Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday in the season we call Epiphany – the celebration of light and insight and revelation – our understanding, in particular of Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us.   The Epiphany season began, as you may recall, back at the beginning of January when we celebrated the visit of the Magi, or the wise men, to the child Jesus.  On that Sunday we saw how the enlightened foreigners acclaimed Jesus as “The King of the Jews.”  They were filled with joy and they worshiped him – Jesus as this little kid, and brought him gifts. Today, Jesus is all grown up – and now it is Peter, James and John, ordinary Jewish people, who become enlightened as to Jesus’ true nature – not by the Bethlehem Star, but as Jesus transfigures, or changes, before them on the mountain top. Up there at the summit Jesus appears as light, his clothes dazzling white. Two visitors from Israel’s past – Moses and Elijah, join Jesus.  They see Jesus as he truly is: not just a amazing new rabbi, or a miracle worker, or healer, but as the voice from heaven proclaims, Jesus is God’s Son, the beloved to whom we should listen. The appearance of Moses and Elijah, two esteemed figures from Jewish history, confirm Jesus as the long-awaited messiah.

Mountains throughout scripture, indeed throughout the ancient world, were places when people encounter the sacred.  Moses encountered the burning bush that was not consumed, and later received the Law on Mount Sinai   (Ex. 24:15).  At the end of his ministry, Moses stood on the mountaintop of Mt. Pisgah to see the Promised Land right before he died, knowing with satisfaction that his task in God’s plan was accomplished.  Elijah the prophet also had a sacred encounter with God on Mount Horeb (1 Ki. 19:8).   Fleeing for his life on the top of the mountain, depressed, Elijah encounters God not in the earthquake or fire, but in the silence that followed.  In the aftermath of encountering God, Elijah’s mission to speak out on behalf of God in the face of danger is revived.

Now the disciples, James Peter and John encounter the divine, but not in the earthquake and fire, a burning bush, or a piercing silence, but in the very person of Jesus.   In this moment of revelation they see Jesus in conversation with Moses (representing the Law) and Elijah (representing the prophets) – the totality of Jewish faith.  The disciples see Jesus as the bridge, the fulfillment of all which the Jewish people have longed for.
Some scholars have even found it curious that the gospel writer Luke reports two men at the empty tomb (Lk. 24:4; Jn. 20:12) and in the book Acts he describes two men at Jesus’ ascension into heaven (Acts 1:10).  The ‘two witnesses’ described in the book of Revelation (Rev. 11:3) are often identified with Moses and Elijah.  So at Jesus transfiguration, resurrection and Ascension and in the end of the ages, there are divinely ordained witnesses bringing the old and new together – pointing to Jesus as the fulfillment of revelation and God’s work among us. 

 Jesus, knowing what mountaintops signified for the people, chose to take Peter, James and John to the summit, to witness the transfiguration. Mountains are a perfect choice:  they are place of refuge and where we can step back and see the big picture. In the effort of going to the mountaintop today, we too find inspiration and the potential of spiritual transformation.  We find God – and we find who we are—beloved children of God.    
     
In 2011, Former Navy rescue swimmer Brian Dickinson, an experienced mountain climber, and motivational speaker, was roughly 1,000 feet from the summit of Mount Everest—also known as “the death zone”—when his Sherpa became ill and had to turn back, leaving Brian with a difficult decision: should he continue to push for the summit, or head back down the mountain? After carefully weighing the options, Brian decided to continue toward the summit—alone. Four hours later, Brian solo summited the highest peak in the world. But the celebration was short-lived. Suddenly, his vision became blurry, his eyes started to burn, and within seconds, he was rendered almost completely blind.

All alone at 29,035 feet, low on oxygen, and stricken with snow blindness, Brian was forced to inch his way back down the mountain relying only on his Navy survival training, his gut instinct, and his faith.  Brian slowly started down the mountain.  Very tired, Brian was tempted to close his eyes and become a permanent member of the mountain.

