Holy Fools

This is a strange passage. It doesn’t seem strange on the first read—it’s really just another beautiful, joyful passage about a glorious future in which God’s people will be back in their promised land; honestly, it’s not dissimilar from our peaceful passage last week. But you’d probably never guess from hearing that beautiful poem that Meredith just read for us that it’s sandwiched between two pretty terrifying passages in Isaiah. What comes before it is honestly a strange and unpleasant diatribe against the kingdom of Edom, for reasons that even the most revered Biblical scholars are unsure about; and after this passage comes the warnings of the kingdom of Assyria planning to attack Judah. So with this in mind, it may seem that his beautiful, hopeful, joyful passage seems a little out of place— and that’s because it very much is.

Just a quick Biblical literary-history refresher— the prevailing theory about Isaiah today is that it's thought to have at least three different authors—the first is the author of chapters 1-39—this was the pre-exilic period, in which the prophet was warning his people to repent, and warning them that bad things were coming, and they should change their ways sooner than later; the second is 40-55, the exilic period in which the prophet was giving his people hope that they would, in fact get back to the promised land, that good things awaited them; and the last chunk of Isaiah is thought to be sort of a mishmash of different prophetic voices. So our reading today is placed in first-Isaiah, but for a whole bunch of convincing reasons that I won’t get into right now, because this is not, in fact, a theology lecture, it is widely believed that this was taken from second-Isaiah and plopped into first. It’s no known for sure why this was done. Of course there are theories—some think it’s to provide a more cohesive bridge between the two sections of Isaiah, even though, to me, it kind of makes it all seem more confusing since it does seem so out of place. Others believe, and this is the one I’m going with on this third Sunday of Advent in which we celebrate joy, that it was placed here so that readers and believers would get an earlier taste of the goodness that awaited them amidst all the doom and gloom. They needed a reminder of God’s unconditional Love; they needed reassurance that a happy ending did indeed await them.

And later would come Jesus, a baby born out of time and logic to be a reminder—of that happy ending, of what could be, what should be— a vulnerable baby, both human and divine, born in a time of political unrest, born to turn the world upside down; born to lift the fearful of heart, born to make feeble knees firm, born to bring water and lushness to the desert. Jesus’ birth, Jesus’ whole being doesn’t make sense. The son of God born among such humility, the most unsuspecting, unexpected God.

An unintentional theme I seem to have stumbled upon is finding all these different themes of the Advent season—hope, peace, joy—in unexpected places, in unexpected ways. Today’s passage is a perfect example of this. In the midst of crisis, war, and really strange fire and brimstone judgment comes this beautiful passage full of hope and joy. And sure, on the surface it doesn’t really fit, but it’s so wildly necessary to avoid discouragement and despair. And doesn’t Jesus comes to us, as the poem I’ve repeated several times, not in a flash of divine power, but rather as a dandelion sprouting through cracks in a sidewalk?

And I know the Bible is a serious text, it’s our holy text— but I can’t stand taking everything so seriously all the time. This is probably why I wrote my master’s thesis on the correlation between subversive stand-up comedy and truly thought-provoking preaching. Because in both stand-up comedy and in preaching, the goal is to get you curious, to get you thinking about the world in different, more creative ways—to get you thinking about the world in unexpected ways—without alienating your audience, or your congregation. And when I say not alienating people, that doesn’t mean there can’t be some discomfort once in a while. Jesus spent his entire existence making people deeply uncomfortable in forcing them to think about the world differently, to think about the systems and structures of power in new, eye-opening, revolutionary ways.

And the beautiful thing about comedy, is that when done correctly, it makes us think of serious things in new and creative ways with laughter and joy. It helps us to laugh at the absurdity of life, to make the chaos and the absurdity of life easier to deal with, while also driving us to change it for the better. And notice that in today’s passage towards the end, where it talks about the highway that all but the unclean will be able to travel on. Now, it’s not wholly clear what the unclean means here, but considering the fact that it says no ravenous beasts will be there, no lions, what that’s saying to me is that this is a path that is safe. There will be no threats to those walking on this smooth and straight path. So sure, one could read the unclean not being allowed on this path as being not pure enough or not good enough, but put in context with everything else, I believe the unclean are simply people who would be do harm to others. This is a safe path for all—even fools! This all feels to be like foreshadowing of Jesus coming to this world and turning everything we know upside down—let’s look at First Corinthians 1:27-28: “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…”. The foolish in the world shame the wise.

