I painfully know that it is true with me: I can't stand to look foolish before others or to imagine (often wrongly) that I might look foolish to others. Yet, here is St. Paul making the case for freedom even from this, yes, foolish but common anxiety:
We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
1 Cor. 4:10 (ESV).
The context is Paul again, with great perseverance and patience, teaching his converts (notice how much of his teaching has to do with how to practically live in Christ and not so much with the abstractly theological which we humans love to play with at length in our leisure).
Paul, formerly Saul the proud Pharisee, was now set apart for a new task in which, for many, he would play the fool. Both Jews and Greeks saw him as foolish. Yet, that reality did not stop him. It should not stop us, either. St. Josemaria Escriva has a saying that I paraphrase as best as I can remember: the Christian should be able to step into any setting and any environment with a sure step. Why? Because the Spirit of truth, of reality, is aiding him moment by moment.
Let's do the logical analysis (appropriate enough since we follow the Logos). If we do good in word or action, either we will be thanked by others or rejected and maybe even ridiculed. The crucial fact is not the reaction but rather the objective goodness of the word or action. There are people who have gotten so used to lies and to the cold indifference of so many people (not infrequently beginning with their upbringing) that they just can't handle agape in action. Sometimes, I think that even simple generosity to strangers or mere acquaintances is as striking a miracle to many as parting the Red Sea was. Yet, that is precisely what the Christian is called to be and do: to make the difference in a very cold, indifferent, despairing, and truly foolish and confused world. Escriva also noted once, as I recall, how the presence of a Christian in any setting ought to raise the temperature of the room, not the temperature of anger or dispute but rather the higher temperature that reflects the warmth of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
The root problem that gives many of us such a dire fear of appearing foolish to others is that we are really seeking, in the end, to boast in ourselves, not in the Creator:
27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" [echoing Jeremiah 9:23, 24].
1 Cor. 1:27-31 (ESV; emphasis and bracketed reference added).
With the right attitude, we can end up saying, as Paul did:
10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Cor. 12:10 (ESV; emphasis added).
Taking that Pauline step breaches a new frontier of personal freedom for us and for many others with whom we come in contact.
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