Yet he pressed on. But things went from bad to worse. He start falling head over heel.  He landed upside down, his mask is ripped from his face, and my bottle of oxygen’s coming out of my pack.  His oxygen wasn’t working. At that point he  dropped to his knees and just surrendered. It was a simple prayer he said, ‘God I can’t do this alone. Please help me.’”

At that moment, on the other side of the world, friends and family were suddenly compelled to pray for Brian. His climbing friend, David Heiting says, “I felt God just talking to me saying, ‘You need to pray for Brian to get up and move. Things are going to be hard and he just has to power through.’  That’s what I prayed for. Joanna felt compelled to pray. “I just got this feeling that maybe something was wrong, and I kept praying about it, for God to bring him home safe.”

“And at that moment, I witnessed a miracle.” Brian says, “It was as if God reached down by the back of my down suit and lifted me up. I mean I just had this unexplained energy. To have that life re-enter my body was just unexplainable. To be able to stand up, to feel strong, and just have hope. Then Brian tried the oxygen tank again. This time it worked. He made it down to the camp at 26,000 feet.

With help Brian made it the rest of the way down Everest and home to his family. One month later his sight returned to normal. Brian says he is thankful God was with him every step of the way to the top of the world, and back down again. “In my moment of need He was there. I believe He was there the entire time. He’s always there. That Presence I felt I was never alone. When I needed to be lifted up He was there. He got me down the mountain.” Brian concludes, “People give up on themselves but God’s not giving up on you. No matter what, God is always there. He’ll lead you through the toughest times and help you survive the impossible.”

Brian found God up there on Mount Everest – and he wrote a book about his saga called “Blind Faith.”   Like Brian today we are invited to that mountaintop with Peter, James and John. We get to see Jesus in all his glory, alongside Moses and Elijah.  Today, God wants to overshadow each of us with the Holy Spirit as he did those disciples, and speak to us.  God has a message for each of us, straight from the mountaintop. 

Some of the mountains God has called us to are a part of the glory of creation, the wonders of the world that we scale, we ski on, we plan treks – and in the beauty of nature we are renewed. God also calls us today to those mountain ranges of our culture, to those peaks of justice, mercy and righteousness, difficult summits that are too often left untread except for the most spiritually intrepid.  

God is also calling each of us to those mountains  here in our hearts—mountains of faith and prayer we are invited to climb,  as described in “The Seven Story Mountain,” the renowned autobiography of Thomas Merton a Trappist monk, writer and mystic of the 20th century.  Merton chooses as the title of his book the image from Dante of a purgatorial mountain that we must ascend if we are to reach paradise.  About this ascent Merton writes:  “Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married or single, no matter who you are or what you are, you are called to the summit of perfection: you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others. And if you cannot do so by word, then by example. Yet if this sublime fire of infused love burns in your soul, it will inevitably send forth throughout the Church and the world an influence more tremendous than could be estimated by the radius reached by words or by example.” 

Today in our climb to the mountaintop God helps us see who we really are and what we are called to do in this life.  There is nothing more important than this: to take from the mountaintop “this… love that burns in our soul,” that experience of glory, and share it.  To make a difference. To someone - Somewhere.

That, my friends, is the challenge of the season of Lent.  Starting Wednesday, until Easter Sunday we are called to this special task.  Forget about giving up chocolate or TV.  We are called to something greater.  To take that knowledge of Jesus, his glory, the love that burns in our soul, and to apply it to daily life.  To take like Brian, the knowledge that God is always with us.  To take, like Martin Luther King Jr., the long vision of racial and social justice and give people hope. Today we’ve been taken to the mountaintop.  We’ve seen the glory.  We got to share it.

This Lent, I invite all of us to listen. I invite us to renewal that comes from knowing ourselves so loved by God that we must, we must, pass it on. Dare to share what a difference faith in Jesus has had in your life.  Stretch your prayer life. Get more invested in God’s work.  Get more involved in the mission of Union Church and around the world. Work for racial justice and social equality.  Be a guide and lead others to the mountaintop – to Jesus.
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 This Lent, may love be energized, mobilized, concretized – realized proclaimed and celebrated by each of us, by all of us.
This Lent let us truly change. That’s how we’ll know that we’ve been to the mountaintop. Amen.
       

