(8.) Our Accommodating God: His Holy Fools

(8.) Our Accommodating God: His Holy Fools. 

“Who is able to understand the mind of Lord Yahweh? Who is able to be His teacher? We, however, have the mind of Christ!” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

An Accommodating Person is one who graciously changes plans for another’s benefit; who is willing to adjust in order to meet another’s needs; is open to adapting to changing circumstances; who is able to make concessions if needed; who makes allowances for others; who choose to oblige other and give them favors in order to be helpful; who is able to creatively shift from Plan A to Plan B if needed; who makes space for others to learn and grow; who welcomes others to fit into his own space; who makes reasonable exceptions to a general rule; who is comfortable in doing whatever it takes to be understood or to communicate effectively; who is willing to adjust expectations in light of reality; who is able to place limits on himself if it help others to flourish; who is able to step back in order to enable others to step forward.

Qualities of An Accommodating Person: Gracious; Humble; Sacrificial; Flexible; Observant; Farsighted; Insightful; Adaptable; Reasonable; Forgiving; Hospitable; Patient; Self-Effacing; Shrewd.

Our Accommodating God is willing, in His wisdom, to do everything described above, and then some. It seems to be in His nature to be an accommodating Soul, a part of His character since before Day One. God has been making concessions from before the creation of the universe, since creation itself was accomplished in the spirit of accommodation. God has also condescended to reveal His glory, agreed to His presence in the wilderness Tabernacle, made concessions to cultural realities in His Law, communicated in human language to produce holy Scripture, accommodated His word through His messengers, made Himself available through the Church’s sacraments, humbly revealed Himself with dreams and visions, and offered to us the ultimate accommodation… the Incarnation of His infinite Being to finite planet earth. God’s accommodations began before the beginning, during that eternal time before Day One, when Creator God filled everything, had always been present everywhere at the same time, and yet decided to make room for the universe. And the Lord has continued making concessions with His creation, with human beings, ever since. And that is the divine pattern to be found in our lives as well… to accommodate, to make space in our lives for God and for each other.

“To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”  (Flannery O’Connor).  The Lord God was more than willing to accommodate for His people’s benefit. He was perfectly willing to adjust His strategies and do whatever it took to communicate His love and their accountability to Him. To those who appeared to be deaf to His entreaties, He used His messengers to shout, literally. For those who seemed to be blind to His presence and intentions, God’s large and startling figures were flesh and blood people, obedient servants of His who weren’t afraid to look like fools if that’s what God wanted. So God was accommodating the deaf and blind by handpicking some holy fools to be His mouthpieces, His visual aids, His messengers.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.” (Flannery O’Connor). Some of the biblical prophets performed miracles, but most did not. Sometimes they reenacted, or mimed ahead of time, God’s messages in real time, pure street theater and performance art. These particular prophets were asked to demonstrate an object lesson, and they ended up being visual aids to illustrate the Lord’s actions. Other prophets were instruments for God’s miracles. They were used of God to do something supernatural and extraordinary. Their miracles certainly came from God, but they came through His messengers, the prophets. Some prophets were living symbols, while others were the divine reality. They could be just talking about God’s power, or they could be demonstrating it literally. Either way, prophets had to swallow their pride and go out on a limb and look foolish to onlookers. Prophets had to learn to trust this limb they were crawling out on, to trust in this God who is asking them to do something that just might appear outlandish. Prophets were the holy fools of Scripture. What would God have done without them?

A Biblical Who’s Who of Holy Fools. As the King’s holy fools, we sometimes are honored and respected by the world’s observers. Other times though, we are expected to make royal spectacles of ourselves. In fact, down through the ages many of His jesters have been ridiculed, ignored, misunderstood and worse…

