I grew up reading about Bobby Fischer, the erratic chess genius who defeated the Russian Boris Spassky to win the world chess championship in 1972. After refusing to defend his title for 20 years, he beat Spassky again 20 years later in 1992, a remarkable comeback and achievement after two decades of playing very little formal chess. Always eccentric, Fischer then descended into outright paranoia and mental illness in the final years of his life, living as a scraggly bearded recluse in Iceland.
Historically insanity is no stranger to the upper echelons of chess, including grandmasters Alekhine, Nimzovitch, Morphy, Steinitz and others. The deranged chess genius is a stereotype with some basis in reality. One wonders if the game drove them mad or if madness somehow, perhaps genetically, accompanies the traits that make for a great player.
The association between genius and madness is ancient. In our text for this Sunday, Acts chapter 26, the new Roman governor of Judea, Porcius Festus, suggests that Paul’s great learning has driven him insane. He makes this remark right after Paul has spoken in verse 23 about the resurrection of Jesus.
Whatever the link might be between genius and insanity, Festus was not the only one to suppose that Christian behavior was insane. In II Corinthians 5:13, “if we are beside ourselves [out of our minds], it is for God,” Paul is evidently responding to fellow Christians who find his and other apostles’ actions and words bizarre.
And of course Jesus’s own family questioned His sanity in Mark 3:21. Living the life that God wants not infrequently appears less than sane to those looking on from outside. When we follow Jesus and Paul in placing the most value on things which are eternal, letting go of money, power and security, we may look crazy to those around us.
Whether or not Fischer and those other chess grandmasters were insane, is for others to decide. But it is clear that the kind of single-minded, focused devotion required to play chess at the highest levels may look like insanity from the outside. The rigors of learning openings and strategies and endgame tactics might very well loosen one’s grip on attention to other ordinary concerns of life. The same may be true of deep devotion to Christ.
Paul’s reply to those who question Christian commitment to God’s kingdom and what He values should be our reply as well. It’s in verse 25 of Acts 26, “I am not out of my mind…, but am speaking the sober truth.” May we join Paul in being more willing to speak the sober truth of our confidence in Christ’s resurrection rather than in the schemes and apparatus of the world which at best can only offer us temporary life and happiness. It may look like insanity to those who pursue lesser goals, but it is the most sane and true pursuit there is.