"If the world is sane, then Jesus is as mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully --- the life you save may be your own, and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says Law and Order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get, and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion." (Frederick Buechner, from The Faces of Jesus)
One of the types of actions I used to bring as an attorney were civil proceedings for the involuntary commitment of persons deemed to have a "mental defect" such that they posed a danger to themselves or others. The subjects of these proceedings often appeared quite normal, even charming, but if they took the stand their answers would increasingly betray some sort of psychosis --- a delusional belief that judges, attorneys, and the court system were a part of a gigantic conspiracy targeting them, or that they were Jesus, or that people on television were talking to them. Just to name a few such delusions. However, the more I spent time with psychiatrists who examined them, the more uncomfortable I became. Sometimes it seemed that these probers of the mind regarded anyone who believed too deeply, or too much in one thing, particularly if the beliefs were religious in nature (which often they were), as delusional. I began to wonder about myself, if in fact I believed enough in what I said I believed, enough to be committed myself.
Writing the Corinthian church, Paul tells them that he and his fellow disciples have become "fools for Christ," and goes on to describe their chosen state as weak, dishonored, hungry, thirsty, in rags, brutally treated, homeless, subject to hard work, cursed, persecuted, slandered, becoming the "scum of the earth, the refuse of the world" (1 Cor. 4: 10-13, NIV). Today, psychiatrists might describe Paul and those of his bent as mentally ill, for who would choose such a state? Of Paul and the others with him commentator Matthew Henry says that "Theirs was voluntary, it was pleasing poverty. They thought they had a rich amends for all the outward good things they wanted, if they might but serve Christ and save souls." In other words, Paul chose to act in a way contrary to what he knew would bring esteem, wealth, or good reputation in the world. He was, in a word, crazy for God. The difficulty he experienced was the world's just desserts for his abnormal behavior. Yet the blessings he experienced were God's rewards for a life fully devoted to Him and lived according to a generally unseen but very real Reality.
Compared to Paul, most of our lives seem pretty sane. Put us in a room with Paul, Peter, Jeremiah, Ezekial, and the like, and we might feel like the world had gone mad. Like Alice at the Mad Tea Party with the Hatter, Dormouse, and March Hare, we might think we had walked into a world where nothing meant what we thought it meant, where what we took for granted is turned upside down. We might even sense that there is danger about, that the people we see are in some way disturbed. But that's not because what they say is nonsense, but because it strikes us as so different than what the world says. Read the upside down logic of the Beatitudes, where the meek inherit the earth, and the persecuted get the Kingdom, and you have the sense that it's a crazy poem meant for a tea party, and the Hatter and March Hare are having a joke at our expense. If you read it with sane eyes, that is. But like readers of Lewis Carroll who were steeped in the culture that he was poking fun at, if we read it as ones who are steeped in a Reality that operates quite differently than the world around us, we see it for what it is: a summation of the counter-cultural Kingdom and a guide to life coram Deo. You see, the Mad Tea Party only looks mad; it's really quite sane, even exciting, if you know what's going on, if you get the "joke." Even if they say, "No room, no room" (as did the March Hare), it's really just an invitation. There's a place at the table for you and me. Scum of the earth? Refuse of the world? Welcome to the party.
