Holy Fools

Note:  This sermon was written several years back, when Palm Sunday fell on April 1st.  Though today is not April Fool’s Day, I think the sermon still stands.  

 

 Jester
By Michele Jones

Today is April Fool’s Day, and what better day to celebrate God’s Holy Fool:  Jesus the Christ?

 

A ‘holy fool’ is a person who sees what’s really going on in society and has the audacity to say it, but only in a kind of code.  If there’s a crooked government, the holy fool will maybe perform a weird pantomime or tell a story, one that gets everyone to laugh at first; sooner or later, the more perceptive members of the …audience will recognize in the fool’s antics a hidden message. Stating this message in code is protection against the wrath of the authorities.”[1]

 

Jesus wasn’t the first holy fool… oh, no.  Jeremiah (who paraded through town with an ox’s yoke around his neck), Hosea (who clung to a publicly and blatantly unfaithful wife), and Ezekiel (who maintained silence for months, lay bound in the dirt, and more) were also such fools.

 

Nor was Jesus the last of the Holy Fools.  From the apostle Paul, who often portrayed himself as a befuddled orator, to St. Francis who stripped naked and ran through his home town, to assorted artists and performers, Jesus was most certainly NOT the last.

 

By their coded stories and parables — with their outlandish behavior, these fools for God exposed the demonic standards of the Kingdom of this World and also exposed the sins of God’s people.  Being a Holy Fool is a dangerous and subversive calling.

 

If you think about it, Jesus’ entire career could be viewed in terms of the Holy Fool.  His sayings and his parables stood conventional wisdom on its head:  “If you seek to save your life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life, you will save it.”  “Blessed are the poor.”  It was not just his words, but also his actions:  He befriended the poor, he ate with sinners.  He behaved outlandishly, in the temple – turning over tables, he disrespected the Sabbath with his works of mercy and compassion.

 

On the Sunday before Passover, Jesus the Fool kicked it up a notch.

 

Now, everyone loves a parade.  Civic parades like those on the Fourth of July and the New Year’s  Rose Parade are lots of fun.  They are filled with floats and marching bands, dignitaries and famous people waving to the crowds from fancy convertible cars.

 

But there are also military parades.  Military parades are different… they are meant to comfort the people in power and to intimidate those over whom they have power or those who might be thinking of threatening them.  We’ve all seen movies of military parades in the old Soviet Union, with line upon line of spiffy soldiers, followed by an intimidating number of tanks and weapons.

 

Kings and conquerors in the ancient near east made great use of military parades.  After a successful battle the leader of the army entered the town in a chariot, flanked with lines of soldiers, in a major display of might.  A military parade meant to display the conqueror’s strength and power.  It was also meant to strike fear into the hearts of those who were the conquered, and thus thwart any notions of rebellion.

 

In first century Israel, the Roman government always made a show of force during the Jewish celebration of Passover (when they recalled and celebrated their political liberation from Egypt centuries before).  This was meant to remind the people of who was really in charge, and to convince them that God’s saving acts were merely quaint and touching stories from the past.  So on one particular Passover week, Jesus, the Messiah, decides to enter Jerusalem in a political parade of his own.

 

So how did King Jesus choose to enter Jerusalem?  He came riding on a donkey…a donkey!  The equivalent of a tiny clown car!  Jesus’ parade was an amazing parody of the military parade happening across town.  The crowd that followed Jesus got caught up in the street theatre of it all, and began to throw their coats and palm branches in the street in honor of THIS king.

 

After their initial laughter of derision, the political and religious officials caught the mockery of this demonstration – they decoded the message and knew it was poking fun at them.  THIS king displays gentleness rather than might, simplicity rather than a flashy parade of wealth.  He does not seek self-aggrandizement and ceremony, but seeks to serve others.  This Messiah would not be a military messiah, nor would he give the temple authorities broader political power.  This was bad enough, but when the crowd joined into the parade, the glitterati began to sense the danger of it all.  Thus began the steady movement toward Good Friday.  The parade of Palm Sunday led to Jesus’ crucifixion on a cross.

 

The first followers of Jesus also played the Holy Fool, and, like him, they paid the price.  They did not conform to the world’s paradigms, but lived in such a way that the powers of this world were challenged and undermined.  They began to transform the world by upsetting the apple cart.  They were called atheists because they refused to participate in Rome’s cult of imperial worship; their communities of service and mutual care were a comical contrast to the society they lived in.

 

Today, Jesus invites us to join the parade of Holy Fools.  As his followers, do we live in such a way that others see the foolishness of Christ in us, and in so doing, have their eyes opened to the truth?  Or do we live in such a way that we are unremarkable and accepted by others, thus leaving them comfortable in their captivity?

 

Jesus invites us into the order of the Holy Fool.  In the words of John Wimber, “if you’re not God’s fool, whose fool are you?”  It’s a good question to ponder.

 

[1] http://saintpaulsunday.publicraido.org/features/0004 _shostakovich/holyfool.shtml