came away with a deep appreciation for the ethical values of both, but a disciple of neither. As a consequence, he remained for all of his life, a “deeply religious unbeliever” – deeply religious, but unwilling to accept the beliefs of either religious Christianity or religious Judaism. And because he was a Jew, he was a victim of discrimination in finding a job. There was a period in which he had very little funds and faced a bleak future because of his inability to land a job.

However, there is no record that he ever sought to deny his Jewish heritage. When he fled Germany in December 1932, just before the selection of Adolf Hitler as Prime Minister, he remained very active in raising funds and securing documents enabling Jews to leave Germany. He was supportive of the Zionist movement to establish a home for Jews in Palestine, though he was deeply disturbed by what happened to the Palestinians from Jewish terrorist groups.

2. Einstein produced his most famous and world-changing ideas while working for seven years as a third-class clerk and eventually a second-class clerk, in the Swiss patent office.

He began work at the Patent Office on June 23, 1902. I think most of us would initially think how tragic for such a genius to be in such a dead end job. That could not be more wrong. Far from its being a dull and unchallenging work environment, Einstein looked on it as the opportunity to engage with a constant and diverse flow of the creative thoughts of others, which in turn stimulated his own ideas. Plus, he had friendly workmates and a congenial work atmosphere. The 12 of them spent 8 hours each day examining the creative work of inventors. He described his supervisor as having “splendid character” and a “good brain.” Each day he worked only eight hours with an hour off for lunch, then as he saw it that paid for him to be able to do eight hours on his own scientific work, plus Sundays and lunchtime. Then came the year 1905, while still a clerk at the patent office. Here are brief summations of that phenomenal year:

1. He wrote a paper concerning the generation and conversion of light. It would later provide the theory for the “electric eye” used to open and close doors by remote control, and for counting and sorting goods. It also made television and radio possible. For this, he received the Nobel Prize in 1922 –17 years later.

2. He rewrote a paper on determining the size of molecules. He originally submitted it as his Ph.D. dissertation, but it was rejected by his professor as being too short. Einstein added one sentence and it was accepted.

3. His third paper in the year 1905 laid the foundation for understanding molecules and atoms. He not only found evidence that atoms of a definite finite size exist, but he also created a statistical method to chart their behavior.

4. His fourth paper on “special relativity,” was the most sensational because it challenged Newton’s views of the universe – which had endured for 200 years. Newton saw space as a fixed reality, through which stars and planets move and against which their movements can be charted. He also saw time as absolute flowing from an infinite past to an infinite future. When challenged to substantiate his views, Newton cited, “God himself.”

Einstein’s paper challenged all of that. He described instead a universe in which stars, planets and galaxies move in critical relation to each other. Those four were all produced in 1905. Then in 1907, while still at the Patent Office, though now a second-class clerk, he was asked to write a review of relativity theory. He concluded that everything in the universe is a repository of enormous, latent energy. In that article, he revealed the secret of all creation in one short equation: E=mc[2]. Energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. It implied that mass is frozen energy and converting a small amount of mass would release an enormous amount of energy – which eventually happened with the atomic bomb.

But he wasn’t done. While still working at the Patent Office, Einstein had what he called the happiest thought of his life – which was eventually published as the General Theory of Relativity. It gave a whole new meaning to our understanding of gravity and motion in space.

Now as said earlier, it wasn’t until 1921 that he received the Nobel Prize. The delay was due to a bitter anti-Semite on the Nobel Committee and the fact that many on the committee simply could not understand what Einstein had written.

He came to American in December 1932. His last years were spent in America at Princeton. He was a pacifist who literally would not hurt a fly, but he felt compelled to urge President Franklin Roosevelt to invest in making the most devastating bomb ever released on a military or civilian populace. He was invited to become the president of Israel, but declined; however, he left all of his scientific papers to Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

He retained an almost childlike wonder at the splendors of the universe and made frequent allusions to a cosmic intelligence. He seemed driven to discover what the world is really like, from its smallest constituent part, to the cosmos as a whole, and to find out if nature’s laws apply uniformly throughout the universe. Let me focus now on a couple of the handholds for living that Einstein’s work and life provide us.

1. What happens when we elevate scientific knowledge to philosophical principal?

This is not the venue for addressing it, but Einstein was hugely influenced by the 18^th century British philosopher David Hume, as many others of us have been. For me personally, no book was more influential in shaping my early theological and philosophical understanding than Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Hume wrote extensively on human understanding. So it is not surprising that Einstein’s scientific discoveries have significant philosophical consequences.

