The Feast of the Fool

The Medieval Feast of Fools was a chance to peasants to dress up as people of power. It was an opportunity for “a brief social revolution”. A young lay person was dressed up as a mock pope or archbishop or bishop or abbot and mockingly consecrated as the Lord of Misrule or the Archbishop of Dolts or the Abbot of Unreason or the Pope of Fools or some other title parody. It was a chance for some fun. It was a chance to make fun of powerful people; but it never really made a difference to the power relations at all. The next day everything was just the same—the bishops were in their palaces; and the peasants on their plots.

The Feast of Fools was considered blasphemous by the Medieval Church and firmly condemned. It was officially forbidden by the Council of Basel in 1431 and several other condemnations followed. Early Protestants condemned it too; but the practice probably persisted into the seventeenth-century in some places; and Victor Hugo immortalises it his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831 where Quasimodo serves as the King of Fools for a feast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Fools).

The Medieval Feast of Fools is just one example of a pattern of festivals held by a variety of cultures as a kind of way to let off steam and poke fun at their political masters, thus enabling the people without power to go back to their ordinary lives, and perhaps even to drudgery the very next day. Once a year, the system could be made a laughingstock, but any more than that and maybe it was the beginning of a real revolution.

The Roman festival of Saturnalia had Saturnalicius Princeps who ruled the proceedings, setting his subjects such ludicrous tasks as “sing naked”. This festival may have developed as a satirical response to the development of the imperial monarchy with Augustus who first assumed the title of Princeps. The Saturnalia “made a mockery of a world in which law [was] determined by one man and the traditional social and political networks [were] reduced to the power of the emperor over his subject” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia#King_of_the_Saturnalia).

Such carnivals are mockeries and parodies of everyday life. They take digs at the system of power; but seldom do they promote real change. Nevertheless, they offer a glimpse, in satire-form, of how life really is.

So, when we have a story of a Jewish peasant entering the great city of Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. We know it’s not a real political threat; and the authorities know it too. But parody is often greeted by hysteria from the powers that be. What if the people see us for who we really are? What if they take it into their heads to stage a real revolution? This parody of a noted general returning triumphantly from battle is no threat to Jerusalem or to Rome; or is it? It takes a few days for the powers that be to work out where they stand; and the treasonous, blasphemer is set for crucifixion.

The carnival and the fool are a threat to established power: not a military threat; not a threat of might and power; but a threat that people will be encouraged to see the world in a different way; and not go back to their ordinary lives the very next day. It is a threat that the world will change; and when you hold the power, any change is a threat.

And yet, this parody of a king has no chance of saving the people from their oppressors militarily or politically… what foolishness is this?

It is God’s foolishness that the real source of power is not in military or political might, but in the hearts and minds and lives of real people. And it is because of this, that God enters our humanity, becoming one of us and walking every painstaking inch of human life—all the way to death; and not just any death—an horrific death as a traitor and blasphemer. For the stories we tell ourselves matter—it matters that God in whom we believe is a God of mercy, compassion and love. It matters that the God in whom we believe became mortal in order that we might be enfolded in of God. It matters that real rulers care about their people and false ones make false promises and feather their own nests. It matters that life is not about who has the biggest army or the best rhetorical style in order to persuade the people; but who is genuinely in keeping with the will of God.

So, King Jesus, General Jesus, High Priest Jesus, comes as a parody of the world’s rulers and powerful people; and the ordinary people join in the fun and shout: “Hosanna! Save us!”

But the biggest joke is this; that this parody of a king has more power to save us, than all the might of Rome and all the prestige of the temple leaders. This parody of a general has the best that can be offered—hope and peace and love.

So, what shall we do with this fool of a ruler, this general on a donkey? Shall we laugh with him, or laugh at him? Or perhaps we will stop and think that the world just could and might be different if everyone knew that this is the way that God enters our lives: as a foolish peasant riding on a donkey colt?

Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our God!