By Blayne A. Banting
The Joy Set Before Us
If we are in the least persuaded by this plea to take God more seriously and ourselves less so, how does it apply to the task of preaching this Sunday's sermon? There is hardly a fail-safe ten-step process to becoming a true holy fool. As a matter of fact, the holy fool tends to lampoon such thinking as pompous and potentially idolatrous. Does it mean we open our next sermon with a humorous monologue a la Jay Leno? Hardly. One of the worst things we can be is merely funny for the sake of being funny or appreciated. A true holy fool knows the feeling of rejection and even persecution at the hands of the ones he longs to help. They killed the prophets. Court jesters were executed. The life of the holy fool is hardly stocked with only laughter and leisure.
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What does it mean? At the very least it calls for a commitment to think God's thoughts after him and be willing to speak his word no matter what others might think or do. It means remembering our primary Audience. It means steeling ourselves so as not to become mindless mouthpieces for powerful political and theological positions rather than faithful heralds of the divine conspiracy.13 It means refusing to slip into our own evangelical version of 'political correctness' rather than expound and expose the scandal of the gospel. It also means refusing to say, 'Peace, peace' when there is no peace (Jeremiah 8:11). And if preachers consider the kingdom perspective to be a 'subversive' word, and if they take this message seriously, they will find themselves at odds with 'normal' perception and therefore potential 'fools-in-training.' If we believe the 'heavenly realms' to be the 'real' world and our earthly existence with all its temporal attractions to be a temporary prelude, we will want to bring our methods of communication into line with the content of our message. Invariably that will lead us to look at least 'off the wall' if not upside down. Hence the 'foolishness of preaching.' However, if we start with the right footing, then we can trust that God will lead us in new ways that will bring the life-giving gospel to people in creative and powerful ways. And if that footing just happens to be seen as upside down, so be it!
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Blayne A. Banting is Associate Professor of Church Ministry at Briercrest Biblical Seminary in Caron-port, Saskatchewan, Canada.
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1 Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 49.
2 C, Hugh Holman and William Harman, A Handbook to Literature 6th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 95.
3 Cf. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., S.v. “Humour”.
4 Northrop Frye, The Great Code. The Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1982), 169.
5 Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Play (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 16,17.
6 Cf. Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament 2nd ed. (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1981), 81-89; J. William Whedbee, The Bible and the Comic Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 19-41.
7 Cf. Jurgen Moltmann, God in Creation (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 276,277.
8 The ‘serious’ student of humor in the Bible might consult: J. William Whedbee, The Bible and the Comic Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament 2nd ed. (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1981); Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner, eds, On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990); Jakob Jonsson, Humour and Irony in the New Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985); Paul D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985); Conrad Hyers, And God Created Laughter (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1987); and Blayne A. Banting, Proclaiming the Messiah’s Mirth: A Rhetorico-Contextual Model for the Interpretation and Proclamation of Humour in Selected Gospel Sayings (D.Min. thesis, Acadia Divinity College, 1998).
9 Cf. Chou-Wee Pan, “’ewil,” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis.
10 Peter M. Antoci, “Scandal, Maginality, and Holy Fools,” Christianity and Literature 44 (Spring-Summer 1995): 285.
11 Cf. Good, Irony, pp. 115-167.
12 G.K. Chesterton, St. Francs of Assisi (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1923), 84.
13 Cf. Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: Harper, 1998).