There’s No Fool Like and Old Fool

 Sunday, I preached at the Nairn Mennonite Church on the subject, From Scarcity to Abundance.  Here is an excerpt of that sermon which deals with being an old fool as I now qualify in both my age and my status as an April Fool. 

Let’s take a trip – let’s get into the way back machine to channel an old cartoon -- and go back – not far - just a few days.  Friday was April 1^st – April Fools’ Day.  I will tell you something about myself.  I am an April Fool.  I was born on April 1^st, 1949.  I have secretly – or not so secretly - enjoyed being an April Fool.  The day of my birth is significant in Canadian history – or almost was.  It is a little-known fact that NFLD was going to join Confederation on my birthday – April 1, 1949. 

But then Joey Smallwood – who led the country of NFLD into Confederation and became its first premier, realized that NFLD would become a perpetual April Fool’s joke and moved the day back to March 31^st. 

Now you might be asking what this has to do with today’s subject of scarcity and abundance.  Well, don’t worry I will get to that.  Because of my birthright of being and April Fool, I have always been fascinated with the concept of the fool.  Being a fool or foolish has generally had a bad reputation.  There is the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.  The foolish ones did not have oil in their lamps when the bridegroom arrived and missed out while they were away buying oil.  However, there is another way of looking at a fool.  One of my favourite bible passages is 1 Corinthians 4:10, “We are fools for the sake of Christ.”  I actually have a blog with the title, Another Fool for Christ.  The full passage gives a more complete picture of what Paul is saying:

We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

To be followers of Jesus we are going to do things that are foolish in the sight of the world.  We are going to live in ways that are counter intuitive – we are going to bless those that revile us, we are going to speak kindly to those who slander us.  We are in effect going to love our neighbours and even our enemies.

Richard Rohr wrote about this way of being recently:

For Paul, the code words for nondual thinking, or true wisdom, are “foolishness” and “folly.” He says, in effect, “My thinking is foolishness to you, isn’t it?” Admittedly, it does not make sense unless we have confronted the mystery of the cross. Suffering, the “folly of the cross,” breaks down the dualistic mind. Why? Because on the cross, God took the worst thing, the killing of the God-human, and made it into the best thing, the very redemption of the world. The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus “saved by the cross”! Does that now make ultimate sense?

The fool is someone who can give us a different perspective on the world. The fool is the one who is going to show us the world as the way it should be.  The fool is the one who will tell us the truth.  In ancient times the king’s court had a fool who would tell the king the truth.  He would whisper in the king’s ear – figuratively - that he was mortal and would one day meet his maker. 

He has a secular version of Ash Wednesday – remember you are dust and dust you shall return.  In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the fool was the only wise man left with King Lear on the heath.  Carl Jung identified the archetype of the Fool who Jung describes as being a “potential future,” meaning that, through various attempts and failures, the Fool gains experience. As the Fool gains experience, he builds his character and eventually develops into the archetype of the Sage or Savior.

So, what can the fool or the Fool bring to our understanding of scarcity and abundance?   The fool is the one who speaks the truth.  So. What is the truth about abundance and scarcity.  Let me explore another part of psychology to see the truth of this.  The ego is that part of us that enables us to get on in the world.  It is the I that is who we are in the world for better or worse.  I consider the ego to be the greatest gift of God but it is also the greatest curse or perhaps challenge would be a better way of putting it.  The ego wants to be in charge, to be in control – the great danger to the ego is change.  It believes that if it has possession, material things that make it feel in control, then more possession are even better.  One of the symbols of the ego is the dragon who sits at the mouth of its cave and hoards its wealth – the precious jewels it has acquired by hook or by crook throughout its life.  It will breathe fire and burn up anything that threatens to take any of its wealth.  The ego is the basis for the prosperity Gospel which believes if you are successful in terms of money and material goods and power it is a sign God is on your side or God is pleased with you.  The Fool on the other hand can show us a different truth – the truth of being a Fool for Christ.

May you have the blessing of the Fool on your journey.