AN EXHORTATION TO FOOLISHNESS

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Last Sunday afternoon--after a nap, and watching my Duke Blue Devils win the ACC men's basketball championship, and after playing squash with Tom Gates and beating him for first time--you know, one of those perfect moments? Do you have those moments? When God's in her heaven, and all's right with the world? So, after that, we went to one of the local watering holes, and shared a beverage, and Tom brought up the sermon for that day. Last week's sermon was the second in a 3 part series on the theology of the cross (this is the 3rd in that series today) and we spoke about what it means to take up the cross and follow Christ--the mystery of losing one's life in order to find life. We started to talk about what that really means. Does it really mean that we need to be willing to die? Is that really realistic? Most of us are living a fairly conventional, middle class life--does it really mean a willingness to walk into the coliseum for Jesus? And if not, how can we approach that--taking up our cross and following Jesus Christ? Do we literally need to lose our lives--to find our lives?

Well, against dismissing the idea that it's unrealistic, I was thinking so much this week about Tom Fox--maybe you have been following his story in the newspapers. Tom Fox, a Quaker, an ordinary guy, went to Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams, out of his commitment to justice and peace. He was kidnapped several months ago by Iraqi gunmen. And he was found about ten days ago in a roadside ditch, shot in the head several times. His body bore evidence of torture. And it affected me so much because Tom Fox is a guy just like me--typical, middle class guy, concerned about peace and justice. And he went to Iraq because he cared; he took up his cross and followed. He lost his life. And for those who believe, he found it.

Most of us, though, are not thinking of going to Iraq. We're not going to risk our lives in that way. Most of us are busy making a living, raising a family, doing volunteer work, going to school. What does the cross mean to us? Is it just a metaphor? An intellectual exercise?

Today I'd like to offer a different take on the theology of the cross--hopefully more accessible to us, in a way. My suggestion about this may seem a little comic relief in the middle of this long season of Lent. I realize it's strange to talk about comic relief when we're dealing with the theology of the cross--and yet the theology of the cross is nothing if not counter-intuitive and paradoxical. In Shakespeare's plays, it's often the fool who comes on stage in moments of greatest tension, not only to bring comic relief, but to speak the truth, disguised as foolishness.

So, I'm going to talk about the cross in the way Paul does--as foolishness--and that's of course something we all have ready access to, whoever and wherever we are. We may not all be able to carry the cross to Iraq, but we all are capable of foolishness in the name of Christ.

So, what does Paul mean, then, when he speaks about the foolishness of the cross in his letter to the Corinthians? He talks about the cross as "Foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews." What does that mean?

Well first, let's say a little about these Corinthians, the people Paul is writing toÑwho they are. What are they about?

Corinth in that time was a center of Greek culture. Of course those were Roman times, but the Greek Empire preceded the Romans, and Greek culture was still alive and well, and its center in that time would have been the city of Corinth--the center of the Greek world. It's a culture steeped in art, literature, learning. If American culture is known for--what is it known for? Its movies? It's ingenuity and tenacity? Well, Greek culture would have been characterized by a kind of intellectual pride. If American culture has brought us Bart Simpson, Greeks would have taken pride we're the people who brought you Socrates, and Plato and Aristotle--philosophy; the art of reason. And the power of Greek thinking has made a huge impact on us, even to this day. Greeks would have said: we're the culture that elevated and perfected human wisdom as a means to truth--even to religious truth. Theirs was the idea that if you're smart enough, you can crack the nut on truth--you can get to it through your faculty of reason, because truth is reasonable.

OK, so that's one thing about Greek culture. The second thing to know about that culture, which is important to understand if you're reading Paul's message here--for Greek culture, if you want to get ahead in the world, you need to be good at speaking; at what they called rhetoric. You have to learn to "talk good." If you want your kid to go far in life, send them to rhetoric school. That would have been the MBA of the time, the "power degree". To be able speak wisely, to manipulate wisdom and concepts, was the key quality to develop if you wanted power in the ancient world. And in that culture, your ability to speak and persuade was often seen as more important even than what you're talking about. The technique was divorced from the content. You've heard of the word "sophistry" perhaps? It comes from the Greek school of the Sophists, who specialized in rhetoric--emphasizing the technique of speaking, manipulating concepts to your own advantage over against any kind of truth you might be talking about. Whatever makes you look good, gives you power--doesn't matter if it's really true.

So, Paul comes into this world, this culture, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is completely antithetical to this culture--and to Jewish culture--maybe to every culture! It's counter to the convention. The message in fact turns the cultural convention on its head.

Paul says later in this passage: I didn't come speaking with eloquence, so that you would be impressed by my speaking technique; so I would seem persuasive. No, he says, I came with this irrational, foolish message: that God became human (irrational to Greeks in itself) and was crucified. A crazy idea. And if you believe it, you'll know the power of God, which will save you. If you believe it--this foolish, irrational truth--you'll enter heaven. You don't need to be smart, or savvy, or articulate. Just have to believe that, and base your life on that crazy truth. Not that reason isn't important to Christians--it is indeed--but the heart of it is this foolish paradox.

