Francis of Assisi: G-d’s Holy Fool

Both here and in all your churches throughout the whole world. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because [+] by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. AMEN.

 

Franciscan to the Bone

 

This morning we celebrate the feast day of Francis of Assisi. I began my sermon with a prayer that we Franciscans recite upon entering and leaving a church. And I greet you this morning in the words that all Franciscans use: Pax et Bonum, Peace and All Good.

 

Francis of Assisi is the second most beloved saint within our western Christian tradition behind Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The Franciscan movement has had a major impact on western Christianity since it arose in the early 13^th CE in southern Europe. The patron saint of this parish, Richard of Chichester, evidenced a love of nature and concern for the poor that has frequently drawn comparisons to St. Francis. Not surprisingly, our parish has long had a very strong connection with the Franciscan movement. Two of us here are third order Franciscans and we have a third who is in the inquirer stage of possible profession into the order. Our local San Damiano Fellowship periodically meets at our parish and each year St. Richards celebrates the Feast of St. Francis complete with a blessing of the animals.

I tell people St. Richard’s is Franciscan to the bone.

The Magnetic Figure of Francis

So what is it about Francis, Clare and the movement they engendered that draws people to them? What’s so unusual about Franciscanism?

Let’s begin with Francis himself. A spoiled rich kid, Francis was often called the Prince of Fools in his hometown, a man prone to heavy drinking and impromptu troubadour performances. He was being groomed to take over his Father’s profitable cloth business when he signed up to go to war with Perugia, the city state north of Assisi, prancing off to war in a brand new suit of armor complete with plumage on a beautiful horse dressed for war.

But Francis would not return home in glory. He was captured in battle and imprisoned in Perugia until his Father came up with the ransom. While there he became depressed and lifeless. Once released he began to seek consolation for a troubled soul  on long walks in the Assisi countryside. One can imagine Francis praying the psalm appointed for this day: “I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?” But, before long, Francis would begin to find his answer there as well: “My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth…. The Lord himself watches over you…”

 

 This was the beginning of a long period of conversion of Francis of Assisi. Francis came to see that everywhere he looked, the goodness of the Creation revealed the G-d who created it. Our Hebrew Scripture lesson from Job reflects this, referencing G-d’s care for the goats, the deer, the wild ass, the wild ox, even the ostrich. This was what Francis had come to realize: Everywhere we look, the image of G-d stares back at us. We are all in the care of the G-d who created us and who loves all of this very good Creation. Thus it is possible to trust G-d with our very lives and our souls.

 

Unexpected Encounters of Conversion

Slowly but surely Assisi’s Prince of Fools was becoming G-d’s Holy Fool. But that conversion process would take a major leap on the afternoon he encountered the leper. As he was riding his horse outside the city walls of Assisi one day, Francis heard the dreaded sound of a bell, the sound that lepers were required to make when people approached, designed to warn outsiders to avoid them at all costs.

But Francis felt something deep inside his soul that day. If the image of G-d could be seen in all of the natural world around him, why would that be any different for these lepers? Where was the image of G_d on their faces that hid behind what Mother Teresa has called the distressing disguises of poverty and illness? 

So he approached the leper, got down off his horse, braced himself for the stench of rotting flesh and filthy clothing and embraced the leper. Francis reports tears running down both his face and the leper’s. And he knew his entire life had changed at that moment.

The final step in his conversion would be an event which occurred in a ruined church called San Damiano just below the city gates. The abandoned chapel was quiet as Francis entered it to pray. A crucifix in the Byzantine tradition dangled from a single chain. Suddenly he heard the crucifix speaking to him: Francis, go repair my church, it is falling into ruin. And Francis, being the immediate sort of person he was, left the church, and began collecting stones.     

But it was the larger Church of which the cross was speaking. Rocked by scandals, deadly crusades and the persecution of those deemed heretics, the western church badly needed the breath of fresh air that Francis would provide. And others quickly recognized that. A band of Friars Minor, little brothers, would quickly be drawn to this new movement, and a group of women would form around St. Clare as well.  

Clearly there was something magnetic about this radical new way of following Jesus. So what was it that drew people to them? And what is that draws us today?

An Alternative Orthodoxy

First, the example of Francis speaks to us. Everyone has the capacity to change, to grow, to develop evermore into the likeness of G-d. His life rejects our reductionist tendencies to define human beings by their worst characteristics. Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame often remarks about the inmates on Louisiana’s Death Row among whom she ministers that “Everyone is more than the worst thing they ever did.”

 

That would be true of all of us and thank G-d for that.

Moreover, Franciscan theology does not begin with constructs of human sinfulness. It begins with the image of G-d we all bear and G-d’s love for the creation in all of its imperfections. This is a much more positive theology than the sin-driven models of Augustine and his heirs which too often have presumed themselves to be the only orthodoxy.

The alternative orthodoxy articulated by Franciscan thinkers asserts that human sin did not pry Jesus out of G-d. The incarnation was always G-d’s plan from the beginning. Jesus came out of G-d’s love for the Creation. Reducing Jesus to merely a remedy for original sin is not only profoundly mistaken, it fails to focus on the Way of Jesus that, as Francis found, changes lives and can change the whole world. As my Franciscan professor in seminary, William Short, puts it, “God doesn't build a Taj Mahal to cover a pothole.”

A third aspect that draws us to Francis and his heritage is that it focuses on the good creation. It recognizes that everything that exists lies within the G-d who is the ground of Being. From our birth our connection to our Creator is inseverable. Franciscans reject the presumption that we have ever been separate from the G-d who created us, in whom we exist and to whom our souls return. Thus we are never separate from those we would see as others or from the natural world around us. 

And we recognize that delusions of separation are the beginning place for pathologies ranging from culture wars to nuclear wars inevitably rooted in notions of us and them.    

 

 

 

Wisdom from Those We Least Expect It

Finally, the focus on the Little Ones who bear the wisdom we all badly need is part and parcel of the Franciscan ethos. In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us that G-d has hidden wisdom from the intelligent ones and revealed it to the lowly ones, the untutored ones, those of humble hearts, those we presume have nothing of value to say. And that is one of the things that draws people to a Franciscan devotion. It recognizes that wisdom is not limited to the well to do or the well-educated, it often comes from those from whom we least expect it.

As I opened one of my versions of scripture to prepare this sermon a birthday card from Andy Engbert fell out. His cremains were just interred on the east side of our memorial garden in this place he loved. This was a parish where this man whose life was stunted by fetal alcohol syndrome became the teacher of many of us including this man with three graduate degrees. 

And out beyond the walls of that garden is a hallowed space in which the remains of our beloved pets rest in peace, placed there by the human animals who learned lessons from them in patience, devotion, and the value of companionship. Think of how fortunate we all are to have these unexpected teachers.

 

So this day when we celebrate the Franciscan tradition and bless our beloved pets, let us offer each other the peace in Franciscan style, bidding your neighbor, “Peace and All Good.” It would sure do this Franciscan heart good.

Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, grant your people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world; that, following the way of blessed Francis, we may, for love of you, delight in your whole creation with perfectness of joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.      

 

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Harry Scott Coverston 

   Orlando, Florida

 frharry@cfl.rr.com

 hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

  If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

  Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

  For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

  Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

  © Harry Coverston, 2022

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