Clowns in Church

I've been amusing myself wondering what you might have guessed this post was about based on the title alone. Choir members who wear too much makeup? Goofy youth leaders? Your little brother and his friends?

Nope, it's about realactual clowns who get decked out and go to a super serious church every year to memorialize one of their clown forefathers and clown brethren who have passed in the previous year. It's hard to beat the image of a church full of clowns singing "Amazing Grace" while a lone unicycler slowly rides up the aisle in his floppy shoes and big red nose.

The key quote from the church vicar on the ministry of clowns:

"In the Bible, in the New Testament, it talks about us being fools for Christ and in a sense they clown around, they fool around, and they try to help people see the lighter side of life. I think from that perspective, that they have a ministry to perform."

As much as I like the idea of being called by God to help people lighten up, the vicar badly misses the point of 1 Corinthians 4:10, where Paul sarcastically describes the persecuted apostles as "fools for Christ" as compared with the "wise" people who doubted their authority to deliver God's Word. Or maybe the vicar had in mind the many times in 1 Corinthians when Paul described his preaching as foolishness to those who reject Christ.

There's no doubt some who dismiss Jesus see our Christian funerals as churches full of clowns putting a happy face on the sad reality of death. But that's okay. We're convinced of the reality of the celebration waiting on the other side. I won't even mind if they bury me in a pair of big floppy shoes.