God’s Fool

Dear Friend,

“Foolishness” is a key word in the Gospel tradition associated with St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi which took hold in central Italy in the early 13th century and quickly spread all over Europe. In fact, “God’s Fool” is the title of a biography of St. Francis written by Julian Green which a friar gave me many years ago at the outset of my own journey of faith. 

Still, it can be tricky to apply “fool” and “foolishness” to our spiritual lives. Whether we follow St. Francis or not, “foolishness” cannot mean “foolhardy” or “reckless” any more than “poverty” can be equated with “ugly” or “degraded.”  In fact, for thinkers who translated the experience of St. Francis into a new theological language, both poverty and foolishness were first of all attributes connected to the action of God.  They write of the “humility of God” choosing to come to us in vulnerable human flesh and the foolishness of dying on a cross (echoing St. Paul’s language in First Corinthians).

This week we hear God’s assertion: “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.” In light of what happened after, we might say that this was a foolish thing to do! Yet over and over in scripture this is the way of God’s love – most extravagant, “out of bounds.” Jesus bursts into the Temple in a way quite offensive to many. Yet the old temples were already falling apart when Jesus came onto the scene, in the same way the church was “falling into ruins” when Francis received his calling in the humble chapel of San Damiano. Lent directs our energies to a rebuilding project driven by the power of an extravagant, daring, and foolish love.

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan