The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul…”
Jesus the Lunatic. Jesus the Leader of the Demonic. Jesus was living in a way that challenged much of the culture around him, even as he fulfilled the will of his Father.
Jesus was changing things, and that makes people upset. Faithfulness, Jesus said, is not tied to blood or ancestry, not tied to the patriarchal society at all. “Whoever does the will of God is part of the family.”
"Here is the Good News: Jesus is not out of his mind; Jesus is not filled with demonic spirits. Rather, Jesus has the mind of God; Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit - and invites all of us to be of the same mind and same Spirit in a new family as his sisters and brothers." (David Ewart, 2012)
But even as we live into that same spirit that Paul tells us in his 2nd letter to the Christians in Corinth, there are some of the baptized who embodied the holy spirit in a surprising ways as they followed him. Who like Jesus, were considered out of their minds.
They are Holy Fools (yurodivy) There have been Holy people whose stories, still revered in Orthodox Churches (especially Russian), which sound absurd to us and yet speak the Gospel truth.
Simeon the Holy Fool who lived in the 6th century, the patron saint of holy fools, was a monastic in the Syrian desert and devoted his life to prayer. Years later, Simeon returned to town, inspired by God to do good.
“Arriving at the city gate, he found a dead dog on a dungheap, tied its leg to the rope around his waist, and entered the city dragging the comatose canine behind him. This was only the beginning. For Simeon had decided to play the fool in order to mock the idiocy of the world and also to conceal his own identity…
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. On solemn fasting days he feasted riotously, consuming vast amounts of meat & beans – with predictable results. In his lifetime, Simeon was regarded as a madman, as an unholy scandal.” (from Ship of Fools)
“That life made him subject to insults, abuse and beatings, which Simeon endured with patience. In spite of his seemingly strange behavior, Simeon the Holy Fool healed many people by his prayer, fed the hungry, preached the Gospel, and helped needy citizens of the town. Many of Simeon’s saintly & miraculous deeds and his acts of kindness were done secretly and only discovered after his death.
That crazy fool, St Simeon died about 570 AD and was buried by the city poor in a place where the homeless and strangers were buried. While the body of Saint Simeon was carried, several people heard a wondrous church choir, where none was seen.” (Wikipedia)
Simeon is not alone in Christian history for there were other Holy Fools. (St. Xenia of St. Petersburg)
“There was the great St. Basil the Holy Fool of Moscow, a man so revered by the people that the Cathedral in Moscow was named in his honor. Basil walked through Moscow wearing nothing more than his long beard. Basil threw rocks at wealthy people’s houses and stole from dishonest traders in Red Square.
Some of the wealthy saw him as a trouble maker but many in Moscow saw his holiness. Czar Ivan the Terrible feared no man but Basil dared to tell Ivan that his deeds would lead him to destruction. One story, in the midst of Lent, when Orthodox Russians keep a rigorous vegetarian fast, Basil presented the czar with a slab of raw beef, asking him “Why abstain from meat when you murder men?” Countless Russians died for much less, but Ivan was afraid to let any harm come to the saintly Basil.
Occasionally Ivan even sent gifts to the naked prophet of the streets, but Basil kept none of these for himself. Most that he received he gave to beggars, though in one surprising case a gift of gold from the czar was passed on to a merchant. Others imagined the man was well off, but Basil discerned the man had been ruined and was actually starving, but was too proud to beg.
George Fedotov, a scholar of Russian spirituality, explains that for persons who have achieved a high degree of holiness, they do not want people to praise them for their holiness, so they play the fool to remain humble.” (extracts from Frank Logue & Jim Forrest)
Simeon the Holy Fool was a secret saint, his story was a holy farce like that of Basil of Moscow, and their lives shows how God chooses "the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1:27). The Holy Fools don’t want us to focus on them but on what they have done. It was the poor and needy who knew of the saintly Simeon & Basil...
“Why does the Church occasionally recognize people whose lives are not only completely at odds with society but who often hardly fit church either? The answer must be that Holy Fools dramatize something about God that most Christians find embarrassing, but which we vaguely recognize is crucial information.
It is the special vocation of Holy Fools to live out in a rough, literal, breath-taking way the “hard sayings” of Jesus. While never harming anyone, Holy Fools raise their voices against those who lie and cheat and do violence to others, but at the same time they are always ready to embrace these same greedy and ruthless people. They take everyone seriously. No one, absolutely no one, is unimportant. In fact the only thing always important for them, apart from God and angels, are the people around them, whoever they are, no matter how limited they are. Their dramatic gestures, however shocking, always have to do with revealing the person of Christ and his mercy.” (Jim Forrest)
We follow in the footsteps of one who some considered out of his mind, and yet we know through Jesus, we have life and have it abundantly. May the Holy Fools teach us about Christ and his mercy and then may we go and do likewise in our world today. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment