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“A Fool’s Journey”
Psalm 53
A Sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley
I’m back
after my adventurous Sabbatical experience.
I’m not going to give you a complete travel log of the sabbatical in
this sermon. Suffice it to say it was
filled with adventure, renewal, physical challenges, spiritual insight,
constant thankfulness to God and intentional shifting of priorities. I have a lot of sermon material for the
coming months and maybe even years.
Most of you
know that we applied for a grant to fund this sabbatical over a year ago. As a part of that grant-writing process, we
had to consider as a congregation what we needed to do in order to renew
ourselves. We decided that “renewing our
spirits” would be the theme both for me and for the congregation. From everything that I have heard, this has
been a wonderfully renewing 12+ weeks for all of you.
We needed a
Sabbath rest, all of us, to experience a bit of a change. Without my presence, you were forced to do
things a bit differently. There were
different preachers, different activities, and different foci. I dare say that after this Sabbatical, this
is a different congregation. You have
heard voices like you have never heard before.
I appreciate
the wisdom of such intentional time apart.
I am glad that there was a minimum of tragedy and peril in people’s
lives. I feel really good that Stephanie
and Jean and Terrance and Sheila and Don and Chris and Char and Roger and Mel
and Deidre and Ty and so many others did such a fine
job of keeping things together in my absence.
The Fire in the Bones team preached dynamic, heart-felt and scholarly
sermons. I have read some of them and I
plan to listen to the recordings of all of them. I wrote in my ordination paper seventeen
years ago that a pastor’s job was to put him or herself out of business. UBC, you really rose to the occasion and
showed what you could do without me. I’m
so glad and proud of all of you. The
fact that my keys still worked on Monday, I guess, means you’re okay with me
coming back, right?
Some of you have wondered why I
filled my time away up with so much activity. The Lilly Endowment didn’t like that I had
jammed so much into my Sabbatical. They
denied our funding request in part because I was trying to do too much. But the truth is that all of that activity
renewed me. It wasn’t the kind of
activity that engaged my mind as much as it engaged my heart, my body, my
soul. Those are the things that I needed
to fill up on during the sabbatical. As
Jean said on my last Sunday here back in April, no restful Sabbatical is
complete for someone as foolish as me without running a marathon. You were thinking I was on a fool’s
journey. I was, and I hope to continue
to be on such a journey where I will be renewed and will be amongst a people
that are renewed. Because when we are
renewed, we can really start making a difference in our own lives and in our
world.
So while I was busy doing things
like singing Sacred Harp music in Alabama or hiking in Chaco Canyon and Rocky
Mountain National Park or spending very intentional time with my family and
trying my hand at some song-writing, I realized there was something real and
tangible that was missing.
It was you.
What I
realized while I was gone was how much I missed you all.
It wasn’t just that I wanted to be
here hearing all of the sermons, which I did.
It wasn’t that I wanted to be in on
the forums and the cookouts and the laughter workshops, which I did.
It was that I was not with you, my
friends, my community, my posse. I find that I need and longed for you. This community is an essential part of how I
see God. I had the opportunity to go to
other churches once or twice while I was gone, but I chose not to do so. I would have gone without you. That would just not have felt right.
To be back
amongst you holy fools is a wonderful thing.
Now what do I mean by calling you fools?
The Christian journey in many ways is a fool’s journey.
It is a journey where we do things
that are a bit odd, like actually choosing to be in a hot sanctuary when all of
the reporters are advising us against it.
Like being the support for one
another when we need it.
Like finding in our pew partner the
tangible sense that we are not alone or that we are not the only ones silly
enough to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
Like being able
to risk to the say the difficult word when it needs to be spoken, not only to
the powers and principalities of this world, but to those most close to us as
well.
Like giving of our resources for
someone other than ourselves, so that others might have life and have it with
abundance.
Like taking those small steps that
show us our own ignorance of another person’s path and humbly finding a way to
walk that path with that person.
The apostle Paul said, “If you
think you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become
wise. For the wisdom of this world is
foolishness with God.” (I Cor. 3:18,19)
Jesus said it in a bit of a
different way, “Whoever does not receive the kin-dom
of God like a little child shall not enter it.”(Mark
This does not mean to be naïve or
immature. It means to remember that life
is full of foolishness. And those who think they are grown up and wise and have
forgotten how to embrace the world with hopefulness and wonder have lost a part
of what it is to be human.
This means that we are to do what
is right even when and especially when it is mocked by those who think they
know all of the answers.
