The Ministry of Silly Walks Jeremiah 9:23-24, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

In 1953 the young comedian Andy Griffith recorded “What it Was, Was Football.”
It was a country boy’s commentary on the strange spectacle
of grown men running up and down a cow pasture
fighting over a pumpkin while surrounded by convicts blowing whistles.
He concludes his commentary with this observation:
“And I don’t know friends, to this day, what it was they was a-doin’ down thar,
but I have studied about it. And I think that it’s some kindly of a contest
where they see which bunchful-a them men can take that pumpkin
and run from one end-a that cow pasture to the other,
without gettin’ knocked down…or steppin’ in something.”

The heart of Griffith’s routine of course; what made it so popular;
was that it exposed the silliness of something we take so seriously.
Especially today, Super Bowl Sunday, when there are millions of dollars invested in
and bet on the outcome of the game between the Giants and the Patriots,
people all over the world will take four, five, six hours out of their lives
to not only watch the game, but the pre-game, the post-game, AND the commercials.
People have spent the last week planning their menus of Super Bowl snacks.
They’ve maxed out their credit cards to buy the biggest TV on the block.

When it comes down to it, there’s no sport that doesn’t have an element of silliness to it.
Basketball – men or women in matching short pants DRIBBLING.
Baseball – Players waving clubs, laying down bunts, popping up flies.
Lacrosse, field hockey, pole vaulting, curling
and GOLF! Don’t get me started!
Some people claim not to like sports because they are so silly.
These are the same people who surf the net, spending hours on Ebay
bidding on original edition Superman comic books.
They’re the same ones who put on a red hat and go out to lunch
with others wearing red hats.

Except for the things we MUST do for our own survival -
build shelter, secure food and water –
every other activity we engage in has an element of silliness to it;
a touch of absurdity and nonsense.
The only time there’s a problem is when we try to pretend
that what we’re doing is entirely rational,
or that what we say inherently makes sense just because WE said it!

My parents did a pretty good job with me, I think.
They provided for all my material needs without going overboard.
They led by example – teaching me right from wrong;
the importance of loyalty, integrity, and honesty.
The one quibble I have with the way they raised me – and it’s just a little thing, really -
but the one quibble I have is that they didn’t value silliness.
It was probably a reaction to the Great Depression
where the mere struggle for survival didn’t leave much room for silliness.
“That’s silly,” my mother would say with a disapproving frown.
Or, “Don’t be silly.”

“Don’t be silly.”
I really don’t fault my parents, they meant well.
But you might as well tell the sun not to shine;
might as well tell my big, fat fuzzy cat not to shed on the furniture.
The problem is not with people acting silly.
The problem is when people try to convince themselves
that what they think and how they act can somehow on some level NOT be silly.
It’s the ones who can’t see the inherent silliness of the human condition
who are likely to cause the most trouble.

Look at people who run for office.
The more serious the image they try to project the more absurd they appear.
If you’re old enough to remember Michael Dukakis’ bid for President in 1988
then chances are you remember the photograph of Governor Dukakis
wearing a helmet and goggles and poking up like Jack out of his Box
from an M 1 Abrams military tank.
He was trying to combat the image that he was soft on defense.
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time; a way to look serious and tough.
but to this day, “Dukakis in the Tank” is shorthand for any public relations fiasco.
Because he was trying to act so serious, he ended up looking silly!

Which brings me to our friends in Corinth
and the main message Paul wanted them to hear.
Paul was fighting an uphill battle in Corinth,
a cosmopolitan seaport that probably had a dynamite Chamber of Commerce
and banners hanging at both ends of town saying, “Come Alive in Corinth!”
Paul had a hard time with the church there
because they seemed to have no sense of humor,
no flexibility or gentleness to them.
That may sound odd, given the fact that they apparently had
some significant sexual impropriety going on,
not to mention a certain shallow way of expressing their faith
that seems more a personality cult than a genuine trust in Christ.
That’s just it - they were frivolous and they didn’t know it.
Absurd but unaware.
We know that because of the way they treated each other.
They had no forbearance in their life together.

You know what I mean when I say “forbearance?”
They were brittle, impatient, quick to insist on their own way,
intent on having their own needs met
before they could even think about the possibility of meeting the needs of others.
There was a pecking order in the Corinthian church
even though, according to Paul’s assessment,
none of THEM were exactly the cream of the crop,
or the upper crust of Corinthian society.
Still, sometimes it’s those who have little
who are most desperate to find someone who has less;
sometimes those who have nothing much to brag about
who boast the loudest.

Paul assessed the state of faith in the Corinthian church
and he must have seen right away what the problem was;
I mean, it’s so obvious. Someone had told them, “Don’t be silly.”
Someone had convinced them to take themselves much too seriously.
The former Jews – they were living on tradition,
congratulating themselves for being heirs of Abraham; the chosen people;
placing such a high value on the accident of birth
and that God had shown God’s favor in the past through signs of God’s presence.
The Greeks? They were all puffed up with their penchant for rational discourse,
logical propositions, intellectual debate.
They were standing on the shoulders of Socrates and Plato and all that wisdom.
To both the Jews and the Greeks Paul writes,
“You are not going to really get Jesus until you get over yourself.
You are not going to experience the power of what God has done in Christ
until you come to terms with how weak and foolish you really are.
“There is no shame in being foolish,” Paul writes.
“In fact, God chooses the foolish to shame the wise.
There is not shame in being weak.
God chooses the weak to shame the strong.”

The most potent symbol of the wisdom of foolishness and the strength of weakness
is the cross on which Jesus died.
The cross is just SILLY, and I mean that in the most reverent way!
To the Jews. the cross is nothing more than a sign of Roman oppression.
To the Greeks it is symbolic of the failure of logical people to work out a compromise.
But to those who get it, really get it, the cross is so much more.

By it’s very shape, the cross is God’s way of telling us
that in God’s kingdom, things are not going to line up in neat, parallel lines;
for people of faith things are not ever going to BE as they SEEM.
Under the power of the cross,
those who would rule must be servants.
Those who would find comfort must expect to mourn.
Those who would know victory must seek peace.

If you were a fan of Monty Python’s Flying Circus back in the early 70’s
chances are you’re familiar with what some call their most popular sketch,
“The Ministry of Silly Walks.”
“Ministry,” of course, in British terminology, refers to a government agency.

In the sketch, John Cleese is the Minister of Silly Walks and he is petitioned by a man
who is seeking a grant to fund a silly walk he’s been developing.
Alas, Cleese has to turn the man down because his walk is just not silly enough.
Cleese explains that though the Ministry of Silly Walks is SUPPOSED to be funded
on par with the Ministries of Defense, and Health, and Housing
their funding has, in fact, been lagging.
They just don’t have the budget to support a “walk in progress.”

It occurred to me that we are people who are called to the Ministry of A Silly Walk.
We are called to follow a path that, to those who don’t get it, seems foolish.
It really seems silly, especially today, when we are here to worship
and everyone else is at home, already in front of the big screen,
getting primed for the big game by football prognosticators.
This silly walk to which we are called seems most absurd, especially today,
when we meet around a table to sip grape juice and eat bread crumbs
and talk about being filled with God’s Spirit;
especially today when we splash around in water
and sprinkle a child’s head and talk about how we are all part of God’s family.

We are people of the cross who have our moments of embarrassment
because it seems so overwhelmingly SILLY sometimes
to affirm life in the midst of death or hope in the face of despair.
But then, by God’s grace, we have glimmers of understanding,
moments when the truth shines through.
‘The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.’
And thanks be to God that the resources are endless and funding never runs out
for those of us who’s silly walk is still a walk in progress.