 

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As some of you know, Forrest and I got away to Florida this past week to celebrate, a year late, our tenth- year wedding anniversary.   One of our get aways was Universal’s Island of Adventure, home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  After reading the series out loud to our children, seeing all the movies, attending the Discovery Times Square Exhibition of Harry Potter, it seemed right and fitting to return to this great fantasy that has shaped the moral and imaginative landscape of the millennial (generation y) – as well as their elders.  We enjoyed a simulation of riding a broomstick throughout Hogwarts – having a picture taken at the Hogwarts express at Platform 9 3/4s – visiting Hogsmeade and enjoying a butter beer at the Hog’s Head, and loading down at Honeydukes and Zonkos joke shop. It is amazing the seed of a story that came from author JK Rowling, grew into this massive enterprise, employing thousands of people to capture the images, artifacts and personalities that brought this universe to life. If you have to ask…well I suggest you read the books. 

We also visited another fantasy land, one just as,  if not more powerful,  creative and thrilling to see – the world of NASA at the Kennedy Space Center, where the efforts to go to space are detailed, and one gets to see and touch the artifacts of the era of the US manned space programs. Back in 1962, President Kennedy told the nation, as he promoted the vision of moon travel and beyond:   
“… some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?...We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.( Sep. 12, 1962, at Rice University, Houston, Texas)

It was breathtaking to see the launch sites, even where the ill-fated Challenger was launched back in 1986; to see the space suits, touch the moon rocks, a simulator of the Atlantis cockpit, a model of the entire Atlantis on display,  the Apollo 14 command module,  plus a memorial wall commemorating the fallen Challenger and Columbia Crew.  Another universe, open to us by the determination of some of our leaders, and the blood, sweat and tears of hundreds and thousands of people, in addition to the sacrifice of life of those willing to risk space flight, to see the technology and dreams move forward.  We now have unmanned missions to Mars, as well Voyager, as the amazing Hubble telescope which has transmitted stunning images of deep space – giving us a picture of a vast mysterious universe beckoning our imaginations and skill to see, connect, embrace – to expand our notions of home.
These two amazing universes – one of the internal imagination of an author, inviting us to explore themes of good and evil, right and wrong; to see the good in unusual places, to see evil in the ordinary places --  and our actual universe filled with uncharted life --studied and explored for millennia, inviting us to push ourselves, to find our place in the stars, to see the connections between galaxies, planets, stars and where we fit in in the midst of  this picture -- both universes invite us to risk, to explore , to challenge the known and embrace the yet unknown.

NASA and the world of Harry Potter meld in magical way with our readings today – the final speech of Moses to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy, the continuation of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, and the exhortations of the Apostle Paul to the Christ-following community in Corinthians. Our scriptures point us to an intersecting universe that brings all these stories together.  A universe envisioned from God. A universe meant for us—a universe on how people should live together according to God-inspired, Spirit-mandated ways.  President Kennedy talked about choosing the hard over the easy.  Harry Potter was taught to choose the right over the easy. Moses said we have choices of life and death put before us.  Will we live according to the covenant, the ordinances God laid out to the people of Israel throughout their journey in the wilderness, as they are about to enter the Promised Land?   Will we hold fast to God’s ways – following the commandments that bind God’s people together on a spiritual path? That engage us in moral and ethical behavior that included worship, activities of daily life, and teach us to interact fairly and justly with one another?  The plan of life was laid forth by Moses, as directed by God.  Yet for centuries the people had a difficult time following these decrees – then as now, we are no different.  They were rebuked repeatedly by the prophets for not choosing life –for not connecting to the universe that God created, a universe on earth – that Jesus called the kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God.

