Bible connection

For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment. — 1 Corinthians 4:7-13 NIV

All about Basil, Fool for Christ (1468-1552/1557)

Basil is known as Vasily the Blessed, or Vasily, Fool for Christ, or Vasily, Wonderworker of Moscow, or Blessed Vasily of Moscow, Fool for Christ. He is one of the best known Russian Orthodox saints of the type known as a yurodivy or “holy fool.” He is so well known that one of the most iconic buildings in Moscow, near the Kremlin, was renamed in his honor.

Basil was born into a family of serfs in December 1468 in a village which is now a neighborhood in Moscow. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker and soon showed his unique calling. For instance, when a merchant ordered special boots but could not wait for them to be finished, he told the shoemaker he would get them when he returned the following year. Basil wept and said, “I wish you would cancel the order, since you will never wear them.” When his perplexed master questioned him, he explained that the man would not wear the boots because he as he would soon die. After several days the prediction proved true.

Basil adopted the eccentric lifestyle of other holy men who were known as fools for Christ. The role of “holy fool” is especially honored in the Russian Orthodox Church. Dostoevsky includes characters who are “holy fools,” Lizaveta and Sonya (the heroine), in Crime and Punishment. Tolstoy tells about Grisha, the holy fool who came onto his parents’ estate in his memoir. Francis of Assisi is a notable Roman Catholic example of a person who thought being a fool for Christ was his calling. While there is great variety among them, holy fools in every case are ascetic Christians living well outside the borders of ordinary social behavior, including conventional religious behavior. In many countries they might be locked away in asylums or simply ignored until the elements silence them, after which they would be thrown into unmarked graves.

Basil was known for walking through the streets of Moscow barefoot (in the cleaned up version of the story) or naked in the burning summer heat and the harsh winter cold. His actions were often strange. For instance, the story goes, one time he overturned a kalachi (sweetbread) stand, and another time he spilled a jug of kvas (near beer). The angry merchants beat him, but he endured the beatings with joy and he thanked God for them. Then, it was discovered that the kalachi were poorly cooked, and the kvas was badly prepared. Soon, his reputation grew, and people saw him as a holy fool, not just a fool, as a man of God, and a denouncer of wrong.

Basil preached mercy. He helped those who were ashamed to beg, but who were the most in need. He harshly condemned those who did not give alms for love but thought they could use the action to buy God’s blessings on their business. Basil passed by a house in people were drinking and wild and he wept and hugged the corner of the building. When Basil was asked why he answered: “Angels stand in sorrow at the house and are distressed by the sins of the people, but I entreat them with tears to pray to the Lord for the conversion of sinners.”

It is said that Basil could foresee the future. In 1547, he predicted the great fire of Moscow. It is said he extinguished a fire at Novgorod by prayer. Once he reproached Tsar Ivan the Terrible, because during worship he was preoccupied with thoughts of building a palace on the Vorobiev hills. Another time, Basil gave Tsar Ivan some meat during Lent, telling him it did not matter whether or not he fasted from eating meat, because of the murders he had committed.

Basil was so revered by Muscovites that, when he died, his thin body was buried, not in a pauper’s grave on the city’s edge, but next to the newly erected Cathedral of the Protection of the Mother of God. Tsar Ivan himself acted as pallbearer and carried his coffin to the cemetery. From that time people began calling the church St. Basil’s, because to go there meant one would pause to pray at Basil’s grave. Not many years passed before Basil was formally canonized. A chapel built over his grave became an integral part of the great building, adding one more onion dome to the eight already there.

More

History of St. Basil’s Cathedral [Wiki]

“The Way of the Holy Fools” by Jim Forest.

“Jesus the Holy Fool” by Hans Boersma.

Would you like to see the architectrure of the iconic church?

What do we do with this?

Paul sounds a bit irate when his detractors mock his foolishness for Christ. Jesus seems innocent, as if being a fool were normal and being normal were foolish. Basil seems like he can’t help himself because he is just not normal. What is unique about you that the world needs to see? What will it cost you to show it and what difference does it make if it costs you?