foolishness

FOOLISHNESS: The Wisdom Of Holy Fools by Peter C. Phan

October 6, 2016

From Being Religious Interreligiously Folly as Virtue The archetypal wise fool is Socrates, who explicitly claimed that his wisdom was derived from his awareness of his ignorance and whose distinctive teaching method consisted in exposing the foolishness of the wise. Jesus, whom Christian tradition proclaims to be the Logos and the Wisdom of God, was regarded during his life as insane by his family and was deemed by his opponents to be possessed by Beelzebul. Not only was his behavior scandalous to the religious establishment but his teaching, from his beatitudes to his parables, challenged the sacred text and offended traditional wisdom. Even Peter, who should have known better, was shocked by Jesus’s prediction of his [...]

SCRIPTURE: The Cross And The Foolishness Of God by John Proctor

October 6, 2016

From First and Second Corinthians 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.” 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 [...]

POETRY: The Foolishness Of God, by Luci Shaw

October 5, 2016

1 Corinthians 1:20-25 Perform impossibilities or perish. Thrust out now the unseasonal ripe figs among your leaves. Expect the mountain to be moved. Hate parents, friends, and all materiality. Love every enemy. Forgive more times than seventy- seven. Camel-like, squeeze by into the kingdom through the needle’s eye. All fear quell. Hack off your hand, or else, unbloodied, go to hell. Thus the divine unreason. Despairing now, you cry with earthy logic—How? And I, your God, reply: Leap from your weedy shallows. Dive into the moving water. Eyeless, learn to see truly. Find in my folly your true sanity. Then Spirit-driven, run on my narrow way, sure as a child. Probe, hold my unhealed hand, and bloody, enter [...]

FOOLISHNESS: Francis And The Foolishness Of God by Marie Dennis, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joseph Nagle, & Stuart Taylor

October 4, 2016

From St. Francis and the Foolishness of God Biblical Foundations for the Fool of God A long tradition of fools exists within the Bible. In the Hebrew scriptures we see Jeremiah parading naked in the streets of Jerusalem to drive home a prophetic point. In the New Testament we first catch sight of John the Baptist wearing a camel skin; eating grasshoppers and honey; and hanging out in a desert inhabited only by wild beasts, demons, madmen, and an occasional saint. John is a hard one to follow in this mad-cap comedy, but the apostles manage to bring the house down. In the ecstatic moment of Pentecost, they reel like drunks in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself is the head clown of this tradition, the divine fool who, [...]

JESUS: The Foolishness Of God, by Thomas Aquinas

October 4, 2016

The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom. (1 Corinthians 1:25) Christ chose to have parents who were poor but perfect in virtue, lest anyone should glory in his noble lineage and the riches of his parents. He lived a life of poverty to teach others to spurn riches. He lived an ordinary life having no high position to recall others from an inordinate greed for honors. He endured labor, hunger, thirst, and bodily scourging, lest those who are intent on bodily pleasures and delights draw back from the good of virtue because of the rigors of such a life. In the end Christ endured death that others might not abandon the truth for fear of death. And lest anyone should fear to undergo a shameful death for the truth, he himself chose the [...]

PRAYER: A Fool’s Prayer by Edward Hays

February 3, 2012

Father and God of Fools, Lord of Clowns and Smiling Saints, I rejoice in this playful prayer that You are a God of laughter and of tears. Blessed are You, for You have rooted within me the gifts of humor, lightheartedness and mirth, With jokes and comedy, You cause my heart to sing as laughter is made to flow out of me. I am grateful that Your Son, Jesus, who was this world’s master of wit, daily invites me to be a fool for Your sake, to embrace the madness of Your prophets, holy people and saints. I delight in that holy madness which becomes the very medicine to heal the chaos of the cosmos since it calls each of us out of the hum-drumness of daily life into joy, adventure, and, most of all, into freedom. I, who am so easily tempted [...]