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?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.”
Fool on the Hill
We, the foolish, see differently. As the Beatles demonstrated in their song, “The Fool on the Hill”, fools have a different view. Remember the chorus:
But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning round
The last verse contains the lines:
“He never listens to them
He knows that they're the fool
They don't like him”
Who is the fool?
So, who really is the fool, the wise man, the scholar, the philosophers? Because we share God’s wisdom, because we are called by Him:
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.
Let’s look again at our example, fools.
Jackie Pullinger did see people healed from drug addiction, they came off their highly addictive drugs without withdrawal symptoms, and lived a new life in Christ.
Basil, the fool, was the ONLY one who could speak honestly to the Tsar, we cannot tell what effect he had, but speaking truth to power is needed in every generation, and is always a force for good.
Jacqueline de Decker spent what little ability she had looking after people who rarely got help from anywhere.
Now we can see the trait that God planted in each of them – their concern, their love for those who are the lowest of the low in society, who are ignored or even abused by the so-called wise people of the world.
Wisdom personified
When I spoke last month, I spoke a little on wisdom personified in Proverbs 8. Verses 30 and 31 particularly spoke to me:
Then I (wisdom) was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.
I remember thinking that I don’t delight in mankind very often, our three example may not ever have expressed what they do like that, but I believe they show us what delighting in mankind really means. It means loving them. How could anyone delight in mankind and not try to relieve their sufferings?
Good Samaritan
In the parable of the good Samaritan, the expert in the law identified the Samaritan as a neighbour to the man who was robbed. When he had done, so Jesus said, “Go and do likewise”
That is what he says to us this morning when we consider our three fools, “Go and do likewise”.
