Last year, in an op-piece in Times of Malta, I quoted French philosopher Jacques Ellul’s statement that Christians must be holy troublemakers.
“We’ve always been creators of uncertainty, agents of a dimension that’s incompatible with the status quo; we do not accept the world as it is but we insist on the world becoming the way that God wants it to be.”
But one cannot be a holy troublemaker – in contrast to just a ‘troublemaker’ – unless one adopts the appropriate strategy imbued by the values of the Gospel. This is the strategy of the fool. Paul proposed it to the Corinthians: “We are fools for Christ’s sake.” Centuries later, Aquinas wrote: “One who is strengthened by God professes himself to be an utter fool by human standards.”
I recently discovered a new dimension of this strategy after reading Shusaku Endo’s book Wonderful Fool.
Endo does not explicitly mention Easter or Christ but he intelligently presents a protagonist, Gaston Napoleon, who is a Christ-figure ready to give up his life for the other. Tomoe, one of the main characters of the book, used to detest Gaston. However, towards the end of the book, she realised that Gaston was not a ‘fool’ that one should despise.
“For the first time in her life, Tomoe came to the realisation that there are fools and fools. A man who loves others with an open-hearted simplicity. Who trusts others no matter who they are, even if he is deceived or even betrayed by them– such a man in the present-day world is bound to be written off as a fool. And so he is. But not just an ordinary fool. He is a wonderful fool. He is a wonderful fool who will never allow the little light which he sheds along man’s way to go out. It was the first time this thought had occurred to her.”
If you re-read and note the values listed, you will reach the same conclusion I reached: These are the values of the wonderful fool par excellence that Christians celebrate during Holy Week. Today – Easter Sunday – Christians celebrate his victory.
The Salvadorian holy troublemaker, Archbishop St Oscar Romero, who was martyred while celebrating Mass in March 24, 1980, said:
“Easter is a shout of victory! No one can extinguish that life that Christ resurrected. Not even death and hatred against Him and against His Church will be able to overcome it. He is the victor!”
We scandalously devalue the Holy Week which leads to Easter whenever we do not recognise it and live it as the most subversive feast of all. Holy Week is a stark reminder that Christians should not accept the structures of sin that lord it over the ‘world’ while Easter is the proof that a better world is possible.
Christ’s words, that His kingdom is not of this world, are not to be taken as if His kingdom is some airy-fairy utopia on some far away cloud. I had discussed this issue with the Dominican holy troublemaker, Herbert McCabe. Christ, like any other revolutionary, he answered me, negated the dominant values of a society oppressed by personal and structural sin to propose the values of the Kingdom of the Father.
This is a world that Christians must rebel against. Christians can never be armchair critics- Fr Joe Borg
The values of the divine wonderful fool are diametrically opposite to the values of a world dominated by military might and religious fanaticism. The Gospel narratives show us the terrible consequences that scourge humanity when religious leaders become self-serving and whenever politicians do not shoulder their responsibility.
During Holy Week, we experience the evil that comes about when the institutions do not function well. Holy Week is the condemnation of a society idolising money as the ultimate corrupting weapon and of the leaders who poison people’s minds by propaganda.
This is a world that Christians must rebel against. Christians can never be armchair critics. Pope Francis uses a different metaphor to describe Christian activism. There is no place for Christians on the balcony, he says, exhorting Christians to dirty their hands.
The American author, Criss Jami, wrote: “Upon returning, the bloody, wounded warrior needs only to laugh at the spotless, armchair critic.”
Thus, the most dignified celebrations of Holy Week are not the participation in the Good Friday pageants/processions but the active involvement in protests against such evils as corruption, climate change, the rape of the environment, the obscenity of poverty and the disgusting behaviour of those who pig it at the people’s expense, among others.
This activism has a price tag attached to it.
It could be a hefty price tag, indeed.
In his book, Jesus the Fool: The Mission of the Unconventional Christ, Michael Frost reminds us that following the Saviour is rarely safe and that Christ will continue to redraw our blueprint of what’s right and what’s righteous; and He will persist in calling us to take the alternative, dangerous and ridiculous road walked by wonderful fools down through the centuries of the Church’s history.
Christians walk this talk emboldened by the certitude of the victory called Easter. The walk can be arduous. The night between the Passion and the Crucifixion, on the one hand, and the dawn of Easter, on the other, can be very dark and prolonged. The humble light of the Easter Blessed Candle (blandun) is the spark that can brighten the whole world if Christians accept to be the extension of that light.
Whoever accepts this invitation, like Endo’s character, becomes “a wonderful fool who will never allow the little light which he sheds along man’s way to go out”. This would indeed make one a determined holy troublemaker.