Foolish?

 

 

For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength 

1 Corinthians 1:25

We are amongst the few. There is sufficient evidence that Jesus of Nazareth, a rabbi who lived in the first century of the Common Era, who lived peripatetically with a group of followers, had lived. He had a particular zeal in getting to the core of his Jewish faith. He had an affinity and empathy with those who lived on the margins. He met hostility with the vision he proclaimed and ultimately lost his life in a political manoeuvre. The evidence is substantive.

His followers and their communities, after some time and much upheaval, gathered a great number of stories about Jesus, re-viewed them through the eyes of faith and the patrimony of their scriptures and placed them on record. There is also evidence that there was some 'latitude' granted in their recollection - a miraculous pregnancy, wine turned to water, deaf made hearing, the ill healed, dead raised, and finally, following his death this Jesus of Nazareth himself was raised to life and continued his ministry for some 40 days before leaving his followers.

There is fact, and there is faith. Armed only with fact, many dismiss the claims of the communities of faith as being foolish, and can be derisive of the 'fairy tales and myths' upon which they believe our faith is built. Then, of course, there are those whose faith is utterly dependent on a 'biblical' understanding of faith, 'sola scriptura', which arose in the Reformation and which states that the scriptures are the sole infallible sources of authority for Christian faith and practice. That being so, many a biblical scholar has exegeted every aspect of the divine from the scriptures to leave nothing but a piece of lifeless literature, while at the other end of the spectrum are those who believe in the absolute inerrancy of the scripture and are often (but not always) seen to possess a literalist understanding.

There has been a disarming divide - which has been over 100 years in the making - since the rise of modernism in the arts, literature, philosophy and psychology - between what we now call liberal and conservative. In our context it is applied to our beliefs and practices. In the Catholic context liberals are often seen as possessing a somewhat 'flexible' attitude to the moral, liturgical, sacramental doctrine both Church and scriptural - while conservatives are seen to maintain a firmer, even solid and less flexible attitude.

Non-believers of all kinds poke their noses at Christians for the dishevelled state of our churches and the disarray of our competing ideologies and lack of unity.

We continue to see wisdom and strength in our beliefs and attitudes, but we sorely underestimate God's. Somehow, through the morass of our folly, God continues to work in us and through us. The Good News of Jesus Christ continues to be proclaimed in every corner of the world - despite the obfuscations, detours and downright errors. This is the wisdom of God.

Paul writes with characteristic directness: For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:22 - 24).

 

Peter Douglas

 

 

Richard Rohr ofm

Action and Contemplation: Part One

Sacred Silence

Most of us who live in a capitalist culture, where everything is about competing and comparing, will find contemplation extremely counter-intuitive. How do we grasp something as empty, as harmless, as seemingly fruitless as the practice of silence? Only when we know that it also offers a “peace beyond understanding” (Philippians 4:7) and a “joy that no one can take from you” (John 16:22).

Silence needs to be understood in a larger way than simply a lack of audible noise. Whenever emptiness—what seems like empty space or absence of sound—becomes its own kind of fullness with its own kind of sweet voice, we have just experienced sacred silence.

When religious folks limit their focus in prayer to external technique and formula, the soul remains largely untouched and unchanged. Too much emphasis on what I call “social prayer” or wordy prayer feeds our egos and gives us far too much to argue about. That is surely why Jesus emphasized quiet prayer in one’s own “inner room” and warned us not to “babble on as the pagans do” (Matthew 6:5-7). Oh, the years we Catholics and others have wasted arguing about liturgy in a juridical way! For me, law and liturgy are two different realms. How can we truly pray when we are preoccupied with formula and perfection of technique?

If we can see silence as the ground of all words and the birth of all words, then when we speak, our words will be calmer and well-chosen. Our thoughts will be non-judgmental. Our actions will have greater integrity and impact.

When we recognize something as beautiful, that knowledge partly emerges from the silence around it. It may be why we are quiet in art galleries and symphony halls. If something is not surrounded by the vastness of silence and space, it is hard to appreciate it as singular and beautiful. If it is all mixed in with everything else, then its particularity does not stand out.

As one author I read years ago said, silence is the net below the tightrope walker. [1] We are walking, trying to find the right words to explain our experience and the right actions to match our values. Silence is that safety net that allows us to fall; it admits, as poets often do, that no words or deeds will ever be perfectly right or sufficient. So the poet keeps trying, for which we are grateful! The great spaciousness and safety net beneath a tightrope walker is silence; it offers freedom from self-preoccupation and the fear of making a mistake. A regular practice of contemplation helps us trust that silence will uphold us, receive our mistakes, and give us the courage to learn and grow.

References:
[1] Max Picard, The World of Silence, trans. Stanley Godman (H. Regnery: 1964, ©1952), 22.

From Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media: 2014), 7-9.