According to the book of Proverbs, fools are trash talking bullies itching for a fight. They reject wise counsel while playing the victim.

Not cool to be a fool.

Yet Paul wrote in Verse twenty-seven of Chapter one in First Corinthians that God uses what is foolish and weak to shake the wise and strong.

Perhaps through Holy Fools.

Holy Fools play a significant role in the Russian Orthodox Church tradition. St. Basil the Blessed, for example, lived in Moscow from 1468 to 1552. He spent much of his life wandering the streets nearly naked carrying heavy chains. Driven by concern for the poor and unsaved souls, he overturned carts, glared silently at people in taverns, and lectured the czar, Ivan the Terrible. Yet Ivan, who killed people at the drop of a hat, didn’t allow anyone to harm Basil, served as a pallbearer during Basil’s funeral, and had a chapel built over his grave.

Echoes of Holy Foolery permeate the arts. The little boy who shouted out, “Look at the king! He’s not wearing anything at all!” in that Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The eccentric Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter series who wore weird jewelry while making observations that were both uncomfortable and true. The prophets and other misfits that appear in literature from authors ranging from Sophocles to Shakespear to Stephen King. And who can forget Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name?

Examples of Holy Fools rushing in are all around us. It’s the child who shrieks that my eyes look weird as my guide dog and I hurry past. It’s the young adults who rant about the unfairness of it all to anyone in their path. It’s the person who brings a business meeting to a screeching halt by questioning something that seems obviously true to others in the group. It’s the person who disrupts a political gathering waving signs or yelling slogans that causes the rest of the participants to boo or shake their heads in bewildered disgust. It’s the homeless person who proclaims their truths that are uncomfortable to those around them. It’s the snitches: those people the who alert outsiders of unethical or illegal actions of a group to which they belong.

Practitioners of Holy Foolery are usually outcasts, and often come from underrepresented groups or who have psychiatric disabilities. Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and Drake and Kanye West. Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh and Candace Owens and Greta Thunberg. The prophets and shamans and heretics and shock jocks. The comics and rappers and punkers and country outlaws and avant-gard artists.

Like fifteenth – and sixteenth-century Russia, cultures have uneasy relations with their Holy Fools. We hold them at a distance, worrying what might happen if we send them into the wilderness, but not wanting them to come too close. We shake our fists at them while admiring their courage and talent. If a Holy Fool is skilled enough and receives effective support from just enough people, they might change the world, or at least a corner of it.

Woe to the culture who promotes a Holy Fool to a leadership position unless this fool goes through a transformational journey to become wise. Woe to the culture who murders a Holy Fool, for this will allow the fool to increase their notoriety.

Like Jesus, the biggest Holy Fool of all who raised up the poor while humbling the powerful. And when the powerful crucified Him on that hill, his death and resurrection exponentially expanded His ministry, and continues to encourage us to use His power flowing through us to humble the strong through our weakness.