For example, in his science, he said everything in the Universe must be considered relative to its point of reference. The train arrived at 7 a.m. relative to my watch saying it did.

When elevated to philosophical principal, that concept eventually led to what is known as “situation ethics.” Namely, that in determining what is right or wrong, we are dependent upon the situation – the point of reference – to make the decision.

Remember, Newton had said the Universe was fixed…absolute…as was time. It did not matter who observed it, or when. But Einstein said, “No, that’s not right.” The planets and stars and galaxies all move in relation to one another and to the curvature of space.

Another example when relativity, as situation ethics, infuses our perception is the Boy Scout principle that “It is always best to tell the truth.” Yet we have abundant situational evidence that is not so. In doing my research, I came across the inspiring story of Corrie Ten Boom again.

When the Nazis came to the door of her home and asked if there were any Jews in her devout Christian home, she had always been taught to tell the truth, never to lie. But if she said, “Yes, we are hiding four Jews,” that would have been a death sentence for them, as well as for her and her family. The situation made not telling a lie relative.

If your wife or partner asks, “How do you like my new hair style,” any husband or partner knows that even if it’s the worst ever, telling the truth is not the path of wisdom. In that situation, it is not only really pretty, but it truly is the best hairstyle you have ever seen in your whole life. The situation makes the truth relative. Ditto for the Ten Commandments. The situation determines their applicability.

For certain, Einstein’s theories of relativity gave rise philosophically to our understanding the world relative to the situation.

One of the things that I admire about Einstein’s approach to the religious life was, he never demeaned or put down the beliefs of others, especially Christians. He deeply appreciated their ethical values. To be a “deeply religious believer” is for me another way of saying that we appreciate the poetry of each of the world’s faiths, and each of their family members. Further, we think of rites, creeds, and rituals as poetic and dramatic ways of accessing the Mystery. They are not true or false, but poetry.

Frequently, one of the members of one of the religious families in our world will claim that their poetry is synonymous with the Mystery. And that it is not poetry but fact. Hence, everyone should believe those facts.

So do we ignore that? Here’s where an important distinction must be made fact and poetry and between personal and public declarations of faith. As long as I choose to believe a certain way – whatever that may be – that’s my right as a human being. I can quote my poetry as an expression of my beliefs and how I should practice them.

But the minute I choose to make the claim that my poetry is fact, and then also to proclaim that it is not only my personal belief, but it should be yours also –it’s the way you too should believe – then, it becomes subject to the norms by which human beings have learned to live in this world. Namely, it must be subject to reason and experience. As Einstein experienced with Newton’s claim that God was the substantiation for his physics, self-standing absolutes are not good enough.

You can say, “I believe bloojams are inflabulated.” I can say, “Wonderful. I’m glad you believe so.” I don’t have to put you down, I don’t have to ridicule you, nor I do I have to seek to prove you wrong.

But when you say, that I should also believe that bloojams are inflabulated, then, I have the right to say, “Let’s talk about it because that’s not the way I’ve learned to see the world.” In the same way that a salesperson has to convince you of the worthiness of her or his product, so the ideas of others have to be persuasively communicated. We have to examine the warrants for their making such claims. How, why, when, where, who, what?

We can kneel to pray at St. Peters in Rome, we can utter a prayer for peace at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, we can listen with reverence to the Muslim Call to Prayer, we can sing and clap our hands at a Pentecostal service, and we can join with hundreds of Jews in repentance on the day of Yom Kippur. All of which in my experience were deeply religious. But the Mystery of existence is still the Mystery, and all our words, and songs, and rituals are the stuff by which residents on this little planet approach the encompassing Mystery of the Universe.

Einstein said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." And in his work, he had to be willing to put forth theories that were contrary to what everyone else believed. Theirs were a very different reality shaped by 200 years of Newtonian science. Even the distinguished scientist Max Planck, when confronted with Einstein’s general theory of relativity said to him, “Everything now is so nearly settled….Why do you bother about these other problems?”

Because he did bother, our world is not the same. And the same principle holds for us. As Niebuhr said, “All of our theology is tentative.” We believe with an asterisk…a footnote at the end. We share the wisdom of the ages from all times and spheres, relative to our situation today. As a result our lives and the world around us are enriched and fulfilled…especially due to the gifts of physicist Albert Einstein.

[1] Given August 26, 2007, as the thirteenth and final Sunday of “Unitarian Summer 2007,” at All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, Ft. Myers, Florida, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1901 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.

[2] Much of the research for this sermon comes from Dennis Brian’s outstanding work, EINSTEIN: a life.