2014; Matthew 5: 39-44, 47, 48; I Corinthians 3: 18,19, 20

The Pursuit of Foolishness

We take it for granted that the people of the United States should have the right to the pursuit of happiness.  But when you think about it, it is quite astounding that the founding fathers would put these words in a constitutional document two and a half centuries ago.  Isn’t happiness a feeling or a consistent series of feelings?  Perhaps this why they said” pursuit,” because we never quite get there.

In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul writes that “the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.” What he means by the “world” are the things that people care about most: power, sexual opportunity, money, fame.  These often lead to abuse, promiscuity, greed and cheating.  Some of the attitudes of the world are mentioned in our call to worship.  We see that most clearly in what is happening in Ukraine and in Syria, in Venezuela, in Thailand and countries in Africa.  Power and greed are all interconnected. Now if the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God, then the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. It works both ways.  The commandments mentioned in our call to worship from the book of Leviticus still make sense in the world, but Jesus goes way beyond that: “If someone strikes you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. If someone asks for your coat, give them your cloak.  Give to anyone who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. “ And then the zinger: “ Love your enemies.”  Now I don’t know about you, but I am feeling pretty inadequate up here.   Our response at best is : “yes, but…. What if the person asking for a coat is severely mentally ill and has three coats in his shopping cart under the cotton wood tree in Discovery Park? What if the coat he wants is the one your grandmother bought for you at Christmas at full price from her fixed income?  What if thirty people in a row in a five minute span ask for money on Market Street in San Francisco?  How will I have money for gas and  toll to get home?” Believe me, that’s not a stretch. “What if your enemy killed your most beloved relative?”  Jesus calls for an ideal world where the common sense of the times is turned on its head.  Transformation is what Jesus is after.  Now there is one thing that probably needs to be mentioned and that is the Jesus’ followers saw the coming of the kingdom of heaven as something that could happen at any time.  Nevertheless we cannot reason away Jesus’ call to extreme compassion. Yet in terms of the “world” as I just described it, what Jesus saying is complete nonsense, total foolishness.  So, friends, is in fact Paul calling us to a pursuit of foolishness?  Again the word “pursuit” is appropriate, because we will never be as “foolish” as Jesus is asking us to be.

Friends, the Winter Olympics has just concluded. Many of the athletes, whether they won or lost, were motivated to get into a sport because they idolized someone when they were growing up. There was a time when I was young that I idolized Albert Schweitzer who was born in the latter part of the nineteenth century.  He was a famous pipe organ virtuoso from the Alsace, a region on the French and German border that was always going back and forth between the two nations as a property.  Schweitzer was also a New Testament scholar.  When he wanted to become a missionary to Africa, the French Evangelical mission board thought he was too liberal and turned him down. He then went to medical school (which was not at all where his talents were) and found a way to be sent to the jungles of what is now Gabon.  He founded a hospital there just before World War I, then was put in an internment camp in France during World War I because he was a German citizen and after becoming a French citizen returned to his hospital many years later. He found everything in disrepair and had to start over again.  He died in the middle of the last century in his beloved Lambarene in Africa, holder of the Nobel Peace Prize.  It is said that toward the end of his life he was criticized for his old fashioned paternalistic way of thinking and for running a broken down hospital with bad management.  Nevertheless, he left behind his fame as well-known organist and theologian to go, on his own expenses initially, to Africa as a jungle physician.  It was perfect foolishness.  Albert Schweitzer pursued foolishness and in his foolishness he found his measure of happiness.

Friends, for those who think Jesus was just a wise teacher with deep insight or who think God is a figment of the imagination, a church such as this is foolishness.  For can you imagine every week, with clockwork, for a hundred years, organizing a party where the guest if honor would never show up? There are songs, there are speeches, there are prayers, there is food, rain (mostly not) or shine, in cold or hot weather. Of course we believe otherwise.   Could it be friends that Paul does not just acknowledge that the life of the Church is foolishness to the “world,” but that he actively encourages us to embrace foolishness?  “Go ahead,” he’ d say. “Be foolish. Have faith. Believe.” Thanks be to God.