Nobody's Fool

The scriptures referred to are 1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14, Psalm 111, Ephesians 5:15-20 and John 6:51-58.

If a person does the wrong thing, specifically something harmful, there are broadly 3 possible reasons they do it. One is a lack of empathy, one is a lack of knowledge, and one is a lack of using the knowledge they have. The first reason—knowing better but not caring that what you do will or probably will cause harm—we call evil. For instance, in 1998, a respected scientist published a paper in the British medical journal The Lancet, showing a link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. It turns out he faked patients' medical records and was paid more than $600,000 by lawyers who wanted to sue the vaccine companies. His fraud was eventually exposed but his lie has for the foreseeable future harmed many people, especially children whose parents believe that vaccines are a terrible idea.

The second reason—not knowing better and truly not understanding that what you do will or could cause harm—we call ignorance. This is why we educate our children. This is why we teach them not to approach a hot stove or play with matches. They don't know the harm they can do. The good news is they usually can and will learn these things.

The third—where you really ought to know better than to do something wrong but for some reason do it anyway—we call stupidity. In the Bible it's called foolishness.

And while we think the Bible is primarily concerned with good and evil, it has quite a lot to say about foolishness. In fact, there are several books in the Bible we call the Wisdom literature, including the books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Wisdom is not merely about acquiring knowledge but knowing how to weigh its value and how to use it properly. And there is a difference between having knowledge and having wisdom. It is not hard to look at history or even the news and readily find examples of knowledgeable people doing stupid things. Elizabeth Fleishman-Aschhheim opened the first X-ray laboratory in California, making her a pioneer in the use of radiography. Unfortunately she ignored the information coming out that prolonged X-ray exposure can be dangerous. She didn't wear protective gear, afraid it would scare off patients. She died at the age of 46 of radiation poisoning.

It is sometimes hard to figure out to what extent a person's actions were evil and to what extent they were stupid. Often it is both. For example, sexually assaulting employees is evil. Thinking it will never come out is stupid. Especially in the age of the internet.

According to a study, cited in the howstuffworks.com article from which I got these examples, smart people actually make more mistakes in doing logic problems than people of average intelligence do. Smart folks tend to take shortcuts and make assumptions out of overconfidence. It reminds me of how often we hear people say that someone couldn't have drowned because they were an experienced scuba diver, or that they couldn't have accidentally crashed a plane into a mountain because they were an experienced pilot. Sometimes when people have a lot of experience they feel they can skip steps or they assume certain things are working well rather than do the checklist as all beginners are taught to. Excessive self-confidence is responsible for a lot of foolish behavior.

As our Psalm says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...” People often have one of two objections to this verse. The first is they think that fear is antithetical to good thinking. And, yes, if you are speaking of either panic or anxiety or paralyzing fear. Those kinds of fear do cause us to bypass the frontal lobe of the brain, where judgment resides. But since we are talking about wisdom, it can't mean this kind of fear is something that shuts down good thinking. In this context and in the vast majority of places it is used in the Bible, the Hebrew word means “reverence.” Think of it as a healthy respect. Again a sailor would be stupid not to have a healthy respect for the power of the sea. And I would not want to get on a plane if I knew the pilot arrogantly thought that after all these years flying was no big deal. How many people trying to get awesome selfies would not fall off of buildings or into the Grand Canyon if they only had a healthy respect for the power of gravity?

The other objection comes from the verse in 1 John that says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear...” (1 John 4:18) So if we love God, how can we also fear him? Again context is key. The verse goes on to say, “...because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love.” So it is not a healthy respect for God that is being talked about but a fear of punishment. The previous verse is “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world.” (v.17) The author is talking about the last judgment and saying that if we love and follow Jesus we have nothing to fear in that regard. In the same way, death holds no fear for the person who trusts God. (Psalm 23:4) Besides, 1 John says, “We love because he loved us first.” (v.19) Our salvation is not dependent on us but upon God and his grace given to us.

If we have a healthy respect for God, if we acknowledge him as Creator of all that is, we will live according to the principles built into his creation. It is foolish to try to use something while ignoring the instructions provided by the manufacturer. As it says in Proverbs, “The wise person accepts instructions, but the one who speaks foolishness will come to ruin.” (Proverbs 10:8) And “The way of a fool is right in his own opinion, but the one who listens to advice is wise.” (Proverbs 12:15) Wisdom is about being receptive to new information and viewpoints and to rethinking one's previous opinions when they come up against reality. Arrogant fools ignore such things. As the titular hero in Doctor Who said, back in 1977, “You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.” That's what being a fool is in a nutshell.

That's not to say that the wise don't use their own brains and just do what others have told them. They use new data but they also apply timeless principles.

After all human nature has not changed. Today's knowledge doesn't make people either wiser or more foolish than they were in the past. There have always been people who used what they did know about the world to make the best decisions they could, as well as those who ignored what was inconvenient or unpleasant to them.

