Fool For Christ

Preached: 7 March 2021

Readings: Exodus 20v1-17;1 Corinthians 1v18-25

Foolishness

We all do foolish things sometimes, locking ourselves out of the house, getting scammed by poorly written email, loosing our wallet or purse, forgetting to take change to pay for parking. They’re annoying, but they’re not intentional. They happen to us because our concentration is elsewhere – on something we perceive as more important, or nowhere, because something has distracted us. Everyone would agree that these things are just silly mistakes, and not a way of life.

As a way of life

Those who choose to follow Christ, though, have fallen for a foolish message, Paul says in our reading today. I don’t know how often you encounter people who are perishing, and how often you hear them express their thoughts on the message of the cross, but I can assure you that foolishness is a very mild term compared to what I read and hear.

Foolish things we have done.

So, that set me wondering what foolish things we may have deliberately done because of the foolish message of the cross we have decided to follow. Here are some examples from me and some from the Bible. After that, we’ll have a look at some other characters who have taken foolishness to a higher level.

So mine:

Many years ago I decided I needed saving from this life and all its horrible ways, so I put my trust in a Jew who was executed around 2000 years ago, for stirring up trouble amongst the crowds. He said He could save me from death and hell, and I believed him. He said He came to die for my sins and I believed Him. His followers said He came back to life, and I believed them.

I believe that I am in regular communication with Him.

That has led to other foolish things – I talk to him often, I help to pay for the upkeep of his organisation and I help that organisation make fools of others.

But, as I said, I’m really only an amateur.

From the Bible

Here are some from the Bible. There’s King David dancing before the Lord, and making a fool of himself in the royal palace – I guess kings can do whatever they please, even if it is foolish.

There’s all those rules, how could you possibly be expected to follow all of them, do not murder, do not steal perhaps, but there are even rules about how to think.

Finally, how about remaining faithful to someone who has promised to look after you when you have contracted a horrible disease and all your children have been killed. If you don’t recognise that one, I’m talking about Job.

Let’s take a look at some historical characters now, who took this foolishness up a notch or two.

Jackie Pullinger

I’ll start with Jackie Pullinger, who, I suspect, most of you have heard of. When she was barely a young woman she decided to go to where ever God wanted her, and stuck a pin in a map, it ended up in a place called the forbidden city, part of Beijing. On arrival, she believed that she could cure the people of their heroin addiction. How foolish is that?

St. Basil

Then there’s St Basil, who lived in Red Square in Moscow in the early 1500s. He’s not to be confused with Basil the Great, who lived about a millennium earlier. This St. Basil wore no cloths, - remember how cold it gets in Moscow!!! He would regularly give any money he was given to the poor and would often disrupt the main market when he knew that the stallholders were cheating their customers. He was well known by all in Moscow, including Tsar Ivan – yes, that Ivan, who he regularly chastised for his appalling behaviour. It is said that the only person the Tsar was afraid of was Basil.

Jacqueline de Decker

The last example of a fool I want to mention is Jacqueline de Decker. She was born in Belgium in 1913 to a wealthy family. She wanted to join Mother Teresa but was unable to due to a chronic, debilitating illness that affected her spine. She spent her time, hardly able to move and in a specially adapted car, in Antwerp’s red-light district looking after prostitutes. She never received a diagnosis for her condition and called it GGD ‘God-Given Disease’ as a recognition that God used her through her weakness.

Wisdom of the World

By the standards of the wisdom of the world, all these people are foolish some of them seem to be dangerously foolish, not caring for their own well-being, or putting themselves in dangerous situations.

But Paul says:

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?