The Fool In God’s Court
But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you;” Luke 12:20
You Fool! – God doesn’t often call someone a fool, but when He does, we better pay attention. This is not a pronouncement we want to hear.
In Jesus’ parable of the rich farmer and his storehouses, he uses the word aphron. It literally means, “You one without reason!” But it is not about mental incapacity. Jesus is recalling Psalm 38:5-8, where David describes the results of his ‘iwweleth (his foolishness). The Hebrew root means “perversity,” not rational inability. God pronounces our immoral myopia. We failed to pay attention to the things that really mattered. In God’s court, the fool is the one who does not see the bigger picture, who thinks that life is about himself. If you want to discover the character of the fool, read Proverbs where this word appears twenty-two times.
Jesus uses the word aphron when He describes the Pharisees. He proclaims their deliberate rejection of God’s bigger perspective. They claimed that the way of salvation was found in tight control of the rules and rituals of outward religious practice. They were fools, morally reprehensible because they refused to see God’s greater glory in the way of inner purity. In God’s court, the fool is no jester. The fool is fully accountable for his folly – and it will cost him greatly! He is not stupid. He is morally blind!
What is the source of the fool’s blindness? It is his preoccupation with self. Whether he is consumed with his gain, his health, his pride or his religious status, the fool is his own man. His way is the right way. He looks out for number one. He calculates his commitment on the basis of his own advantage. He practices hypocrisy as a fine art. He might be able to recite all the creeds. He might have command of all the doctrine. He might tithe and teach. He might even be in the pulpit. But inside he lives a life of moral decay. He knows that there are rotting bones in the tomb in spite of its outward appearance. It doesn’t take much for the heart to have a few dark spots. The fool is the one who thinks God does not see them.
The fool isn’t prepared. When God’s call comes, his schedule is already full. When God calls, he’s busy on the phone. When God invites, he has other things to do. He makes no plan for the day after the day after the day after. He’s got retirement taken care of, but he forgot about death.
Anyone can be a fool. It doesn’t take much – just a lapse in over-the-horizon thinking, just a choice that has only temporal advantage, just a decision to watch my own back, just tolerance of a little dark spot. No wonder Luther said that life was constant repentance.
I don’t want to appear before the Lord and hear, “Aphron!” Do you?