In the same way, the world today is not morally superior to what it was in the past nor is it more evil. Wars and torture and slavery and rape and child abuse are still with us. Incidents of them may have increased but that's because the population has increased. And because of technology, the stakes are higher. The only reason we haven't had a nuclear war is that those with nuclear weapons seem to realize that the situation is analogous to folks locked in a basement threatening each other with fragmentation grenades. Once you start throwing those things around, nobody is safe. Even people who do not fear the Lord fear fallout. And, hopefully, this pandemic has people contemplating biological warfare re-evaluating the wisdom of opening that Pandora's box.

Nevertheless, there are, by the last accounting, around 40 wars going on around the world. And again, as the Doctor points out, the only difference between wars is how many people have to die before the two sides do what is inevitable: sit down at a table and negotiate the peace. Wise persons would skip the bloodshed, especially since you never know whose loved ones will die before each side realizes it's time to talk.

And while the word “war” appears in the Bible 225 times, “peace” is in there 429 times, almost twice as often. That is God's priority: that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4)

On a local level, God's wisdom is shown in maintaining peace through justice and mercy. And justice is not upheld through indifference. God tells us to help others, especially those who do not often see justice. As Paul says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:4) Proverbs says, “He who despises his neighbor sins, but he who is kind to the needy is blessed.” (Proverbs 14:21) And “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” (Proverbs 14:31) And “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.” (Proverbs 19:17)

And the Bible is not merely encouraging personal charity. Taking care of the poor was built into the laws that governed Israel. (Exodus 22:25; 23:11; Leviticus 23:22; 25:35; Deuteronomy 15:9; 24:14) And this goes right to the top of society. “If a king judges the poor with fairness, his throne will always be secure.” (Proverbs 29:14) But “Like a roaring lion and a charging bear is a wicked ruler over poor people.” (Proverbs 28:15) Rulers are to imitate God. “The Lord hears the poor and does not despise his imprisoned people.” (Psalm 69:33) In Psalm 82, God says to those in power, “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” (Psalm 82:3-4) Only the foolish would ignore God on our duty to the destitute, the disabled, the despised and the disadvantaged.

But God's wisdom guides us not only in how to live with others but also how to live with ourselves. It's like how keeping your car in good working order, such as maintaining your brakes and steering, protects others on the road as well as yourself. So God's wisdom is manifested in living a life of integrity and holiness. And again “holy” basically means “set apart” for God's purposes. Paul says, “...do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19) We are, like the elements of communion, set apart for God's purposes. So we are to remain spiritually and morally clean.

But not just outwardly. When faced with people harping on ritual impurity, Jesus said, “What comes out of a person defiles him. For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23) People pursuing holiness tend to get hung up on rituals and external displays. True holiness comes from within. So to reverse-engineer Jesus' statement, what comes out of the heart of a spiritually clean person are good ideas, sexual behavior that's moral, respect for the property of others, respect for their right not to be physically harmed, faithfulness to your partner, being content with enough, good intentions and actions, telling the truth, self-control, rejoicing in the good fortune of others, control of one's tongue when speaking of others, humility and wisdom. None of which we can achieve on our own. We must let God's Holy Spirit work in us to enable us and empower us to live a holy life.

A lot of God's wisdom is just plain common sense. But some of it is deeper. We see an example of that in today's passage from John's gospel in which Jesus is developing the metaphor of being the bread of life. The crowd could not easily grasp it and most of them, we are told, stopped following Jesus. As I said before, the Twelve stuck with him, despite not quite understanding this teaching. They knew that Jesus said things that did not track with the world's wisdom but revealed the depths of God's wisdom. Like “If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) Jesus said this right after Peter objected to Jesus saying he would be betrayed, killed and rise on the third day.

Indeed, Paul says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God...For Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks ask for wisdom, but we preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 22-24) Jesus gave his life for us and to us. We in turn must give him our life and in exchange take and live his life. This is the deep wisdom of God.

We said that stupidity, or foolishness, was not quite the same as evil. But both do damage to ourselves, to others and to the world. What you sow you eventually reap, even if it takes a while. And to live a morally good life is also to live wisely and avoid many of the sorrows the foolish and the evil bring upon themselves.

Wise or foolish, we all die. But philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal calculated that trusting in God was ultimately a wiser choice than not believing in him. If you are wrong, you will never know that, just as an atheist would never know that he was right. But if the one who believes and trusts in God is right, his rewards are incalculable, as are the losses of the one who doesn't believe. We call it Pascal's Wager. While gambling is rarely smart, this bet is a wise one. Admittedly the stakes are high. You bet your life—as you conceived it and scripted it in your head. You bet instead on a life in which you go where the the Spirit of God leads, often in challenging and unfamiliar directions. But again, if you lose, you are no worse off than any other corpse in the cemetery. Win, however, and you get a new life in a new world, full of infinite wonders and all the pleasures of living forever with the God who created all pleasure, the God whose wisdom is found in surrendering to the love that made and moves the universe.