A sermon preached at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church,
Winter Park, Florida on the celebration of the Feast of St. Francis, Sept. 30,
2012.
Both here and in all your
churches throughout the world. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, for by
your holy cross you have redeemed the world. AMEN. (Franciscan Prayer Upon Entering A Church)
An Improbable Life
Today we celebrate the feast day of one of the most beloved
saints in the Christian tradition. Francis of Assisi is the second most popular
saint in Christendom after the Virgin Mary. Statues of Francis adorn the
churchyards of many parishes including this one. And many homes, like my own,
feature one or more versions of St. Francis in their gardens.
There are a number of reasons that Francis is so beloved. He
led a highly improbable life that began in wealth and ended in poverty, a life
of partying and hell-raising which earned him the title “the prince of fools”
in his youth but which was spent serving the destitute and attending the dying
lepers in his adulthood.
By the end of his life, Francis had drawn to him three orders
of Franciscans. The First Order was composed of men like himself who called
themselves friars, living together in community and serving the world around
them. A Second Order composed of women formed around the leadership of St.
Claire. These women lived lives of contemplative prayer and devotion within
enclosed communities called convents. Both First and Second Order Franciscans
agreed to lives which left behind all worldly possessions, all personal
relationships and the right to make one’s own decisions about virtually every
aspect of life – poverty, chastity and obedience.
But such a rule proved difficult for many Christians who
found Francis’ way of following Jesus appealing but simply could not leave
behind families to go live in community. And so Francis formed a Third Order of
Franciscans, people who remained in their own homes and communities but agreed
to follow a rule of life which bore the Franciscan marks of simplicity of
lifestyle, holiness of relationships and devotion to the Third Order.
Twenty years ago in the
city named for Saint Francis, San Francisco, I was professed as a member of the
Anglican Third Order of the Society of St. Francis. And so it is a joy to be
able to tell you this day about this saint whose way of following Jesus changed
my life forever.
God’s Goodness Everywhere
He Looked
Today’s psalm points to one of the major ways that Franciscan
thought has impacted the Christian tradition. It is a litany of praise that
includes everything from wild animals, creeping things and
flying birds to mountains and hills, the
depths of the sea and even the “stormy wind fulfilling his command.” Unlike the
medieval church which saw the world as a place of evil and sin lurking in the
shadows, everywhere Francis looked he saw the beauty - and thus the goodness - of
G-d in all of creation.
It is not
surprising that Francis has long been seen as the patron saint of the woodland
animals and of animal lovers generally. Francis was known to preach to the
birds and to tame ferocious wolves. As we gather this day to bless the animals
whose lives are a blessing to our own lives, living evidence of the generosity
of a gracious G-d, we participate in a very Franciscan act. Look around you at
the beauty of all these animals! Listen to the beautiful hymn to creation they
are singing this morning. What a glorious hymn!
I also invite you to take one second to think back over your
lifespan to all the animals who have
shared your life and consider the enormous debt we owe to them for all they have
given to us. And now think of how much G-d loves the creation to bless us with
such beauty, such love and such devotion. The sheer generosity of G-d is
humbling indeed.
It would be easy to
end a sermon on such an idyllic note. But there is more to Francis of Assisi than
that. While it is tempting to cement Francis into place in our bird baths and
our gardens, this is a saint who calls us to lives of careful consideration of
our own relationship to the creation and its Creator.
Francis was clear
that the belief that most human beings have held throughout history - that the
human animal is the most important animal in the creation - is ultimately little
more than the deadly sin of pride at work.
In the philosophy department where I work at UCF, we give it a fancy
name: anthropocentrism, human beings who see themselves at the center of the
universe.
Ironically, what we are able to recognize today is that Francis
was onto something 900 years ago when he sought to remind us that while we are
an important part of G-d’s creation, we are, in the end, only one part. The
practice of anthropocentrism has had an enormously harsh impact on G-d’s good
creation. The human animal has been responsible for the extinction of many of
its fellow animals. Indeed, today the carelessness and self-focus of the human
animal threatens to make the good creation itself uninhabitable as the effects
of climate change increasingly begin to make themselves known.
