A Sermon for the Regional Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women
on the Feast of St. Isidora, Fool-for-Christ
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie
Colossians 1: 15- 23
Matthew 3:13- 17
(Preacher solemnly puts a dishrag on her head)
My great aunt Ivy was not afraid to make a fool of herself. The first time I brought her great great niece to visit her, we found her in the kitchen. Upon seeing the solemn look on the baby's face, Aunt Ivy put the dishrag on her head and began dancing around the kitchen to make her laugh.
(Preacher demonstrates)
Aunt Ivy didn't always look this foolish. She was a poet and musician. And she was a great church woman. Not only active in her own parish, but traveling off to national General Convention meetings that happen every three years. Aunt Ivy would do what was needed to get the job done, even if it meant dancing with a dishrag on her head for a smile from the baby. Aunt Ivy was not afraid to be different, even when it looked foolish.
Today is the feast of Isidora, Fool-for-Christ. Saint Isidora allowed her sisters at the monastery of Tabenea in Egypt to think that she was insane, even possessed. She endured the contempt and rejection of the other nuns, so that she would have space in her life to focus on God. She took on all the menial tasks in her monastery, and she wore a dishrag on her head. Isidora was not afraid to look like a fool if it brought her or others closer to God.
An old story in the orthodox tradition says that one of the holy desert fathers, Saint Pitirim, was told by an angel to go to to Tabenea and look for a nun wearing a dishrag on her head because "her heart and thoughts rest always with God" while, by comparison, Saint Pitirim's thoughts wander all over.
When the nuns finally brought Isidora to him, hoping he'd exorcise the demon, the Holy Father fell at Isidora's feet, saying, "Isidora before God is higher up than all of us!"
The saint bows before the fool. The churchwoman dances for the baby. Everything is turned upside down. That's just what happens in today's gospel reading: the crazy wildman in the desert baptizes God's own Son. John knows it's a foolish idea to baptize someone greater than he. But the foolish turning upside down is a necessary part of God's plan.
Sometimes God asks us to be fools. Now some would say that we look pretty foolish gathered here today. Perhaps this meeting is the dishrag on our heads? Here we are: the elders of the church, who can no longer do all the work we once did, trying to live in the past without any young people. Certainly any young woman who showed up here would be considered foolish by her friends. It may look foolish, but perhaps we do it because it brings us closer to God.
Or we might say that the young women are the foolish ones. (Preacher removes dishrag.) They are missing an opportunity to come closer to God by not following our wonderful traditions. In fact, sometimes it seems that they do a lot of foolish things. They try to replace our grand old music; they write new prayers that lack the graceful language of the old prayer book; they foolishly want to change all kinds of things.
And they way they show up for church sometimes, they might as well be wearing dishrags on their heads. Fools.... Fools .... just like Isidora and Pitirim, or Aunt Ivy and the baby, or John the Baptist and Jesus, or ....
Jesus, the image of the invisible God, looked foolish being baptized by a wildman. And in that Fool, "all things in heaven and on earth were created," things foolish or wise, "all things have been created through him and for him." Sometimes the fools are part of God's plan. Sometimes the fool is God's angel. And God asks us to be foolish enough to bow down to the fool.
Perhaps it's time for us to listen to those foolish young women. Perhaps it's time for us to be foolish enough to try what they ask of us. Saint Pitirim bowed before Isidora, asking her blessing. Jesus bowed before John, asking to be baptized. (Preacher puts dishrag back on head.) What blessing might we receive if we foolishly ask our young women?