Success Through Failure -- FPC sermon excerpt

There’s a funny thing about perfection. It requires a lot of mistakes.

Think about the light bulb. The suspension bridge. The iPod battery. In each case, the identification and elimination of design flaws led to better and better versions.

Henry Petroski, a professor of history and civil engineering at Duke University, has written a book called “Success Through Failure.” He makes the case that mistakes are not failures that should be avoided at all costs. Instead, they are fundamental clues to the ideal.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State was the third longest suspension bridge in the world when it was completed in 1940. But it had too narrow and shallow a deck, and it collapsed just months after it was opened to traffic. A relatively unknown engineer had warned against the excessive narrowness of the deck, but his objections were overcome by the pride of the bridge’s successful designer.

Today, everyone knows not to make bridge decks too narrow or too shallow. And this is a lesson that could only be learned through failure.

In the world of engineering, mistakes are the engine that drives successful design. And I would argue that the same is true in our Christian faith. In Luke 2:41-52, Jesus is accidentally left behind in the temple when he is twelve years old. This looks like a big mistake, and it would be considered a nightmare for most families of young children. But this failure leads to a fundamental clue to his true identity — he is the Son of God, not just the son of Mary and Joseph. So, in the case of Jesus, the discovery of perfection requires that mistakes be made.