St. Francis of Assisi – Katharine Armentrout
“But God said to him: ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God?’” Luke 12:20-21
I imagine that St. Francis, or as he was known as a young man, Francesco, had those words of our Gospel in his head as he tore off his rich silk clothes and ran naked through the town of Assisi.
He was determined to leave the world of wealth and power he had been born into and to take up his life, following the teachings of Jesus, always asking himself: What would Jesus do?
Because one thing we know about Francis – he always asked that question that was so popular in our 1990s: ”WWJD” What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do?
As a young man Francis had long felt a call to follow Jesus. He had entered the army, convinced that he was called to serve God in that way.
Unfortunately, he was captured, imprisoned and became very ill. He father, a wealthy merchant, ransomed him and brought him home.
After recovering from his illness Francis decided to follow Jesus by devoting himself to serving the poor and tending to their needs, as Jesus had done.
One day, he entered a tiny, ruined chapel for a prayer time. There was a crucifix still on the wall. As he knelt in prayer, he looked up to the crucifix, and a voice came to him saying “Francis, rebuild my church”.
He took those words literally. He began to gather the materials to rebuild the chapel. He even sold some fine cloth from his father’s business, and his own horse, to raise the money for those materials.
His father was furious, thinking of that as theft and he was distressed that Francis had no interest in the business or the many possessions of their family.
That was the breaking point for Francis who saw the money made from the sale of the cloth as resources for God.
In a public confrontation with his father before their bishop, Francis rejected his father’s way of a rich life, tore off his clothes, and literally ran naked through the town –
a very vivid declaration of commitment to a life dedicated to following Jesus.
From that point on he took on a life of poverty and patterned his life on the teachings of Jesus.
In Jesus’ time lepers were outcasts – literally forced to live outside town walls so that they would not infect others. But we know, from Luke 17, that Jesus spoke with lepers and cured them.
By the time of Francis’ life, leprosy was still prevalent. Most people shied away from any contact, let alone feeding, bathing and comforting them. Not Francis. He began his ministry of following Jesus by helping the lepers in Assisi.
Jesus, in Luke 14, says not to invite your rich friends to a banquet but to invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.
So…Francis did just that…eating and serving those on the margins, forgoing his connections to the wealthy citizens of Assisi.
Jesus, in Luke 6, in a startling statement says, “If someone takes your coat, give him your shirt too.”
Well, someone grabbed a hood from one of Francis’ followers and that man ran after the thief to offer him his robe. Just an illustration of how thoroughly Francis, and his fellow friars, asked the question “WWJD.”
Jesus, in Matthew 10, tells his disciples, “As you go, proclaim the Good News. The Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near…Cure the sick, cleanse the lepers…Do not take any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts, no bag for your journey.”
So Francis and his faithful traveled widely, often barefoot, in plain robes, with no gold, no silver, no copper. Without any provisions.
They preached with love the Good News and tended the sick, the blind, the outcast. They slept in churches and depended on the goodness of others for their food.
In every way throughout his ministry, Francis asked “What Would Jesus Do?” and then he tried to follow that way:
Perhaps the most radical aspect of Francis’ ministry, one that literally changed the thinking in Medieval world and our world,
was his deep, profound reverence and love for God’s creation and all that is in it – a reverence and love which he learned from the Gospels.
We are here today with our dogs, cats and other creatures that God loves in honor of that aspect of St. Francis’ teaching
Partly we have that appreciation for God’s natural world thanks to St. Francis. With a few exceptions, from the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD to the time of Francis, the church was teaching that “anything that was not God – or otherworldly – was evil”.
This included the natural world around us…which was seen as a distraction and a temptation that lured souls off the path of righteousness and salvation. No deep love for the beauty of the God’s world
In contrast Francis saw the natural world as a reflection of the goodness of God. He absorbed this from the teachings of Jesus.
Mustard seeds, lilies, grains of sand, fig trees, and sparrows.
Wheat fields, the waters of the lakes, and a wonderful barbecue on the beach in the Gospel of John.
Jesus taught that all of these, in keeping with the established Jewish tradition, were a manifestation of the goodness of God’s world.
And Francis focused on that teaching, telling us that creation was an expression of God’s love and goodness. He taught that the natural world holds God’s imprint, and therefore the experience of the physical world can open us to a spiritual dimension.
His love of animals and care for them as God’s creatures has created this festive time today – for the blessing of animals. Remember – he talked to them too, so that those of us who talk to our animals should not consider ourselves crazy.
I think many of us who are privileged to live up here and see the beauty of a sunset over our ridges, the dogwoods in bloom in our woods, the explosion of beauty in our world, see these things as an expression of God’s love for creation and see God’s beautiful imprint in our world.
We can thank Francis for listening closely to the love Jesus had for our world and for opening the eyes of the world to God’s wondrous creation.
As a measure of how Francis is seen as the pre-eminent teacher and lover of natural world, Pope John Paul II declared Francis the Patron Saint of Ecology in 1979. His teaching of the sacredness of our world undergirds our efforts to preserve our creation from climate change. And we are thankful that Francis led the way.
The legacy of Francis continues to this day. He was granted permission to form a new religious order, which we know as the Franciscans.
The Pope was reluctant at first to grant the request, fearing the radical poverty of those who followed Francis would cast a bad light on the papacy and other religious orders who lived, at times, rather extravagantly.
But the pope changed his mind after he had a dream in which he saw Francis holding up a crumbling but important church in Rome.
The pope came to believe that Francis and his monks would help reinvigorate the faith of the people and the churches.(which, by the way, he did) and the pope granted Francis request to form a religious order.
The Franciscans are now familiar to us as the religious order that wears the very plain brown robes, ties them with a rope and wears sandals, living a life of deep simplicity. This order, which Francis began in 1209, is now the largest religious order in the Catholic Church.
And Franciscans daily ask, in their way, WWJD as they serve the poor in cities all over the world, teach in schools, work for social justice and care for our creation.
Now lest this story of Francis and all his different ways of serving our Lord leave you a bit overwhelmed – all the different ways he served, trying to make life better for people and the created world,
lest it leaves you wondering how on earth you can continue in some way the work of St. Francis
I am reminded of the Order of the Daughters of the King, a group of women here and in many Episcopal churches, which is devoted to daily prayer and service. They have a wonderful rule of life which includes an important perspective:
“I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?”.
They ask: “I am but one, Lord. What will you have me do?”
That may be just another way of asking WWJD. “What would Jesus do?”. What would Jesus do…one thing at a time. Amen