We need to
embrace the fact that others will scoff at us, that others will mock us, that
others will say we are wasting our time.
For it is this
very foolishness that has the power to redeem the world. It’s good to be back here on this holy fool’s
journey with all of you.
Now the
Psalmist has a bit of a different take on this concept of foolishness.
Today’s
scripture talks about real fools. And by
that we mean people who are really duped.
Psalm 14 and 53 open with the words, “fools say in their hearts “there
is no God””.
These are not the fools we want to
be emulating. These fools not only say
in their hearts there is no God, but show it by their actions.
These are people who might talk a
good game, but say by their actions that there is no God. My theologian daughter Rebecca told me that
all Christians were good, that all hated war and that all were nice to other
people. Her exposure to Christianity has
been amongst the holy fools of UBC. But
how do you help a seven-year-old understand that not all people who say they
believe in Jesus believe the same thing?
John Calvin talked about this 450 years ago.
“For as rashness and superficiality are joined to ignorance and
darkness, scarcely a single person has ever been found who did not fashion for
himself an idol or specter in place of God.
Surely, just as waters boil up from a vast full spring, so does an
immense crowd of gods flow forth from the human mind, while each one in
wandering about with too much license, wrongly invents this or that about God
himself.”(Institutes 1:5:12)
Machiavelli
said that if you want to wage war, you need to convince the people you are
doing God’s will, but you must never let yourself be accountable to God.”
“Fools say
in their hearts there is no God.”
Seeking to be wise, they become foolish.
They think they are above God.
And if
there are those fools who say there is a God, but in their hearts say there is
none, then how do we know which is right?
So I told
Rebecca to look at the people at UBC as people who believe in God. What do they do—these holy fools?
They feed the hungry.
They educate their children.
They stand up for what is
right.
They welcome refugees.
They teach people how to be better
people.
These are the good fools in the
eyes of the world.
How do they act?
They are
friendly.
They are kind.
They are slow to
judge and want to understand someone else.
They are generous and
courageous and audacious and raucous and joyful and honest and true.
They participate in redemptive
foolishness.
So, my friends. We are back together. We say thank you to Stephanie for her work
amongst us.
We give thanks that she has helped
guide this ship of fools.
We wish her well on her fool’s
journey from here.
I give thanks to you for granting
me the opportunity to renew my spirit and integrate my inner and outer fool.
I look forward to seeing the next steps on this fool’s journey which we will share in the weeks, months and years to come.
Let me close by telling you one brief story from the Sacred Harp Conventions in the south.
I love Sacred Harp singing because of it’s raw egalitarian nature. In much of choral singing, the melody part is emphasized with other parts adding harmony to the dominant melody. In Sacred Harp Singing, each part is equally important. Each person is encouraged to sing with gusto and passion. I used to get real nervous coming up to the center of the square to lead a song. I still do. In the south, where people have sung this music for 200 years non-stop, there is a different sense of leading a song. Partly because of the strong singers, and partly because of the affection felt in the room for certain singers, the leader needs to do a whole lot less leading. I remember one older woman coming forward to lead a song. She called out the number and we dutifully turned to it in our books. But as she started to lead, her Parkinson’s was so bad that it was hard to tell where the beat was on her directing. The people in the group therefore took up the beating of the time and the woman in the center stood there with tears running down her face—remembering where she had sung this song, remembering her old singing partners, remembering her friends and family and being mystically connected with them all. What I realized was that she wasn’t leading us in singing as much as we were giving her a gift. The person in the center is the one who is the recipient of the gift we are giving her.
When I speak with seminarians and even members of the Fire in the Bones team about preaching at UBC, very often they are intimidated by the sheer brainpower and spirit-power that is assembled in this room. I remind them that each one of them is praying for you and pulling for you. They want you to do well.
So when I come to the center of
this circle in our congregation, I do so receiving a gift from each of you, a
gift of power, of devotion to God, of support and even of indulgence. And I am humbled and honored and grateful to
receive such a gift amongst you. It is
not about me and what I have to say. It
is about you and the way that we live in supportive community one with another
that is truly transformative.
So as we close this time, what I have learned is that it is true that we will need each other. Let us hold hands, look at each other. Give thanks that there are fools amongst us. Good fools. Holy fools. Fools who make a difference in our lives. You are going to need these people to face whatever the world throws at you today and in the days to come.
We closed by singing the chorus to “It is
well with my soul.”