In our passage from Matthew, we experience the bluntness of Jesus’ words -- the extreme hyperbole of his speech.  Last week we heard how he warned his listeners that their righteousness must exceed the scribes and Pharisees if they were to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Now Jesus digs deep, exposing the radical core of God’s universe.  Smoldering anger, careless insults and conflicts tear at the life of the Kingdom.  Jesus’ examples are stark:  If one’s eye or hand creates sin in the body – eliminate it.  Divorce, the breaking of the sacred bonds between two people, had become easy in Jesus’ time. Only men could get a divorce, often for grounds such as a wife talking back, not having children, not being desirable, not working to expectation. Divorce in Jesus’ day, more often than not, left women in dire straits and poverty frequently resulting in a life of prostitution to survive.  This was unacceptable to Jesus.   In the same vein, Jesus wants our speech to be transparent, direct, forceful, truthful: yes is yes, no is no. 

Jesus, through his strong stance, is revealing the true nature of God’s vision of the covenant law.  It is easy for us to drift from resentment to a raging anger, an anger that eats away at our heart, which encourages us to live unreconciled, to hurt someone else in the pursuit of  our own wants and desires.  Like the faulty O ring, that small  piece that led to the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger,   Our chronic anger, covetousness, avarice, the casual breaking of commitments to others --  mar the image of God within us and cause harm to the just reign of God in the world. There is no mistake:  Jesus’ words are forceful and reinforce that God’s love urges us continually to choose life, chooses us to choose the life of a reconciler, as one who loves, sacrifices, and treats those we are in relationship with – with care and kindness and forbearance.

The Apostle Paul puts it to us this way:  are we ready to be fed the solid food, as mature Christ-followers?  The jealousy and quarreling Paul witnessed among the Corinthians was unacceptable to the teachings of Jesus, the law of life God transmitted to Moses.  People in Corinthians were choosing factions.  “I like elder X over Elder Y”  “Apollo is so much nicer than Paul,” …Paul says all this favoritism is nonsense. We all work together, different tasks, all important in building up the kingdom of God – which Paul describes in these terms:  ”You are God’s field”  “you are God’s building.”  The directives show us how to work together for the greater good. If we think we are working for our own personal greater glory, we have missed the boat.  That’s why rupture in connection – through anger, jealousy, quarreling, -- choosing death --causes catastrophes through out  all systems – with a partner, in a family, in a church, in our society, our planet, our every universe. Life is connected, at all levels. 
Each one of us has a role to play in creating God’s universe here on earth.   Greater than the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Greater than NASA’s dreams -- our world’s dreams of space travel and life in other galaxies.  Our travel in here in our hearts, here out on our streets – and we are given the tools to create it – through selfless love, acts of reconciling, choosing the path of life.  Jesus’ words are a Hubble telescope pointing us to the breathtaking depths of the universe to which we are connected.  Our life together is a Voyager mission; we can crash through carelessness and sinfulness – or through choosing life, travel to worlds unknown, worlds of mercy and kindness yet fully unexplored here on earth.
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Last week, Forrest and I had the good fortune after our visit to the Space Station to see again the, Gravity.  It’s a story a mission specialist, Dr. Ryan Stone, and astronaut Matt Kowalsky conducting a routine space walk when their shuttle is destroyed by a freak accident.  Stone and Kowalsky are left alone tethered to each other in space. At a critical juncture, Kowalsky untethers himself from Stone, to give her the chance to reach the space shuttle, resulting in his certain death.  The story goes on to how Stone makes it to a Russian space station. She panics. And plans to kill herself.  But she has a hallucination of Kowalky, sipping Russian vodka, telling her:  “ I get it. It's nice up here. You can just shut down all the systems, turn out all the lights, and just close your eyes and tune out everyone. There's nobody up here that can hurt you. It's safe. I mean, what's the point of going on? What's the point of living? …. But still, it's a matter of what you do now. If you decide to go, then you gotta just get on with it. Sit back, enjoy the ride. You gotta plant both your feet on the ground and start livin' life. Hey, Ryan? It's time to go home.” Ultimately Stone does makes it home.
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            All the great stories, the deep spiritual stories, the ones that don’t go away, are stories guiding us always to choose life. The life God intended: one of loving connection and fairness.  To work together. To love and through love find home – here, in a book, in Space, in the hearts of those we love and in the hands of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

