Be a fool for Christ year-round

How many of you were “April Fooled” this year?

Did you get salt out of the sugar bowl for your coffee or cereal?

Did the lids to the pepper and salt shakers fall completely off with the first shake?

Were all your shirt sleeves turned inside out?

Good April Fools’ jokes and pranks are supposed to strike out at our routines, shake up our perceptions, make something ordinary odd and extraordinary. Sometimes April Fools’ is something contrived. Sometimes April Fools’ just happens. Whether contrived or natural, to be an April fool is to embrace the surprises and experiences.

But we as individuals do not like to be fooled or made to look foolish. It goes against our basic instincts. Being fooled hurts our character and our spirit often. We do not like to be embarrassed publicly.

But the apostle Paul tells the early church “to become a fool that you may become wise, a thoughtful, hopeful, happy fool for Christ.”

For the apostle Paul, it meant for Christians to give up society’s conventions to become a more religious person, not caring about what other people think about you. Thus we are called to be “fools for Christ “

Jesus in his ministry never flinched from playing the fool in order to fulfill God’s will.

He left it all to plod a dusty path back to Bethany. His disciples were not scholars or star students. They were fishermen and tax collectors, nobodies and ne’er-do-wells. How willing are you to become an April fool for Christ? Are you willing to admit that you are part of a truly foolish family?

It is not without the foolish factor that Jesus Christ is also known as the Son of David. God’s prophets routinely made fools of themselves. The Pharisee Saul of Taurus became Paul the Apostle.

Throughout the two thousand one hundred years of Christianity, the faithful have stepped forward form the safety of anonymity or the security of a well-heeled position to embrace foolishness.

During this Easter season and all year, take a risk at caring about someone who is truly risky.

Maybe be like Zacchaeus when he heard Jesus was passing by, but could not see Jesus for the crowd in front of him “The crowds would not welcome him among them to see Jesus, so Zacchaeus humbled himself to climb that tree.”

Go out on a limb and go past your comfort level to do something out of the ordinary that you would never in a million years see yourself doing.

Don’t be like the great New York Yankee’s baseball player, Yogi Berra, who said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” But take the path usually not taken. Don’t cross the street to avoid a possible problem, but be the Good Samaritan.

As Jesus challenges us, “Then a despised Samaritan journeyed by. When he saw the fellow, he felt compassion for him. The Samaritan went over to him, stopped the bleeding, applied some first aid, and put the poor fellow on his donkey. He brought the man to an inn and cared for him through the night. The next day, the Samaritan took out some money — two days’ wages to be exact — and paid the innkeeper, saying, ‘Please take care of this fellow, and if this if this isn’t enough, I’ll repay you next time I pass through.’”

To be a follower of the one who never flinched when it came to being a fool for God, is to be an April fool for Christ.

Will you be just that?

An April fool for Jesus Christ?