Third Sunday of LENT (Written on March 6, 2009)

For the Lectionary (what's a lectionary?) of March 15, 2009: I Corinthians 1:18-25

 

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

 

OVERCOMING COULROPHOBIA by Larry Patten

The photographer wanted cheesecake. Some skin. A flash of flesh.

I refused.

How about angling your glasses so they are crooked on your nose or help make a silly face?

Still I refused. What was the Joker’s ominous question in 2008’s Dark Knight? “Why be so serious?” But then I was so serious.

Way, way back in high school I was voted “funniest” in my graduating class. We selected the usual categories: “most likely to succeed,” “best looking” and “cutest couple.” I was class clown. Please note, I never included this honor on my college application forms, but I was proud of the designation. Well, sort of.

I knew why I’d won. During my senior year another classmate and I followed our high school’s intercom announcements with humorous weekly predictions about an upcoming sporting events. We made jokes about the basketball or football team to encourage students to show up for the games.

We were actually funny. Sometimes.

All the best and brightest and cutest were expected to have their picture taken for the yearbook. When it was my turn, the photographer made suggestions. The one I most remember was his request to pull my pants leg up. Show some leg. Ha. Ha. Ha. I refused. Was I worried how posterity would view me? Did I simply not want to look the fool even though I’d spent the year playing one? Occasionally I stumble across my dusty old yearbook and look at the guy who was class clown. Why was I so serious?

Perhaps I had a closet case of coulrophobia?

Psychologists recognize and treat an alphabet of phobias:

Acrophobia: fear of heights.

Brontophobia: fear of thunder and lightning

Coulrophobia: Huh?

Doxophobia: fear of expressing opinions or of receiving praise

Etc.

Officially, the fear of clowns isn’t a recognized disease. However, you can Google coulrophobia and easily find academic as well as nonsensical references. Clowns disturb some people. It’s the make-up. It’s the permanent frown or grin. It’s often a good excuse for a Hollywood flick with frights.

With apologies to earnest people who truly struggle with coulrophobia (clinically recognized or not), back in the high school days and now, I feared appearing foolish. Yes, I love to make people laugh. But please don’t laugh at me. Truth be told, my phobia is most likely triggered by a mirror, real or imagined.

And yet the apostle Paul bluntly reminded the followers of Jesus in Corinth to embrace their inner and outer clown. “God’s foolishness was wiser than human wisdom” and “God’s weakness was “stronger than human strength.” In other words, Paul’s theology of the cross was influenced by being a fool for Christ’s sake. God, through Christ, yanked the rug out from under our self-focused, self-indulgent steps. Beware the Holy banana peel.

On my best days in ministry I have challenged my congregations (and myself) to realize that serving God was a fool’s task. I think of my wife who teaches teachers how to instill a love of math in their student’s learning. How necessary and practical that is! I admire doctors that surgically mend broken bones. I am thankful for the plumbers or carpenters that repair my house. I’m in awe of the techie at my Internet service provider that cured my computer’s wayward ways. People that teach, fix, construct and more are all around me.

Why do I do? Jesus called me to turn the other cheek? Help! That’ll hurt. Won’t revenge be sweeter and easier? Faith is laughable. Not commercially viable. What a foolish way of living. Christians clown around.

And coulrophobia? I do fear looking foolish. Does anything I do—especially in the outward expression of my faith—really matter?

Paul, in those ancient words to believers in Corinth, claimed yes.

Now I wish I’d pulled my pants leg up. I wish I’d been, at age eighteen, more confident about the inward and outward expressions of foolishness. Last week, in my reflections on these Lenten days, I wondered about having more anger as an expression of my faith. Battling greed or hatred does require righteous anger. But Lent is divinely unbridled with its demands, so let me also be a fool for Christ’s sake. With outward expressions of forgiveness, or with a cheek ready to rotate, I can foolishly and extravagantly proclaim the way of the cross.

Some will laugh at me. Let them.

in Peace,

Larry