Want to look like Beyonce? Jennifer Aniston? Gwyneth Paltrow? Jennifer Lopez? Phillip Schofield?  It’s time to do a 5:2, a diet made popular by Dr. Michael Mosey’s “The Fast Diet” book, the latest craze in Britain, now invading the bestselling lists here in the states – with its own PBS special in April. The catch is the diet is based on eating pattern of medieval monks and nuns when food was often scarce. They ate simple meals five days a week – fasting (in most cases eating one basic meal of no more than 500 calories) twice a week: on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Who would believe that fasting has become fashionable?  In the endless pursuit of the elusive size 0, people are paying thousands of dollars a week to visit health spas where they go without food. One spa in California, is booked months in advance with a clientele that includes celebrities Ben Affleck and Courtney Love. A Venezuelan beauty queen has had plastic mesh sewn to her tongue in her to stay thin. Fashion designers and mortgage brokers have joined the fasting trend - subsisting on apple-celery cocktails, herbal teas, laxatives, bee pollen, blended soups, and water mixed with squeezed lemons, Celtic Sea salt, and honey. Yummy.

One nutritional consultant organizes four-day fasting weekends for women that include motivational trips to a fashionable department store, to "remind them what it's all for."
Let’s get it straight: Fasting is not about fashion. It was about repentance, purification, preparing for rebirth, or a new stage in life.  Jesus fasted before beginning his public ministry.  Moses fasted before he received the 10 commandments. Daniel fasted and was blessed with wisdom. Esther called for a 3 day fast for all the Jews in her city, who were spared annihilation. Hannah could not bear a child and she fasted. God heard her plea and the prophet Samuel was born.  God called Paul and shared the assignment for his life during a strict fast. Peter was fasting when God gave him a new revelation and called him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. King Solomon fasted and God greatly increased his wealth and wisdom (Kings 3:10-13). After hearing Jonah’s dire predictions, the King of Nineveh declared a fast, even unto the animals, and God diverted the punishment. People may fast for fashion, but fasting is a key tool to spiritual growth and transformation.

Last week, we heard Jesus most famous teaching, the beatitudes – teachings that turn blessing on its head, teaching that causes us to pause, wonder what it means to be blessed in this world of ours.  For the next several weeks, we will hear Jesus expand on his teachings, teachings based in the law expressed in the beatitudes. Teachings that make us reach deep into ourselves, throw some conventional religious concepts on their head -- teachings to wake us up – and understand what it means to follow Jesus.  To be light. To be salt. To be righteous.

Jesus builds on Isaiah’s bold teachings. Fasting was part of  Jewish life and Isaiah spells out what is acceptable fasting.  What does fasting do for us that is so important? There’s a story about a wealthy businessman who went to a monastery for a retreat. He wanted to get closer to God. He was brought before the abbot of the monastery to seek spiritual direction. The abbot asked the man if he would like a glass of water. When the man responded with a “yes”, the abbot began to pour him some water. The abbot poured and poured until the water reached the very tip of the glass; but he didn't stop! Instead, he kept pouring and pouring so that the water overflowed ran onto the table; and drenched the expensive suit which the man was wearing.

Jumping up angry, the man yelled at the abbot, “What are you doing? Look at what you did to my suit!” Turning to the man, the abbot said, “You are like this glass of water. You are so full of yourself and of concerns for riches and other anxieties of the world. You are completely full. There is no space for you to hold anything else inside. There is no room for God to come in. Before God can come in, you must empty yourself and make room for Him to enter.”

That is the key. Fasting, followed correctly, is a tool that we use to detach ourselves from the cares and concerns of this world; and from our own ego and selfish desires. It’s not about how long we fast, how we fast, but that we fast. Fasting isn’t just for lent, Ash Wednesday, or Good Friday. Fasting is part of our regular living. Through fasting, we encounter all the reasons we use food as a way to distance ourselves from our sacred souls – how we hide behind that mars bars and bag of chips to avoid encountering people and encountering God. True fasting involves abstinence from everything that distances us from God. By emptying ourselves of sin, of gossip, of hate, vanity -- we are cleaned, healed to our right minds. Fasting in this manner, makes us light in the world and salt of the earth – an earth that has lost its flavor through gluttony of attachments to money, power, a false sense of beauty and life purpose.