I was doing some research on “Holy Fools” for this sermon, and I came across a story I wasn’t familiar with. It’s the story of Brother Juniper, one of the earliest friars and most ardent of followers of St. Francis of Assisi. Brother Juniper was thought to be a little simple, certainly a fool, but also one of the purest and most excellent examples of what a good and faithful person is. St. Francis, in fact, is quoted as punning about Juniper, “Would to God, my brothers, that I had a whole forest of such Junipers.” This specific story is a story about Brother Juniper and a pig’s foot. Juniper is visiting a poor man who’s very sick, and Juniper asks what he can do for the man. The man says that he is craving a meal of pig’s feet. Juniper says, ‘no problem!’ and runs to the nearest farm where pigs are being kept, chops off the pigs foot, brings it home, cooks and prepares it and serves it to the sick man who is full of so much joy and gratitude for this deed. Unfortunately, Juniper wasn’t really thinking of the consequences of this action—he just kind of ruined this pig that belonged to another person, the pig keeper, and the pig keeper is not happy. The pig keeper complains to St. Francis, and Francis apologizes, and chastises Juniper for essentially committing a crime, and tells Juniper he must go to the pig keeper an apologize to him himself. Juniper is legitimately confused. He’s truly confounded as to why he’s being scolded for doing this good deed for this poor, sick man who needed that meal more than the pig keeper needed one of his many pigs. Nevertheless, he does as Francis says, and goes to meet the pig keeper. But he’s still genuinely confused about what he did wrong, so rather than giving some kind of rote apology, he cheerfully tells the pig keeper, ‘yes, I stole your pig, but I did it for good reason, I made a sick man joyful, isn’t that great?’ the pig keeper gets even angrier and starts yelling insults and profanities at Juniper, just in a full rage. Juniper shrugs the hurtful words off, and repeats the story again to the pig-keeper—he’s not trying to be snarky or annoying. He’s genuine. He’s so full of joy thanks to the good deed he has done, he is so sure this is what God wants, that he truly cannot imagine a world in which anyone would ever be mad about giving a pig’s foot to a sick man who was craving it. And this time, as he’s telling the story, Juniper embraces the pig keeper and then suggests he slaughters a couple more of his pigs to give to the poor—Juniper will not be dissuaded. And his simple, persistent compassion wears the pig-keeper down. He falls to his knees weeping, apologizes for his anger, and slaughters the rest of the now-three legged pig, cooks it, and shares it.

I think it sometimes takes a fool to have so much conviction in goodness. I think it some foolishness to believe so wholeheartedly that this world can actually be good. And I wonder if that’s why Isaiah makes the point in this passage to note that even fools won’t lose their way or be harmed on this highway—even those who seem naïve to the wise and cynical will make it to the promised land. Because these fools, these class clowns, I think they force us to think of things a little differently—I think they make us think of a world in which the oppression and inequities of the world can actually be turned upside down, a world in which wrongs can actually be righted.

I mean, how absurd is it that our savoir came in the form of a human baby born under extremely precarious conditions? How absurd is it that we are still working for a world in which everyone can be free and comfortable during a point in history in which the wealth gap is bigger than ever, the powers that be are constantly working against us? How absurd is it that we still believe in, have faith in, and trust in an unconditionally loving God when there is so much oppression and despair in this world? It’s ridiculously absurd, one might even say foolish. Well, I guess we’re all fools then. I’m okay with that. I think we should embrace it, find some joy in the midst of all this discouragement, because I don’t think there’s any other way to make it through this life.

It’s okay to laugh and to find joy in an unfair and broken world— in fact it’s necessary. If we don’t find the time to laugh, to roll our eyes at the absurdity of it all, we’ll find ourselves in a pit of cynicism and despair. We’ll find ourselves feeling hopeless and apathetic. And that’s what the wealth-hoarding and power-hungry overlords want.

And you know, I think living where we do, it takes even more effort to be hopeful, to be joyful—in these bleak winters when it gets dark at 4:30, in these winters when it’s too cold or gloomy to be outside, we have to find comfort and joy in unexpected places. We have to make our own fun, we have to find new and creative ways to entertain ourselves to make it through these long winters. We certainly have more experience than many in finding joy and light in the darkness.

And so I invite you to take some deep breaths, to not take this often infuriating world so seriously, to fine some beauty and joy in these bleak winter months—and I invite you to laugh like joyful fools at the absurdity of faith and of life. Amen.