1. Abram sells his heirlooms, packs up his family, and leaves home for parts unknown on a wing and a prayer. He went on to cooperate with the Lord when asked to produce a child at 99 years old, and then agree to sacrifice his only son as a test of faith, only for God to say at the last minute, ‘Don’t do this my friend, you passed the test!
2. Noah builds the world’s biggest boat on dry land, without a cloud in sight, and proceeds to fill it with animals. All the people thought him foolish of course, until the rain started to fall, Noah brought his family into the boat, and they lived inside this floating zoo with all the animals for over a year.
3. Moses is an unknown shepherd in the wilderness for forty years, then talks to a burning bush to get his marching orders from Yahweh, and proceeds to one-up the Pharaoh ate very turn, then hikes through the mountains and desert with a mutinous mob of bickering malcontents for 40 years, and still never entered the promised destination.
4. Rahab, Jericho’s scandalous lady of the night, fibs to her king, hides enemy spies, sends the cops on a wild goose chase, and is rescued from certain death as Jericho’s walls come a’tumbling down. In another of God’s wonderful little twists in the plot, Rahab ends up continuing the royal bloodline for the High King, Jesus Messiah;
5. Gideon, a young inexperienced farmer in Israel, is asked to tear down his family’s pagan altar and fertility pole, gather some troops to take on a huge, fearsome enemy with only a small handful of 300 raw recruits, and scare the willies out of the enemy with trumpets, torches, clay pots, and booming voices. This fool’s errand ended with complete victory.
6. David challenges a giant warrior who is in full armor while he is wearing only shepherd’s garb and slinging a stone, then he pretends to be insane in the enemy’s camp with spittle drooling down his beard, and then while a young king dances a heavenly jig in public worship wearing only a loincloth without a care in the world for royal reputation or domestic embarrassment.
7. Elijah unexpectedly thunders into Israel from a little place on the other side of the tracks wearing a cloak of animal skin and fur as well as a homemade leather loincloth. He proceeds to confront an evil pagan Queen, pray for a three-year drought, and finally call on heavenly fire to consume over 850 pagan prophets and priests in their duel with him on Mt. Carmel. Of course, God’s fool won the duel.
8. Elisha was one of Scripture’s greatest miracle-workers who got his feet wet in hopeless religious reforms, political controversies, military campaigns, and palace intrigues. He looked mighty foolish when he called on two ferocious bears to maul 42 young troublemakers. As Frederick Buechner once said, “There is no need to try making a fool out of a prophet, because sooner or later he will probably make one out of himself.”
9. Isaiah, after being instructed by the Lord to casually walk around town barefoot for three years wearing nothing but burlap-sack boxers, and foolishly beating his prophetic head against the wall in speaking the word of the Lord to the apathetic and rebellious chosen people for over 50 years with five different kings, he had the humiliation of dying the martyr’s death at the hands of the very evil king Manasseh.
10. Jeremiah obediently played the Lord’s fool in Jerusalem and was completely ignored and ridiculed. He was asked to act out street theater, such as wearing a smelly loincloth for a long time without washing them, then burying them in the ground, and then digging them up for public display; then he was asked to smash a perfectly good clay pot in the garbage dump in front of the people; then he was told to wear a heavy wooden oxen yoke around town for a few months. Somehow he was completely obedient and engaged in God’s foolishness for over 40 years.
11. Ezekiel starts out by being fed a scroll to eat and fill his stomach, after which he was instructed to speak to a valley of dry bones, speak to the wind, then watch as the bones assemble themselves and come back to life; he was also told to lock himself in his house and tie himself down with ropes without speaking for seven years; then to lie on his right side for 390 days and his left side for 40 days, all while mixing cow manure into his bread dough at God’s request and eating this hearty meal while lying on his side; then to top it all off, Ezekiel was told to take a sharpened sword, cut off his beard, shave his scalp, and stand on a busy street corner to sing a solo, a funeral song, for no apparent reason. Could anyone appear more foolish?
12. Hosea was asked by God to foolishly marry a common prostitute, raise a family with her, and remain faithful to her despite her ongoing sexual adventures with others. He was asked by the Lord to be a living parable of His faithfulness and covenantal love. Hosea just might have been a little humiliated in the process as others looked on, but he never expressed it in his book.
13. Jonah hears the Call from the Lord which sounded completely ludicrous, proceeds to sail in the opposite direction, gets thrown in the drink during a violent storm at sea, and then swallowed by a giant fish. After a suitable time of repentance inside the fish, Jonah finally seems agreeable to the Call and is belched onto shore, and proceeds to shout fire and brimstone to an historically sadistic enemy in Gentile territory, undoubtedly feeling rather foolish but at least obedient. He later blamed God for being too merciful to the enemy and not merciful enough to him.

On St. Paul as Mr. Flexibility. “For although I am a free man, not bound to do anyone’s bidding, I have made myself a servant to all in order to win as many people as possible. With Jews I put myself in the position of a Jew in order to win Jews. With those under subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah, I became as one under such legalism, though not being under such legalism myself, that I might win those under a legalistic perversion of the Torah. With those who live outside the framework of Torah, I became as one outside Torah’s framework that I might win those outside the Torah, although I myself am not outside the framework of God’s Torah but within it as upheld by the Messiah Jesus. With the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. With all kinds of people I have become all kinds of things, all things for all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

When it came to accommodation, Paul went above and beyond. He was a master at adapting to his situation to bring the Good New. He was expert at identifying with his audience as closely as possible wherever he went without compromising his faith or integrity. On the one hand, Paul was a stubborn, uncompromising believer. On the other hand, knew how to wisely compromise in order to reveal the truth of God. Paul was astutely aware at all times of whatever context he was in… the cultural customs, the religious backgrounds, the languages, the vocabularies, what would reach the people and what wouldn’t. Paul did whatever it took to meet the people where they were so he could effectively bring them to where he was, which was Jesus. He was serious about removing any possible barrier in order to make the truth accessible. If he voluntarily needed to give up some personal rights, then so be it. Paul did his own version of zimzum (see earlier article), stepping back from his legitimate rights for the sake of others being able to move forward, practicing self-limitation for the greater good. When studying the qualities of an accommodating person above, Paul fit the bill in every way, a truly accommodating holy fool for Christ.

Reasonable Questions for Holy Fools about Being Accommodating: 

1. What are the reasonable limits of accommodation and concession?
2. Is it possible to bend over backwards for someone so far that you break your back? That you stoop forward for someone so far that you fall flat on your face?
3. How do we keep from being such a people-pleaser that we lose a sense of our own identity, forgetting that we should first be a God-pleaser?
4. Does it ever happen that we accommodate others at the expense of what is healthy for us?
5. What are the guardrails for our flexibility so that we don’t twist ourselves into an ineffective pretzel?
6. When accommodating others, might there be a point where we merely become “nice” instead of loving?
7. Is it possible to become so “easy-going” that we lose all sense of personal conviction?
8. Are we in danger of losing our own moral compass or compromising our moral standards when accommodating others?
9. At one point does tough love become relevant, determining that it’s best for someone else that we Not accommodate them?