In the face of the onslaught of the “fast food” of the mind, body and soul we feed upon daily:  Jesus awakens us, tells us that our true purpose is that we are salt and light in the world, and that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. The scribes and Pharisees were good people.  They studied the scriptures and tried to follow them with dedication and zeal.  Yet they failed.  The words of the prophet Isaiah are blunt.  They, like their ancestors, comrades of Isaiah, observed the fasts.  They didn’t cheat with extra cookie or slice of bread.   They made their offerings at the temple as prescribed. By Jesus’ day, the Pharisees fasted up to twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, (Luke 18: 9-14).  Jesus condemned the Pharisees for disfiguring their faces – with ash and dirt -- to alert the rest of the world that they were fasting (Matt 6:16-18).  So, we can fast, and fast well, for all the wrong reasons: like to show off our will power or our slimmer body. If that’s the goal, then the true fast has failed.

It’s time we regained fasting, and took it seriously. It is good to fast, even a basic fast.  As a people used to getting what we want, when we want it, both Jesus and Isaiah make it clear that a good fast, an acceptable fast, brings healing, and restoration within ourselves even into our community.

Isaiah raises the following questions:  is a fast a true fast if one continues to oppress their workers while abstaining from food or drink? Or if we quarrel? Or fight? Isaiah says, and Jesus also teaches, that being able to control the hunger sensations of the body means nothing if we are unable to control the desire to be #1, to be in control, to lord over others, to turn away and ignore the hungry, the homeless, the poor – even to avoid our family in need.   What does throwing ash on our heads and wearing sackcloth prove, if we continue to speak evil, gossip, falsely accusing others? 

A Godly fast is a fast from greediness. A fast that curbs our tongue from slanderous speech.  A fast from the gluttony of gadgets we indulge ourselves. Maybe instead of food, we need to fast from pride.  Maybe instead of food, we need to fast from TV, the radio, the computer, the smart phone:  and spend that time with someone who is lonely.  Maybe instead of food, we can fast from eating out, and give that money to a charity.   God’s acceptable fast asks us to stop feeding our own wants and desires and redirect our energies to feeding the hungry and helping the afflicted. That is how our light shines in the world. Some college girls have put forth the “7 or Less” challenge, to convince their dorm sisters to select on 7 items in their closet to wear for a month. That’s the idea.  We fast for compassion and connection -- for a world for whom fasting is not an option, but an imposed, inescapable reality. 

We need to empty the glass so we can fill it with God.  We get plugged in. Our light shines.  We act like salt – an essential ingredient, a preserving agent, adding flavor and variety to life on earth.  Those dry and barren aspects of our souls?  They become watered by God’s spirit. Our bones become strong – the frame upon which we build a life -- becomes steady and firm. A Godly fast fixes those broken places, areas in our psyche that are breached by sin and bad habits. Through us God can rebuild the world around us.   We create a foundation for others to build on for generations beyond us. Now that’s a fast.
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It doesn’t matter how each of us fasts.  But fast we should. Whether it is abstaining from meat, from coffee, sugar – a water fast, a juice fast, a fast from electronics, a fast that returns resources to the hungry, needy, holds back smart-alecky responses. Fast – in way that is acceptable between you and God. If only Beyonce, Jennifer Aniston - Gwyneth Paltrow - Phillip Schofield knew the power of the true fast. We can seek that size 0 – but a size 0 in gossip, envy, hoarding, ignoring the plight of the poor. Fast – and let our glass be filled with the Holy Spirit – creating a space for light and salt  --  to bring healing through your righteousness to restore and repair, and fulfill God’s word in our midst. Amen.
 
http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustration Peter Larson, "Fashionable Fastingthe PRISM E-pistle (9-3-03); submitted by Marshall Shelley, Wheaton, Illinoiss/2003/september/14600.html

 
Three fools died and are at the pearly gates of heaven. St. Peter tells them that they can enter the gates if they can answer one simple question. St. Peter asks the first fool, "What is Easter?" He replies, "Oh, that's easy! It's the holiday in November when everyone gets together, eats turkey, and are thankful..." "Wrong!" replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second fool the same question, "What is Easter?" The second one replies, "Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice tree, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus."

