A common criticism levied against Christians is our hypocrisy. Fair enough! We do not always live what we say we believe. While I contend that hypocrisy is endemic to the human condition, let’s stay with religious hypocrisy. Sometimes, it takes those on the church’s periphery to call out our blind spots.
Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) tried to make a go of it as a pastor. He enrolled at Harvard Divinity School but soon came disenchanted, coming to the realization that he was not cut out to be a pastor. In his diary, he wrote, “I can never preach. I shall teach, I suppose.” He headed west and became a principal at a high school in California and, later, a professor at the University of California. He wrote poems on the side, often anonymously or using the pen name Andrew Hedbrook. One of his poems, “The Fool’s Prayer,” appeared in the Atlantic magazine in 1879. A king wants to entertain his royal guests at a banquet, so he requests the court jester named Fool to lead in prayer. The jester obliges and prays a prayer that shocks everyone. He pleads for God’s mercy, “O Lord, be merciful to me, a fool,” a phrase repeated four times in the prayer. At the end of the prayer, the king and his royal guests are stunned by the jester’s perceptiveness. Even the king whispers alone in his garden, “Be merciful to me, a fool.” The irony is unmistakable. The fool sees clearly; the royal audience does not.
People spout religious sentiments they do not practice. Jesus singles out religious leaders of his day because “they do not practice what they preach” (Mt. 23.3).
Edward’s poem with its prayerlike quality leads us to contemplate living with more integrity: