The Values of Jesus in Caesar’s Empire

Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid….”

When I realized that I would be preaching on the Sunday immediately following the national election, I thought to myself, O, Lord, what will I say? I wrote this sermon just before I left for my 10 day visit to the Living School symposium in New Mexico. But I had no idea of how difficult preaching it would be. And it is clear to me that the events of this week raise some fundamental questions about who we are as followers of Jesus.

So let us look at that.

 

A Stark Alternative to the Kingdom of Caesar

 

Jesus lived within the kingdom of Caesar. Such kingdoms, in all their forms including our own, will always be volatile. The power of a Caesar is always based in the use of coercive force. Its consummate values of power, privilege and status means that there will inevitably be a few winners and a lot of losers. Thus Caesars are always insecure, prompting behaviors that are designed to protect the power and the privilege of the beneficiaries of the empire, inevitably at the expense of its most vulnerable members. That is as true today in this empire we call America as it was in Jesus’ time.  

But Jesus articulated a different vision and called his followers to live into it. He called it the Kingdom of G-d. And it’s little wonder that the Caesar of his time felt compelled to respond to that vision by crucifying the one who articulated it.

The Kingdom of G-d offered a stark alternative to the kingdom of Caesar. In contrast with Caesar’s empire, with its tiers of power and status, Jesus’ Kingdom was based in a value of the good Creation that included everyone beginning with those at the bottom of the heap. Jesus’ kingdom was not based in power. It was based in the Hebrew notion of shalom, right relation of all the members of the kingdom. And we see that pattern in today’s lectionary.

 

The Example of the Poor Widow

 

Howard Lyon, “All That She Has”

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus reacts to a poor widow who offers her last pennies to the Temple as a means of meeting her obligations to the communal worship center. Jesus contrasts her humble piety to “the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!” Of course, in a kingdom based in power, privilege and status, scribes have every reason to strut around expecting admiration.

 

But Jesus points to the widow, who offers her last two pennies, no doubt believing that G-d would sustain her even in her abject poverty. And Jesus says to his disciples, “For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

 

The Values of the Way of Jesus

 This focus on the widow is consistent with the ethical values of Hebrew scripture. Jesus was highly selective in the Hebrew Scripture he relied upon. He was particularly prone to quote the prophet Isaiah, as he did in Luke’s telling of his reading of the scroll in the synagogue, and the Psalms such as the one we read this morning. Through that selective reading, Jesus laid out the values of what came to be known as the Way of Jesus. Today’s psalm articulates those values:

 

 

6. [The Lord] gives justice to those who are oppressed, *
and food to those who hunger.

7 The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; *
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;

8 The Lord loves the righteous;
the Lord cares for the stranger; *
he sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.

 

So what are the values to which Jesus points his followers? What attitudes and behaviors distinguished the Way of Jesus, which our retired Presiding Bishop called the Jesus Movement, from the attitudes and behaviors engaged by the Kingdom of Caesar?

 

The Way of Jesus insists upon justice for those who are oppressed. This is more than mere tolerance of social outcasts. It is embracing those whom our world would say have no value – like the widow in our Gospel lesson - and helping them to discover the image of G_d they bear. That justice making happens in our daily lives and it happens at the ballot box in determining social policy.

 

The Way of Jesus values feeding the hungry. That includes physical hunger in a world where there is more than enough for every human being to eat and thus starvation and malnutrition exist only as a result of self-focused human decision making. But it also includes the raw hunger of wounded souls seeking places to belong, hoping for affirmation of their very humanity.

 

 

The Way of Jesus seeks to set prisoners free, from those wrongfully accused of crimes to those imprisoned by inherited prejudices and fearfulness. The Jesus movement seeks to open the eyes of the blind including those blinded by crippling self-denigration, those who have trouble seeing their own value as human beings because of the blinders they have unwittingly internalized.

The Way of Jesus cares for the stranger, those wandering through life without people to know them, to learn from them, to love and be loved by them. And the Jesus movement begins with the most vulnerable members of our society, orphans and the widows and widowers. As liberation theologians taught us, the followers of Jesus are called to focus on the most vulnerable because these are the ones most in immediate need of our attention.

 

 

Finally, the Way of Jesus is called to confront ways of thinking, speaking and acting that harm other living beings and the good Creation itself. This is no small undertaking. It first requires us to become aware of our own Shadows, owning our own darkness even as we know there is no part of us that G-d does not love, and thus resisting the temptation to project our darkness onto others.

Clearly the values of Jesus’ Kingdom of G-d stand in stark contrast to those of any version of the Kingdom of Caesar including our own. As retired Presiding Bishop Michael Curry states in his book Crazy Christians, a Call to Follow Jesus:

“Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.” 

That should sound familiar to you. Our mission statement here at St. Richards is “to discover G-d’s grace, change our lives and change the whole world.” 

No small undertaking on a good day.

 

 

 

A Trust in G_d That Proves Existential

This is where the Hebrew Scripture lesson for today comes into the picture. The prophet Elijah has just appeared in I Kings where he confronts Ahab, king of the northern kingdom of Israel, because the king has rejected Yahweh and turned to the worship of Baal. When Elijah proclaims a drought will seize the kingdom, he becomes a wanted man. G_d tells Elijah to seek refuge with a widow in nearby Phoenicia.

 

Bernard Strozzi, Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Sarepta (1630s)

The widow and her son are starving. Elijah asks her to take the last of her remaining meal for bread and feed him. When the woman says she had planned to feed her son and herself and die, Elijah tells her not to be afraid, that G_d will provide enough meal for them to eat until the rains resume. To her credit, the widow trusts Elijah and his G-d and the supply of meal and olive oil continued for the duration of his stay with them. In the end, their willingness to trust G-d saved all three of them.

Like a prophet on the run from an insecure king’s wrath, like a widow and her young son slowly starving to death in isolation, and like the poor widow surrounded by privilege and status, depositing her last mites into the Temple treasury, it is very easy in the grips of fearful isolation to feel that one is alone in their suffering. And that brings us to the present day.

 

You Are Not Alone

 

 

We do not know where our country and our world are going in the wake of this election. It is hard for me to look down the road from last Tuesday and not believe that we could well be in for some very rough times. There are many people who are hurting in this country, no doubt, a number of them sitting here and watching by Zoom this morning. The pain is palpable. But, if you hear nothing else I have to say this morning, I hope you will come away with something I heard over and over at my Living School symposium:

 

You are not alone.

 

One of my Living School teachers, a sage of contemplative prayer, is Jim Finley. He is prone to say “God is the presence that spares us from nothing, even as God unexplainably sustains us in all things.” That’s a startling declaration. But he continues,

 

“God depends on us to protect ourselves and each other, to be nurturing, loving, protective people. When suffering is there, God depends on us to reach out and touch the suffering with love that it might dissolve in love.”  

If there was ever a time when we needed to hear that, I believe it is now. Such wisdom will be particularly important to us as we seek to live out Jesus’ call to be agents of his kingdom of G-d in this time of crisis. Our willingness to reach out and touch the suffering with love may well be the difference in the survival of many in a time of darkness.

 

But G-d is ever with us, even in the darkest hours. Especially in our darkest hours. May we be conscious of that divine presence this day and in the days to come. May we continue to be a healing presence for others in our times of suffering. And may we depart this place in peace this day knowing that while G-d spares us of nothing, G_d will sustain us in all things. We are not alone. Thanks be to G-d. AMEN.

 

“The Values of the Way of Jesus,” Proper 26 B, preached on November 10, 2024 at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL Images of natural landscape taken by author at Chaco Canyon Cultural Center October 28-28, 2024.

 

You may watch the delivery of this sermon at the link provided below starting at 24:30.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpXkDVik6jQ

 

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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, 2024

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Lessons from Gubbio

 

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 prayer upon entering and leaving a holy place)

In the years following the death of Francis of Assisi in 1226, a number of stories began to circulate surrounding the life of this charismatic and unorthodox saint, much like the stories that were told about Jesus that eventually were transcribed and would become our gospels. In the study of religion, accounts of great deeds and miracles often blossom after the death of figures now seen as saints, a practice called hagiography.

But unlike the accounts of most saints, which are often written in dense theological language, the stories about Francis were sweet accounts of his dealings with lepers and poor people, his time in nature preaching to birds and the long journeys he made on foot overland to mountaintop places of refuge. These stories, a cross between devotionals and fairy tales, were bound together in a single volume called The Little Flowers of St. Francis. And today I want to focus on one of those stories.

 

A Small Town in an Uproar

 

Gubbio is a small market town 33 miles north of Assisi. When Francis left behind his life of relative luxury in the home of his merchant father, he spent some time trying to discern what G-d was calling him to do. Living among the poor and lepers, he made his way to Gubbio where the townspeople were moved by his plight and gave him shelter.

 

But Gubbio was in an uproar when Francis arrived there. According to the story, 

 

 

“a large wolf appeared in the neighbourhood, so terrible and so fierce, that he not only devoured other animals, but made a prey of people as well; and since he often approached the town, all the people were in great alarm, and used to go about armed, as if going to battle. Notwithstanding these precautions, if any of the inhabitants ever met him alone, he was sure to be devoured, as all defense was useless: and, through fear of the wolf, they dared not go beyond the city walls.”

 

Colorado State University’s agricultural extension service website reports that

 

“[l]ike many large carnivores, wolves are generally afraid of humans and will avoid people, buildings, and roads if possible. The risk of wolves attacking or killing people is low.“ 

 

Wolves are pack animals so the fact this wolf was alone suggests he was lost or had been abandoned by his pack, perhaps because he was too old to keep up. A wolf who strays near a human village is probably hungry, looking for food. It’s unclear why his natural habitat no longer provided that but when animals are desperate, they do a lot of things they would not otherwise do. That includes us human animals. And no doubt the frightened responses from the inhabitants of Gubbio in turn terrified the starving wolf even more, making him appear, as the story suggests, “terrible and fierce.”

So here you have the scenario. A group of frightened people, who do not understand one they see as their enemy, and the wolf, the starving and terrified target of their fear. Both parties experiencing their encounter of the other in life or death terms.