      St. Peter looks at the second fool, shakes his head in disgust, tells her she's wrong, and then peers over his glasses at the third fool and asks, "What is Easter?" The third fool smiles confidently and looks St. Peter in the eyes, "I know what Easter is." "Oh?" says St. Peter, incredulously. "Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover. Jesus and his disciples were eating at the last supper and Jesus was later deceived and turned over to the Romans by one of his disciples. "The Romans took him to be crucified and he was stabbed in the side, made to wear a crown of thorns, and was hung on a cross with nails through his hands. He was buried in a nearby cave which was sealed off by a large boulder." St. Peter smiles broadly with delight. Then she continues, "Every year the boulder is moved aside so that Jesus can come out...and, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter!

Does that feel slightly off-color -- a little sacrilegious?  Done in poor taste?  Welcome to the world of holy foolishness.  There are fools, and then there are fools.  There are the fools who act unwisely and stupidly and shows bad judgment: the Darwin award nominee who was decorating her Christmas tree. A strand of lights seemed to have a short, so the woman stripped the wires in the area and spliced them. While the lights were still plugged into the wall outlet, she finished up by using her teeth the crimp the bare wires together. Needless to say, she lit up like a Christmas tree. That’s a fool.  There are fools who are spiritually blind: like the wealthy man in one of Jesus’ story who builds bigger barns to contain his wealth – whom God then  calls “you fool” because his life was required of him – and  he had nothing of true spiritual value to show for his life.

            Holy foolishness is rooted  deep in the Christian tradition – in many world cultures – and  preserved in the orthodox churches. Paul’s words remind us: “for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.”  And God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, he chose what is low and despised…” The Fool is recognized as an archetype in human psyche -- an archetype that appears in most Shakespearean plays and Disney movies.   In medieval courts and aristocratic households “fools” or jesters not only provided entertainment for could speak boldly, offer insights and criticism that would have sent anyone else’s head to the guillotine.  Every village had its idiot. Underneath the silliness and bizarre   behavior contained wisdom and healing.  The fool exists to bring insight, transcend rigid, unhealthy barriers, to free us to what is possible,  to bring joy in authentic being.  The fool’s energy is regulated in modern days – usually expressed in Halloween, Mardi Gras and April Fool’s Day, where we are allowed to let down our guard, to play, bend or break the rules.  Today we recognize the fool as clowns, jester, comedians, pranksters, mavericks – who live outside social norms but bring us fresh perspectives on life.

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to recognize that Jesus is a fool.  His teachings and actions turn traditional rules inside out.  As God’s divine son, he lowered himself to take on human flesh.  To those without a relationship to Jesus, his life story is bizarre, even crazy.  A son of God who willingly goes to death, death on a cross – the worst possible form of execution that existed in his day?   Our faith is rooted in this spiritual foolishness – but our dominate traditions have made us austere, proper – quick to condemn people who don’t believe or practice the faith the way it’s been established.

The early church is full of tales of holy men and women who practiced holy foolishness to help draw people to the true power of the gospel – to copy Jesus in self-emptying, revealing the foolishness of God, mightier than human wisdom – as a sort of Christian mantra.

The patron saint of holy fools is St. Simeon Salos of Emress. He retreated to the Syrian Desert in the 6th century to devote his life to prayer; living on nothing but lentils it is said. A few decades later, Simeon returned to town a completely different man. He became a Fool for Christ.  He tied a dead dog to his waist and entered town dragging the carcass. During the church services, he threw nuts at the clergy and blew out the candles. In the circus, he wrapped his arms around the dancing-girls and went skipping and dancing across the arena. In the streets, he tripped people up, developed a theatrical limp, and dragged himself around on his buttocks. In the bath-house, he ran naked into the crowded women's section. On solemn fasting days he feasted riotously, consuming vast amounts of beans – with predictable and hilarious results.  He publicly ate sausage on Good Friday.  In his lifetime, Simeon was regarded as a madman, as an unholy scandal.