Francis of Assisi asks us this day to consider our relationship
to this good earth, our island home. Ask yourself: Do I show my gratitude to
the animals in my life for their companionship and devotion? Does my life honor G-d by preserving the good
creation? Do my choices respect the goodness of all created life or do they
fall into the trap of anthropocentrism?
The Distressing Disguise of Poverty
A second aspect of the Franciscan way is reflected in today’s Hebrew
Scripture lesson. The prophet Jeremiah says the following:
“Woe to him who builds his house by
unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbours
work for nothing, and does not give them their wages…. [To take up] the cause of the poor
and needy…Is not this to know me?”
The turning point of Francis’ life occurred when he
encountered a leper one day outside the walls of Assisi. Francis struggled with his own revulsion as
he looked at the leper, his skin rotting away, his fingers barely able to hold
the beggar’s bowl which was all that stood between him and starvation.
Francis
got down from his horse. Summoning up every bit of courage he had, Francis
embraced the leper, kissing the dying skin of his face and wiping his sores
with his own garment. For Francis, it was a break through. He would later write
that in the moment, Francis was able to see the image of G-d hiding behind the
distressing disguise of poverty, disease and social rejection. And thereafter,
Francis began a life of serving the poor and the lepers, a ministry he saw as
nothing more than what G-d expected of any follower of Jesus. This he did at no
small expense to himself. The chances are that his eventual blindness as well
as the famed stigmata which appeared on his hands and feet may well have been
the result of his contact with the lepers he served.
Francis’
life and example present those of us who would follow Jesus with a number of
questions. Ask yourself: On whose faces do I have the most difficulty seeing
and honoring the image of G-d? When I see homeless people, do I connect with their
humanity or do I pass immediately into judgment, blaming them for their own
misery? And, with an election approaching, will my vote be cast in a manner
that insures that workers are paid a fair wage and that the concerns of the
poor and the needy are met?
Finally, our Gospel reading analogizes the following of Jesus
to taking on a yoke, the wooden block that allowed oxen to be steered in order
to plow the fields. Jesus tells us his yoke is easy, its burden light. The way
of Jesus was not about getting one’s beliefs right, a very modern way of seeing
religion. Rather, it was about how one lived, a way of being the people of G-d.
Use Words (Only) When
Necessary
Francis sought to live out the Gospel quite literally. When a talking
crucifix at an abandoned chapel in San Damiano told him he should “rebuild my
church,” Francis went out and began collecting stones. For Francis, believing
was not enough. A faith that centered only on beliefs and ritual, focused on
the life hereafter while ignoring the here and now, missed the point. Francis
was prone to say “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words (only) when
necessary.” For Francis, a faith worth living was always incarnational, it was
a lived faith, a faith evidenced in practice.
In keeping with that vision of incarnational faith, I would
remind us that our church is in Francis’ debt for two of its most cherished services.
Francis was concerned that the poor - who were inevitably illiterate – would be
excluded from the good news of Jesus. And so his friars created the living
nativity scene at Christmas and the Stations of the Cross during Lent. As a
result, the Gospels literally came alive. And we are all the better for it.
Francis leaves us with an important question: If our lives
are the only gospels other people will ever read, what would they say? Would
our lives evidence the good news of G-d’s love for all of creation? Would our
gratitude for G-d’s generosity, our ability to see the image of G-d on all
human faces and our respect for G-d’s good creation prompt others to ask, “What
is it you know that I don’t?”
Let us pray:
Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, grant your
people grace gladly to renounce the vanities of this world; that, following the
way of blessed Francis, we may for love of you delight in your whole creation
with perfect joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. AMEN.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar
(inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church
(Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities,
Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central
Florida, Orlando
If the
unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it
religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to
production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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