 

An Unexpected Twist

But then something unexpected occurs. According to the story,

“St Francis, feeling great compassion for the people of Gubbio, resolved to go and meet the wolf, though all advised him not to do so. Making the sign of the holy cross, and putting all his confidence in God, he went forth from the city, taking his brethren with him; when they feared to go any further, St Francis continued on alone toward the spot where the wolf was known to be, while many people followed at a distance, and witnessed a miracle.”

 

The wolf, seeing all this multitude, ran towards St Francis with his jaws wide open. As he approached, Francis, making the sign of the cross, cried out: “Come hither, brother wolf; I command you, in the name of Christ, neither to harm me nor anybody else.”  And no sooner had St Francis made the sign of the cross, than the wolf closed his jaws, stopped running, and came up to St Francis, laying down at his feet.

What happened next is almost comical. Francis scolds the wolf like a child saying

“Brother wolf, you have done much evil in this land, destroying and killing the creatures of God without his permission; yea, not animals only have you destroyed, but you have even dared to devour men, made in the image of God; for which crime you are worthy of being hanged like a robber and a murderer. All men cry out against you, dogs pursue you, and all the inhabitants of this city are your enemies; but I will make peace between them and you, O brother wolf, if you offend them no more, and they shall forgive you all your past offences, and neither men nor dogs shall pursue you any more.”

 

At this point, Francis strikes a deal between the wolf and the townspeople. He says to the wolf, “I promise you that you will be fed every day by the inhabitants of this land so long as you live among them; you will no longer suffer hunger, as it is hunger which has made you do so much evil; but if I obtain all this for you, you must promise, on your side, never again to attack any animal or any human being. Are you willing to make this promise?” At that point the wolf indicated his assent by placing his paw in the outstretched hand of Francis. And thereafter, the two became inseparable.

 

Context and Compassion

It’s important to note a couple of aspects of this story. First, Francis recognizes that this conflict has arisen in a context. The wolf isn’t evil. He didn’t just get up one morning and decide to harm this town. He was starving and his initial attempts to gain food had provoked attacks by the townspeople, terrifying him. On the other hand, the townspeople had no way of knowing this. They simply saw a dangerous beast.

Second, as was often the case, Francis acted in a manner that was contrary to social convention and common sense out of compassion for the frightened townspeople. His actions indicate he also has compassion for the wolf whom he addresses as brother. He recognizes that this, too, is a creature bearing the divine image that has not been respected.

So what might our world look like if we took this miraculous tale seriously. What if we actually considered conflicts in context, recognizing there are never any totally good guys, even us, perhaps especially us, and that no one is simply evil? What if we took seriously existential concerns like starvation and fears of attacks that drive so many destructive behaviors? What if our willingness to engage those we so readily presume to be the enemy was driven by compassion rather than fear, anger and the desire for revenge?

What if we recognized the futility of the notion that we can pound the peace out of others through lethal force? What might events in Gaza and Ukraine look like if they were engaged in context and compassion? Indeed, what might the electoral politics of our own country look like if we were able to see our fellow Americans in the light of their legitimate existential concerns? From what is essentially a fairy tale, I believe we would do well to consider the wisdom Francis of Assisi has to offer us this day.

 

A Valued Lesson, A Grateful Town

 

The story concludes like this:

The wolf lived two more years at Gubbio; he went familiarly from door to door without harming anyone, and all the people received him courteously, feeding him with great pleasure, and no dog barked at him as he went about. At last, he died of old age, and the people of Gubbio mourned his loss greatly…”

In downtown Gubbio, the visitor can find San Francesco della Pace, St. Francis’ Church of the Peace. The church was built in the 1600s above a cave containing a stone crypt such as those which house the remains of saints which is often the custom in European churches.

 

In 1872, during renovations following an earthquake, workmen did discover the bones of a saint there. But these bones were not human. They were canine. According to local custom, this was where the Wolf of Gubbio had been given an honorable burial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the edge of today’s Gubbio is a park adjacent to a small parish church, Santa Maria della Vittorina, the church of the small victory. It is built on the site of the fateful encounter between Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio. Today a resident Franciscan brother tends the parish, feeding the feral cats who live in the park. Among the beautiful murals inside is a large bronze sculpture of a wolf.

 

Eight hundred years later the townspeople of Gubbio, who learned a valuable lesson from an unexpected engagement with one they saw as the enemy, still remember this encounter between a fierce wolf and a humble saint and continue to display their gratitude. Today, I pray we may be willing to learn that same lesson in our own time. AMEN.

Pace e Bene, Peace and All Good Things. (traditional Franciscan greeting)

A sermon preached at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL Sunday, October 6, 2024, the Feast of St. Francis (transposed) and the Blessing of the Animals. You may watch the sermon as it was offered at this Youtube link starting at 18:15 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTFtGZOZldA

Harry Coverston has been a professed member of the Third Order, Society Saint Francis since 1991. All images taken by Harry on the TSSF Pilgrimage to Assisi, April 2024.

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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, 2024

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