I remember in college, my best friend Alan Simpson--he was an atheist, and we would occasionally talk about religion. I was a nominal Christian back then; my faith was fairly weak and unexplored. And I remember one time he said, "how can you believe that stuff? Isn't it sort of like believing in the Great Pumpkin?" I know he said it to goad me, and I probably mounted some weak, intellectual defense of the Christian faith--tried to pass it off as reasonable and agreeable and rational. But you know, looking back on that comment, I realize later that Alan Simpson was exactly right; it is like believing in the Great Pumpkin. That's what it's meant to seem to the world. To those who don't believe and know its power, it seems like foolishness. And that is why it is powerful--why it requires of us faith. Because it's not cool to believe; it's counter to the convention. Foolish. Crazy.

In many ways, I think the problem with the church today is that it's become conventional to be Christian--well, actually, that's been the problem of the church for the last sixteen centuries. It's been the problem since the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire in the 4th Century, when it became cool to be Christian. Before that time, if you wanted to get fed to the lions, tell them you're a Christian. After then, if you wanted to get a good job, tell them you're a Christian. And that's the opposite of what it really means to live out the Gospel, which is to embody the foolishness of the cross, the cross which runs counter to the convention, the culture.

So, that's my exhortation to you today. There's a simple solution to all this, even for respectable Christians like many of us gathered here today; a solution that doesn't necessarily mean risking our life in Iraq. My exhortation to you today is to become a foolish Christian.

For some, looking a fool, losing face in public is a fearful prospect. How many of us are terrified of looking bad in public, of losing face, seeming foolish? How many of us invest so much in not looking bad to others, fitting in with the culture we're living in?

So, that's not so far from a cross. Indeed, many people fear looking foolish even more than death. There are those often-cited lists of what people fear the most--and no doubt you've heard that people's number one fear, even above fear of death, is public speaking. People are afraid of making a fool of themselves! (Take it from me! I've been there!) But that is my encouragement today: to take up your cross by poking a finger at the culture in which you're living--doing something unconventional. Something foolish.

My exhortation is to embody the foolishness of the cross, to do something in your life, today, this week, this month--that embodies the foolishness of the cross.

What does that look like then? Maybe it's like this:

Like St. Francis kissing a leper, and preaching to the birds.

Maybe it's like what my friend Terry taught his high school kids about he Paschal Mystery. He was trying to get his kids to understand, in their experience, the Paschal Mystery--how life comes out of death, we lose our life to find our life--and so he gave this exercise to them; he told them to take a day in the coming week to do something, all day, to conserve all their energy, not give any out to anyone or anything. And on another day that week, to do everything they could to give away their energy, send it out.

So this one kid came back to the class and reported about his experience. He said the first day he spent the entire day in a dark corner of the library. He didn't interact with anyone. He focused on not giving out any of his energy, studying and sleeping at his desk. Said it was the most miserable day of his life; he felt terrible. But the next day, the day when he was supposed to give out all his life-energy, he thought to himself: what do I really love? And one thing he really loved was bananas. And so he went to a fruit stand and bought up every single banana they had in their stock. And he stood by the street corner giving them away, giving away bananas. People thought he was crazy, but they would smile and take one; and on some level, they understood, right there: that's the power of the gospel. And he said in doing that, in feeling a little crazy--he'd never felt so alive. So joyful.

Or maybe it's like this:
Maybe it's like what the Simple Way community, a small, youth-led monastic community in inner city Philadelphia, did one day in New York City, on a day they called The Great Money Drop. You see, a homeless person who was part of their community had won a lawsuit against the New York police, for falsely arresting him for sleeping on the sidewalk; the guy won $10,000 in the settlement. And he said, "I don't want to spend it on myself; I want to spend it on my brothers and sisters." And so they got it all in cash. And they invited all kinds of non-profit organizations to a party outside Wall Street, at the New York Stock Exchange; they attached $100 bills to the invitations. On that day, they hid $2 bills all over Manhattan. They unfurled a banner and cash floated down onto the street. "Let the jubilee begin," said the celebrant. And pensioners gathered money to buy their prescriptions; day traders on Wall Street joined in on the fun and gathered it, and gave it away to traders inside. Homeless people stuffed their pockets. People laughed, told jokes, sang. It was a moment of redistributive justice, and laughter. For a moment, people stopped living in American culture, and lived together in the Kingdom of God.

Maybe it's like that.
But whatever you do this week, go out and do something foolish. Use your imagination! This is not a metaphor; this is the real thing. What would it take for you to leave the herd, and poke a foolish finger at the culture you're living in?

Maybe it's:
Buying a meal for a homeless person you walk by each day, and eating with him or her.
Maybe it's taking off a day from work, and taking orders from your kids.
Maybe it's going over to a local nursing home, and asking if you can go room to room telling jokes.
Maybe it's finding a way to love someone who doesn't deserve it;
Or sitting next to the least popular kid in the lunchroom.
Or visiting a prison, and seeking a pen pal.
Maybe it's attending a church where you are the racial minority.
Maybe it's doing something you fear--you may find "the death of fear is sure to follow".

Use your imagination! But by all means, do something foolishly loving, lovingly foolish, and you may be surprised to find then that the Holy Spirit isn't some intellectual construction, but a friend who's somehow entered your heart, and has given you a glimpse of heaven.

Amen.

 

March 19, 2006

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