In Search of Fools

2 Samuel 6: 12-14

 

 

          I used to hate being caught unprepared. I’ve gotten better about it over the years, but it still bothers me. I was taught in trial practice that if I didn’t know the answer to the question before I asked it, then don’t ask the question. Growing up, I was taught  to never be underdressed for an event. Never be overdressed either. Don’t talk with food in your mouth. Don’t talk when your elders are talking. Don’t appear to be too enthusiastic. When I was grown, it was don’t volunteer. Don’t take big chances.

          The rules spilled over into church as well. Be reserved. Be respectful. Don’t sing too loud. Do everything in moderation and control. Don’t get carried away.  Don’t be churchy and don’t go around talking about God all the time. There is a place for everything, and everything has its place.

          The message for me growing up was subtle but plain. Know your place. Always be in charge of your emotions. Never be caught “out” of your comfort zone. Never show that you are vulnerable. Be “nobody’s fool.” Keep your nose down and don’t show all your cards. Take care of yourself because nobody else will.

          In the name of being prepared, what I was really taught was to be selfish and play it safe. Chances are that many of you were raised the same way. Now we find ourselves living in an age which we helped build. It is calculating, un-committing, relative. We play it safe. We live our lives in such a way that we are not likely to be surprised or embarrassed.

         Such a lifestyle has little to do with the teachings of God. God requires much more from us than playing it safe. Look at some examples from scripture. When David has recaptured the Ark of the Covenant, he eventually brings it to Jerusalem. The people are celebrating and so is David. He is dressed in priestly, or religious, garments, and he literally dances in the street. He looked so foolish that his own wife called him a fool [1Sam 6: 12-14], but David didn’t care. 

          When God called the prophet Isaiah, a prominent man with royal connections, God told him to take off his clothes and walk around naked and barefoot, not for an afternoon, but for three years…and Isaiah did what God asked [Isaiah 20:1-3].

          When God wanted to make his point to King Zedekiah, he used the prophet Jeremiah, telling him to wear a wooden yoke around his neck to symbolize God’s desire for the people to serve the king of Babylon for a time.  Jeremiah was a laughingstock for a whole generation, but he did God’s bidding.

          Ezekiel was commanded to eat barley cake cooked over human dung [Ezek. 4: 12], Hosea to marry a prostitute [Hos. 1: 2]. Then there is Noah, the guy who built a monster ship on dry land in the middle of a drought.

          The Bible is full of examples of people called by God to make fools of themselves in order to make God’s point. As scripture tells us, the world sees itself as wise. For it to do so, it must see God’s wisdom as foolishness. So if we are to follow God, sometimes our discipleship will look downright foolish to others. This is just one of the prices of discipleship.

          Isn’t it funny how grown men will yell and scream at a sporting event? They don’t even have to be there. They can watch it on TV and get so into it they leap from their chairs. Women will get down in the floor and play with their children, making complete fools of themselves. Fathers, mothers and grandchildren make the most ridiculous sounds and faces in the world to get a child to smile for them, and think nothing of it. They are not being fools for those children; they are being fools for those children’s sake. There is a big difference.

          Is it not the same with our God? If the world does not teach us how to be loyal to God, but rather to ourselves, will we not, at some point, have to choose? Will we not have to be willing to be fools for God in the eyes of the world? We do not have to literally be fools, but the concept is important, for we do need to be prepared to be seen, and even to be treated, as fools for Christ’s sake. Sometimes that might mean dancing or dressing strange or just standing up when others sit down.

          So often, the world in which we live must be looked at upside down or inside out if we are to see God. Everything around us says to be still, be quiet, to be in control.  But if we do that, we cannot hear him calling. Sometimes holy folly, that commitment to follow even when to do so might bring ridicule upon us, is the way we answer the call to discipleship.

          The thing is, we Christians in America have fallen so deeply into the easy life that we have long ago forgotten the cost of discipleship. We are not subject to starvation or jail or exile or genocide, all of which are or have happened around the world to Christians in our generation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian of Hitler’s time, taught that “the cross is laid in every Christian.” He also taught that there are different kinds of dying. Martyrdom can be red, by blood, or green, to denote abstinence, or white, by abandoning everything for the love of God. If we are to really follow God, then we must conduct our own “white funerals.” Real discipleship is the burial of our own independence and surrender to God’s will in our lives.

          It’s not attractive to talk about surrender, much less becoming a fool for Christ’s sake. But while we’re bemoaning the loss of our independence, we might want to remember the biggest fool of all. He was in heaven and yet came to earth. He had immortality and swapped it in for humanity. He could have come as a televangelist, but instead came as a carpenter. He could have established his kingdom on earth, but decided instead on a date with a cross. Jesus was a fool for our sake.

          The church has always maintained a tension between world-affirming and world-denying. The modern world has seemingly, for the moment, swung the pendulum toward affirming. The deserts have become playgrounds and the ghettos have Wi-Fi. In our urge to be relevant, we are “seeker-oriented’ or “user-friendly.” In our desire to remain firmly planted somewhere between the bookends of “traditional” and “contemporary,” we become “blended.” Too many terms about too little tension. Why don’t we just try to become disciples, and if that means becoming fools for God, we are in good company.

          Os Guinness says that the problem with Christians today is not that we are foolish when we choose God over current society, but that we wait too long and choose too little of that which would separate us. We would do well to be thought more foolish than we are.

          Being a fool for Christ sake is claiming the promise of pain. The internal cost is burying self. The external proof is doing God’s will. Being Christian is transformational. We can’t remain the same. At times, it means looking like a fool to those around us. It is a small price to pay. At the end of the day, we are only as obedient to Christ as we are prepared to pay that cost.

          This message may sound angry to you. My wife told me it was like a punch in the stomach. If so, that is not my intent. It is my intent to sound passionate. Discipleship--following Jesus—is not for the faint of heart.  The call to discipleship echoes God’s call to Jesus. We are called to serve, to obey, sometimes even to play the fool. Discipleship sometimes means looking like a fool to your friends in order to act like a follower of your Savior.

          It’s not easy being a disciple, but then Jesus never said it would be easy. He just said it is the way to heaven. The world is a place in which we plant our feet, but not our souls. They are for a higher and better use. We cannot package the gospel neatly and put a bow around it and park it on a pew to open every Sunday for a couple hours. It won’t be contained. God meant for it to grow and he will grow it.

          “Thy will be done” cuts both ways. Just who is “Thy?” Is it you--or is it God? The answer to that question is the difference between heaven and hell.  Be a fool for Jesus!