The Holy Fool

In 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, we are told that our faith is ultimately grounded in foolishness. But this foolishness is, paradoxically, the very wisdom of God. It is truth, disguised as folly. Life in this world is dead ernest. It is supremely serious, straightforward, and logical. Power is control, weakness is stupidity, and money, power and fame are obviously desires we should all possess. Everything is life and death. 

In religion there is the old tradition of the holy fool. This person's life is upside down to the world. They live as the butt of everyone else's jokes. They live opposite the world. Gain is loss, power is weakness, and seriousness is just silly. St. Francis of Assissi, foregoing wealth for poverty, believing in visions however uncertain, and talking to the sun and moon, is a perfect examples.

 In literature, few explored this figure with more depth than Fyodor Dostoevsky. Alyosha and Zossima from BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, The Ridiculous Man from the short story of the same name, and especially Prince Myshkin from THE IDIOT, all live in ways that seem naive, childish, and silky to the people around them. Don Quixote should be thrown into this group. As should Forrest Gump, Hescher and the brother from OUR IDIOT BROTHER in modern film.

These characters, examined superficially, are misguided fools who deserve our pity. But they persist in the popular imagination, I believe, because behind our laughter we hide an anxiousness we dare not speak. It is an anxiousness born of a suspicion that perhaps we are the ones being laughed at. The truth is that much of what grants our lives meaning and joy is born of silliness. We take vacations into the world of folly almost daily. In laughter, in play, in our mild obsessions, we find ourselves turning the world upside down. We may lie to ourselves, but there is some part of us that suspects that this counter-world is what is really real.

The Holy Fool confronts us with the cost of giving into our suspicion fully. We laugh in part, I think, to hide our sorrow at not being brave enough to take the same risk. We pretend to be sure of what is real, to hide the fact that we know we might be living a lie. And so our laughter at holy foolishness is mixed with awe and reverence.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate holy fool. He was a silly man with a silly sense of humor (more on this later), with a way of life no one can really live. He lives in a way so backwards he could not maintain life in this world at all. I think, too, that He is God's joke on the world. Caesar embodies all we we think of when we think of divinity- power, glory, control, money, fame, etc. Jesus turns this on it's head. He is nothing, nobody, killed in the worst way reserved for the worst criminals. This is God? Ridiculous! And true. God is turning our understanding of divinity upside down. Weakness here is power in heaven. Power here is weakness. Jesus is God laughing at our view of what is important.

In the end, we deified the supreme fool. And rightly so. We know in our hearts that all our neurotic patterns of power struggle and striving for position are dead ends. Out only hope is in laughter. If we can laugh at our struggles, we can transcend them. That might be the very road to salvation in this world and the next.