This dichotomy of wisdom and foolishness in Christianity has been playing around in the back of my mind for a while. Not a full-fledged pondering, just one of those things that keeps popping out at you at odd times. I think I became aware of it when I was reading "Call the Midwife". In one of the chapters, the author introduces the idea of the "Holy Fool", more common in eastern than western churches, to explain the behavior of one of the people in her memoir. A Holy Fool is a person who is foolish in the way of the world, but wise in the way of God. A man who knowingly cares for a child who is not his own; literally giving away all you own; giving away every scrap of clothing on your body, knowing fully what you are doing.
Perhaps the fact that this was already in the back of my mind made the passage from which the term derives hit me hard yesterday.
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
(I Corinthians 1: 17-31, NRSV)A couple of things have been bothering me with this combination of foolishness and wisdom, bothering more in the sense of conviction or wonder than the way misaligned mugs bother me.
The first thing that always pokes me when reading this passage is the idea of the "wisdom of the world". Exactly how encompassing is this? I assume that ideas like 'fight back when some one hits you' and 'don't give your money to that bum' would fall under the heading "wisdom of the world". But, what about things that might be considered more, well, factual, less philosophical? The wisdom of the world would say that the dead cannot come back to life, especially a body 3 days dead in a tomb. That's less open to debate. That's a matter of biology, chemistry, good hard sciences. God turned that to foolishness when he raised Christ from the dead.
I suppose it would be easier if I were the kind of person who could just ignore science all together. That would make my life a lot less complicated. But I can't. I'm a good Calvinist and a decent science type. I believe that God made the world ordered and intended for us to figure it out. I don't believe he set up the world to trick us or confuse us (though doing quantum homework sometimes made me wonder). The world starts in a garden and ends in a city--I confess I picture it to be a very high tech city. One with quantum computers that never ever crash and no internet popups. But I wonder how much of the world's knowledge should really come under the heading of worldly wisdom.
Another thing is that it always comes a shock to think of the Gospel as foolishness. Like stepping into the shower you thought was going to be nice and hot and instead is icy cold. I grew up in the 'odour of sanctity', as Dorothy L. Sayers put it, and there was never a time when the truth of it didn't seem self evident. Oh, I know that I look like a fool to some people. I'm not blind to those looks of half-pity I get sometimes from people when they find out I'm a Christian or, gasp, go to church. I've had the discussions on how a rational person could believe the Bible.
Somehow, this passage really struck me. I've heard it a million times, read it over and over, but it really walloped me yesterday. We are supposed to embrace this foolishness. Not explain it away, give intelligent, well reasoned arguments while it was rational to believe. Just proclaim the Gospel, in all its worldly foolishness, of the God who became completely human, subject to the same sickness, weakness and temptations, who submitted to humiliation, scorn and ultimately death. Who defied the wisdom of the world and rose again after three days rotting in the grave, incorruptible.
I've done it my whole life. Sought the reasonable explanations for people. And they are there, for theological ideas. For those things which are man made. But for the Gospel? How can you possibly explain that which is unexplainable? How can you make something that is inherently unreasonable in the eyes of the world reasonable? " For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
I think I need learn to embrace the foolishness of God, and lean less on my own understanding.
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