Year B - Palm/Passion Sunday “April Fools!”
“For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom”
(1 Corinthians 1:25)
Well, it finally happened. I’ve been preaching for 30 years now – at least 20 sermons a year and
often many more and I’ve wondered when the day would come that no inspiration would appear.
I’ve probably preached at least 20 Passion Sunday sermons and I’ve run out. So, you all might
as well pack up and go home – or perhaps we’ll just skip the homily. Sorry about that.
[turn and walk back up the stairs, appear to be proceeding with worship, turn and . .]
April Fools!!! Did I get you for just a moment?
Today is April Fool’s day. A day for playing jokes, kidding around, turning things upside down.
The origins of April Fools' Day are somewhat uncertain.
The most popular theory is that France changed its calendar in the 1500s so that the New Year
would begin in January to match the Roman calendar instead of beginning at the start of spring,
in late March or early April.
However word of the change traveled slowly, and many people in rural areas continued to
celebrate the New Year in the spring. These country dwellers became known as "April fools," the
story goes.
It’s also possible that April Fools' Day simply grew out of age-old European spring festivals of
renewal, in which pranks and camouflaging one's identity are common.
Another theory is that the idea came from Roman jesters during the time of Constantine I in the
third and fourth centuries A.D. As the story goes, jesters successfully petitioned the ruler to
allow one of their elected members to be king for a day. So, on April first, Constantine handed
over the reins of the Roman Empire for one day to King Kugel, his jester. Kugel decreed that the
day forever would be a day of absurdity. 1
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392), the “Nun’s Priest Tale" is set Syn March bigan thritty
dayes and two. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts
and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon. Readers apparently misunderstood this
line to mean "March 32", i.e. April 1. In Chaucer's tale, the vain cock Chanticleer is tricked by a
fox.2
So, here we at the beginning of the most somber week of the church year on April Fools’ Day.
At this celebration we go from pomp and circumstance, from expectation and high hopes to
despair and defeat. From faithful disciples to scattered friends who hide. From the adoration of
crowds to taunting and disdain. Is this some kind of cosmic joke?
Jesus must have asked himself that same question. His efforts to transform his followers into
those who live in the already present loving kingdom of God seem to fail miserably. The one
person who openly shows her love for Jesus – the woman with the alabaster jar of expensive,
lavish oil who many scholars believe is Mary Magdalene, is ridiculed and mocked. “Remember
her”, says Jesus.
Judas, the manager of the whole effort, tries to make the revolution happen, and the end is not
what he planned. We now know him as the betrayer.
The meal, which Jesus carefully plans for, is shared and blessed and given a new interpretation,
and the result is that the disciples desert him?
Peter, the rock, the one who becomes the leader of the church in Jerusalem, openly denies him.
Is that a joke, too?
What begins as a new day, ends in a spiral of events that no one but the authorities can stop.
And they have no interest in doing so.
Is the reality of the present Kingdom of God a fool’s errand? A joke? Pie in the sky?
Events happen that we wish were April Fools’ jokes: a soldier goes awry and kills a number of
civilians; a young black man with a hoodie is killed because he is perceived as threatening to a
neighborhood watch person; a baby disappears out of her crib in the middle of night and cannot
be found; a friend or family member receives a terminal diagnosis; or worse, dies; a young life
is claimed through an automobile accident and so on. We wake up from such events hoping that
someone will say “April Fools!”.
We’re coming to the end of our wilderness journey in Lent and what seems to be an oasis is a
mirage. This story of seeking after our own power, our own ability to control things, our plans,
our ideas of who God is and what God is doing, reveals the folly of our own seriousness, the
folly and waste of our own designs. This story of folly began in Genesis and recurs over and
over again as we humans think that we’re in charge of the planet, that we’re responsible, that
we’re going to make it all right. And, of course, we are the fools.
Peter Vaux wrote an interesting article in the most recent Harbor Chart on the hymn “Lord of the
Dance”. One of the verses says this:
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body & they thought I'd gone
But I am the Dance & I still go on!
Our foolishness is redeemed. And Christ gets the last and first word of the new creation when he
greets the one who loved him lavishly. Remember her.
Ultimately, to all that happens, to all that is, was and is to come, Christ says: “April Fools!”
“For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:25)
Patricia Rome Robertson+
Parish of St. Mary and St. Jude
Northeast Harbor, Maine
April 1, 2012
1
2
National Geographic Daily News, March 28, 2008.
Wikipedia, April Fools Day
2