Fools for Christ

Before I became Orthodox, I had heard several sermons about someone being foolish in the eyes of the world in order to serve God. The Scripture most often quoted was from Saint Paul:

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

Most often, it had to do with subjects such as trusting God for a miracle when the people “of this world” were saying that this was a foolish thing to believe. It was also often used in the sense of preaching the foolishness of the Cross which does not make sense to the world because the world is blinded. That is, it was not really a foolish message, it only appears to be foolish to those in the world.  These are all reasonable explanations for the verses. But, finally, sadly, there were those who use that saying and a couple of others to try to reject any thought of philosophy, which often means that there is little logical thinking in some of their pronouncements, but that is rare.

What I had never encountered until I came into Orthodoxy was the idea of using becoming a fool as a deliberate strategy to grow in holiness, or to get God’s message across to those who are not listening. Holy Trinity Monastery phrases it this way:

One form of the ascetic Christian life is called foolishness for the sake of Christ. The fool-for-Christ set for himself the task of battling within himself the root of all sin, pride. In order to accomplish this he took on an unusual style of life, appearing as someone bereft of his mental faculties, thus bringing upon himself the ridicule of others. In addition he exposed the evil in the world through metaphorical and symbolic words and actions. He took this ascetic endeavor upon himself in order to humble himself and to also more effectively influence others, since most people respond to the usual ordinary sermon with indifference. The spiritual feat of foolishness for Christ was especially widespread in Russia. –(Excerpted from The Law of God, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, NY: 1993)

Being a Fool for Christ particularly developed in the Russian Orthodox tradition. But, here is the interesting thing. The Fools for Christ would speak totally and completely freely to Tsar or commoner, without a thought for their social placement or condition. In fact, in a Russia in which insulting the Tsar could carry an immediate death penalty, the Fool for Christ could openly admonish the Tsar and they would not be killed. For instance, Saint Basil the Blessed openly rebuked Ivan the Terrible. “St. Basil gave the Tsar some meat during Great Lent, telling him it did not matter whether or not he refrained from eating meat (fasted), because of the murders he had committed.”

And, so, oddly enough, in the midst of their deliberately behaving like fools in order to strip away every last vestige of pride, in the midst of their deliberately reducing themselves to being of no account in the world, they became–often–the only ones able to speak into some very difficult circumstances. So, in an odd twist of the Holy Spirit, he did often use the “fools” of the Russian world in order to shame the wise and to bring correction to the powerful. And the Scripture was true that he uses the foolish things of the world in order to shame the wise.