For centuries, the Feast of Fools has been condemned and occasionally celebrated as a disorderly, even transgressive Christian festival, in which reveling clergy elected a burlesque Lord of Misrule, presided over the divine office wearing animal masks or women’s clothes, sang obscene songs, swung censers that gave off foul-smelling smoke, played dice at the altar, and otherwise parodied the liturgy of the church. Afterward, they would take to the streets, howling, issuing mock indulgences, hurling manure at bystanders, and staging scurrilous plays. The problem with this popular account—intriguing as it may be—is that it is wrong. In Sacred Folly, Max Harris rewrites the history of the Feast of Fools, showing that it developed in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as an elaborate and orderly liturgy for the day of the Circumcision (1 January)—serving as a dignified alternative to rowdy secular New Year festivities. The intent of the feast was not mockery but thanksgiving for the incarnation of Christ. Prescribed role reversals, in which the lower clergy presided over divine office, recalled Mary’s joyous affirmation that God "has put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble." The "fools" represented those chosen by God for their lowly status. The feast, never widespread, was largely confined to cathedrals and collegiate churches in northern France. In the fifteenth century, high-ranking clergy who relied on rumor rather than firsthand knowledge attacked and eventually suppressed the feast. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historians repeatedly misread records of the feast; their erroneous accounts formed a shaky foundation for subsequent understanding of the medieval ritual. By returning to the primary documents, Harris reconstructs a Feast of Fools that is all the more remarkable for being sanctified rather than sacrilegious.

The real history and meaning of the Feast of Fools—usually misunderstood as a sacrilegious festival.

Richly written, Jesus the Holy Fool combines diverse images from religious traditions, world literature, Jungian archetype, and Scripture. Weaving the best theology and spirituality, Jesus the Holy Fool is a fresh and inviting Christology. The Scriptures tell us that religious leaders thought Jesus was "possessed," and his own family thought he was "crazy." In his open table fellowship, choice of followers, radical passion, and his death and resurrection, Jesus was willing to appear as a fool for the sake of God's reign. His teachings--especially the parables, paradoxes, and the beatitudes--advocate a way of life that is grounded in Holy Foolishness. Through an archetypal examination of the fool motif as it applies to Jesus in the Gospels, Jesus the Holy Fool develops the connections between holiness and folly. Offering new insights into Christology and exploring its practical pastoral ramifications, Jesus the Holy Fool presents Holy Foolishness as a paradigm for the Christian journey and as a new model of what it means for us to be church.