| Introduction
Anyone who has studied the Holy Scriptures knows that, generally speaking, a fool is not something you want to be. King Solomon in his proverbs teaches us a great deal about the fool in contrast to the wise man. The fool says in his heart there is no God. The fool finds pleasure in evil conduct. Wisdom is too high for the fool. The fool’s end is death. Obviously this is not the kind of fool the Church means when she terms some of her saints “Fools for Christ”. For Scripture says that there exists another type of fool. There are two types of fools: fools in God’s eyes and fools in the eyes of the world. The proverbial fool is a fool in God’s eyes. To God his behavior is utter foolishness and will be judged as such. The second kind of fool, that type with which we are dealing this morning as we remember the life of St. Basil the Fool for Christ, is a fool in the world’s eyes but a wise man and sage in God’s eyes.
“For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believed. For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:18-23), and a little later in the same letter to the Corinthians, “If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become foolish that he may become wise” (3:18). The apostles themselves became ultimately wise in God’s sight by becoming foolish in the world’s,
“We are fools for Christ’s sake...To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, andare poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things” (4:10- 13).
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