     The seemingly nutty monk also helped people in the town, though never when someone else might notice and never taking credit. Simeon’s saintly deeds were done in secret. And no one could dispute that Simeon was very holy person, even the priests he pelted with nuts on Sunday. Somehow also was known for his extraordinary piety and healings. People started to talk about his acts of kindness – and about his strange and powerful miracles. There was the poor mule driver whose vinegar Simeon turned into wine so that he could start a successful tavern. There was the rich man who was saved from death when Simeon threw a lucky triple six at dice. And there was the young man Simeon punched on the jaw to save him from an affair with a married woman. Simeon just poked fun at every attempt people made to feel themselves “holier than thou.”

Certain prophets of the Old Testament who exhibited signs of strange behavior are considered by some scholars to be predecessors of "Fools for Christ". The prophet Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for about three years, predicting a forthcoming captivity. The prophet Ezekiel lay before a stone, which symbolized beleaguered Jerusalem, and though God instructed him to eat bread baked on human waste, ultimately used cow dung instead (Ezekiel 4:9-15).  Hosea married a harlot to symbolize the infidelity of Israel before God (Hosea 3).   Or Jeremiah, who not only hid his underwear in a rock but then went back to retrieve it after a “long time” (Jeremiah 13). Jeremiah apparently didn’t mind parting with under garments, but he couldn’t be separated from the cattle yoke he had fastened to his shoulders until another prophet broke it off (Jeremiah 27 and 28)
To paraphrase Jim Forest, secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, “Holy fools pose the question: Are we keeping heaven at a distance by clinging to the good regard of others, prudence, and what those around us regard as ‘sanity’?... We need to think long and hard about sanity and tradition, and convention:  words most of us cling to with a steel grip. Does fear of being regarded by others as insane or crazy confine me in a cage of ‘responsible’ behavior that limits my freedom and cripples my ability to love?

            John the Baptist, another holy fool, eating wild locusts and honey while wearing camel hear, did not say ‘I must cease to exist’ –but instead he said, ‘I must decrease,’ meaning, “I must become very little, transparent – so that Christ has room to live and shine within me.” This is the essence of being a fool. John was saying, “I’m the voice, He’s the Word. I’m the lamp, He’s the Light. I’m the heart, He’s the Love. I’m the wood, He’s the Fire!”
Who in the world today tries to live this way? We live in a world that relishes achievement, prominence, fame.  Everybody wants to be “somebody” –but Jesus calls us to be “nobody” in the sense that he can imprint His Love and Image clearly upon our hearts and shine forth from our lives. Such self-emptying for the sake of love is something Jesus carried to the Cross. It is something completely opposite of the values of today’s world. In the beatitudes Jesus teaches the reversal of blessedness in the kingdom of God – Jesus lifts up the ordinary, overlooked people of his day.  He doesn’t say, blessed are the wealthy, the scholars, blessed are those who do whatever it takes to get ahead,  blessed are those who have memorized passages of scripture, blessed are those whose lives are problem free.

 Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted…these are the fools for God, who live the kingdom values and stand against the social norms of empire that promote “money and might make right.”
The Fool reminds us: God is not scandalized by our humor and silly jokes, or being compared to a groundhog. God, however, is scandalized   by our lack of compassion, unwillingness to forgive, and lack of care for each other.  So:

An elderly couple was attending church services. About halfway through she leans over and says to her husband. "I just let out a silent fart. What do you think I should do?" He replies, "Put a new battery in your hearing aid."

Are we offended by laughing in church? The fool asks us: why aren’t we offended by how little we love.  Jesus risked everything for us  -- Will we challenge all that is in us, to be shocked back into life – and listen to that holy fool of a prophet Micah, who says, You know what God wants.  Do justice. Love kindness.  Walk humbly, underscore humbly – with your God.