Forsaking Foolishness
In today’s Gospel the people continue to quarrel among themselves about what Jesus means in saying that his flesh is to be eaten for the life of the world. Next week we’ll see that some of his followers turned away because of this. They don’t understand; they become frustrated; they argue among themselves; they cannot decide so they eventually give up. How foolish, we say.The Book of Proverbs and the Letter to the Ephesians call us to “Forsake foolishness,” not to “act like fools.” Both challenge us to increase our “understanding,” to try and “discern the will of God.” Foolishness, in the tradition of the Scriptures, means being indifferent to instruction, avoiding conversion, being afraid of consequences. This classic definition seems to fit the people in today’s Gospel. It often seems to fit our decision-making.John Ruskin, the nineteenth century British author, artist, social critic, tells of an experience of his early childhood. "One evening, when I was yet in my nurse’s arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said 'Let him touch it.' So I touched it --and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty." *Though young Ruskin might be characterized as foolish, the incident offers a reflection on that essential element in decision-making: the intersection between personal human experience and conventional wisdom. The depth of his human experience was increased by the event, and none of us would doubt what decision he might make regarding boiling tea kettles in the future.We are all confronted every day with making decisions, decisions that must take into account on the one hand established wisdom and on the other our own human experience. To make decisions with one and not the other would fit the biblical definition of foolishness.I once visited friends who presented me with a decision-making dilemma. The couple had four children ages 10, 7, 6 and 4. The oldest, a girl, would attend Sunday liturgies willingly. The other three, all boys, would not. The weekly battle would begin late on Saturday and build to a fever pitch by the time they were ready to leave for Mass on Sunday. The father told me that he and his wife were often so upset that once in church their worship became seriously flawed. Their children were getting more and more stubborn. Punishment was ineffective; reasoning with them produced “It’s boring.” The parents had often been bored themselves, so they understood, but the kids wouldn’t buy the conventional wisdom. “What should we do?" they asked.The established wisdom in this case might be “Keep holy the Lord’s Day.” Further, though the Eucharist, is, among other things, the sacrament of reconciliation, in their lived experience it had become a source of serious division. Human experience further told the couple that they did in fact pray well together as a family. I asked them to take that lived experience and the established wisdom and see if they couldn’t come up with a decision.Realizing that they were making a decision for their particular family at this particular time, they decided, first, that as parents their going to Mass faithfully was a strong witness for their children whether the children went or not. Secondly, they resolved to create a prayer environment in the home each weekend that patterned the liturgy celebrated in church, using children’s versions of the Bible stories and having the children personally involved in planning and sharing in a blessing cup ritual.Finally, they decided to contact other parents who were experiencing similar confrontations to see if there was something they, together with the parish priest, might do to improve Sunday liturgies. They also decided to ask their priest to celebrate a home Mass with some of the other “afflicted” families to bridge the gap between the family celebrations and the parish Eucharist.This couple was using the best of Church teaching and their own personal lived experience to make a decision for themselves at that time. Sometimes decisions arrived at in this manner will work; sometimes they won’t. But that’s what comes from being human; so we if we fail try again. Like the people in the Gospel today, we argue among ourselves to make sense out of the truths handed down to us. And like the lesson given in Proverbs and Ephesians, we strive to avoid foolishness. So we seek to discern the will of God by reflecting on our lived experience without being indifferent to the instruction of established wisdom.Ultimately being foolish is the unwillingness to recognize that responsible decision-making requires both an openness to establish wisdom as well as the value of human experience. There is nothing foolish in struggling to make responsible decisions; only in giving up!*John Ruskin, The Story of Arachne, 1870
