Proper 22: The Life and Teaching of St. Francis
I’m Alexei Laushkin a member here. Let’s pray together father as we turn to the living Saints, especially the life of Saint Francis in our time this morning. Speak to us as you once spoke to him working us as you once worked in him the name of the father‘s son and the Holy Spirit. today I get a chance to graciously talk about something that I know a little bit about but you also when you feel like you, you love something and you know something you always feel like there’s more to know and so in preparing for this time to talk about the life of Saint Francis for whom feast day is today, October 4 800 years ago today actually yesterday he passed and so we are in the life of Saint Francis and if you like me and you have a saint or someone that you admire maybe admire a famous Preacher whenever you speak about them it fills you with a bit of holding trepidation.
I come this morning with that feeling because I think I could probably talk to you a half day about Saint Francis and yet I won’t do that to you. It’s a homily and so I wanna give you some sense of his life and his ministry and his passion and also related to the scripture but I want to start with a very basic question. how many of you know about the life in Saint Francis keep just raise your hand if you know about it OK so do you some man if you don’t know who Saint Francis. I could see it from here so if you’re like me when I first visited a Assisi, which I visited now about a half dozen times a little bit more than a half dozen I had thought of Saint Francis is the same for animals, right maybe he was the saint for those who didn’t like war I didn’t realize that beneath these kind of more remarkable legends and ministries and living witness accounts was the life of a saint, who is very passionate about God, was very passionate about Christ, who believed in the church primarily, as the means for which the Lord would change the world and so I’m not gonna be talking to you about Saint Francis the animal lover, though I do enjoy that part of Saint Francis‘s life.
I’m gonna talk to you about three parts of his story one brokenness with his parents that you may not know about the nativity story for which we get a lot of the nativity tradition comes from Saint Francis and finally his love for the poor and the lost. Those are the three things that we’re gonna cover so Frances was born actually named for his by his mom Giovanni. He was born John. His father was a merchant man merchant men in an era that was very stratified Italy. What now is Italy was not a united nation it was a several different kingdoms, and the paper itself had kingdoms. I’m not gonna go into that, but it was not a one nation it was several different types of cities.
His father was a wealthy cloth merchant, and when he, his mother was from France when he came back and realized that the sun was born, so the father would go off. He was a businessman who would travel for months at a time, and he came back, and the so was born, had already been baptized. He was not happy and so he changed his name to little little Frenchie that’s what Frances is Francesco little Frenchie after his wife Saint Francis was a in his early years.
St. Francis was a fairly passionate fellow so you can imagine someone who he could. His father could afford all the clothes that he ever needed. He liked going out to parties he liked going out and having adventures he was eager to please his father into seek for himself what he thought would be the best thing in life ever which was to become a Knight to essentially live a glorious life and you think about this, they were not nobility. They were merchant men and women and so part of the seeking is that if you became a Knight as someone who has ancestry in kind of the Russian tradition in the Russian empire, if he became a knight or if he did something glorious on behalf of the king that’s how you got your Harold Reed that’s how you got your nobility. At least the chance was there so Frances was really thinking about his family and had to advanced his father‘s Interest at the time if you’ve ever visited have any of you been to a Assisi before OK so some of you have so I can speak a little bit about this but if you’re in a Assis, you look across the way you’ll see Perugia. She has just a neighboring town. It’s the distance between like Alexandria and Fairfax. Maybe it’s not that far like if you took the outer borders, you could walk there this is my point. You can walk there and what it happened was the merchants of a Assisi rebelled against the aristocracy and kicked them out burned their lands. It’s it’s not a pretty time in world history it. None of this is like pleasant stuff as the nobility fled over to Perugia and Frances following his father‘s wishes, joined the Armed Forces of the Assisi in the battle he’s captured and said in prison for a year this begins the transition of his life.
It takes about four years from the time that he is in prison to the point where he has what I would describe a living encounter with Christ. He’s in prison for a year. He’s very sick. His father finds out about it, and as things are cooling off between Perugia and the Assisi, his father pays a ransom. He comes back to a Assisi and get sick for like 8-10 months very ill if any of you’ve had brokenness with your family if any of you have had life tragedy if any of you had long illness like I have had in my childhood Saint Francis can relate to that experience. I just want you to hold onto that for a moment as we go through these next pieces of his story in the process of recovering at about year three he decides I’m gonna go join the Armed Forces again, so he’s still very much following his father‘s wishes. It’s on the way to reenlist that the Lord convict him that this is not the way he should live then the process kind of gets a little challenging. He has a vision that he is supposed to rebuild God‘s church and like most useful people or if you know people administration when they start out, he takes it very literally and he believes it is a specific church that he is supposed to rebuild that is in ruins. This is the crisis San Diamiano, what does he do in order to do this?
Well he starts selling his father stuff to pay for the rebuild hence the conflict friends when we follow the life of Christ the Saints teach us including Saint Francis but also the church fathers and mothers that there will come a point where you will need to choose between Christ Parents or the thing that you love most this is part of the teachings of Jesus and Saint Francis had that moment his father is so enraged. He goes to the Bishop who at the time in this era of bishops kind of settled disputes. They had a slightly magisterial function in terms of magistrate that wasn’t their total role, but that was one of the roles so he goes to the Bishop of the Tang and says look at this scoundrel of a son that I have he is selling. He’s stealing from me stealing from me. Imagine if you’ve ever had a conflicted with a loved one and they’re screaming at you in public. This is what Saint Francis is dealing with the Bishop turns to Frances and says you know the scripture says that shall not steal. This isn’t right what you’re doing Frances takes off all his clothes except for an undergarment so if you see a film, he’s not total anyways there’s an undergarment on that that’s all I need to say in the morning near the altar and the Bishop is so moved a Bishop who wasn’t necessarily the anyways he’s so moved. He puts on imagine what Father Morgan‘s wearing except more grand. he puts that on Saint Francis to cover him and Frances in a low voice and I think he regrets this says the only father I have is in heaven into what’s happening in the medieval time. That we’re discussing as they’re announcing each other publicly a wound that Frances could never heal. There is no recorded restoration between Frances and his parents so this is a saint who knows the brokenness of those imagine Frances has spent his whole life trying to please, his father and it comes to this imagine your own wounds the God can still use them as God use Saint Francis Saint Francis did try to reconcile this really difficult part of his life, but it never healed. It never healed and this is the guy that we serve that perhaps you to come this morning with wounds that aren’t healing I believe that God healed the emotional worms in Saint Francis given the way he lived his life in the way he talked about his parents, never will find kindness and never with disparagement.
He was very cautious about his words. I myself have my own wounds with those who have harmed or or I’ve experienced great harm but less than I learned from Saint Francis is not to air the laundry in public so these are things that are known about Saint Francis, but that he did not talk about very often but this is part of his story part of his legacy. The second is the nativity story. This is interesting so we do have some writings from Saint Francis and I’m going throughout the course of the homily share some of his actual written work we have the equivalent I would say of 60 pages depending on the type from him that are believed to be his writings, so he says a person sins who wished to see who wishes to receive more from his neighbor than what he wishes to give him himself to the Lord God, a person sins who wishes to receive more from his neighbor then he wishes to give himself to the Lord God in the process he lived in the time that Navy was like our time was very troubling. The Crusades, there was violence. There was plagues. There were people who confessed to love the Lord, but did not live like this. Saint Francis had all of that in his life and very early on. They decided to start sending people throughout the world to spread their message, the message of radical imitation of Christ and the way that they live, which I’ll talk better in the moment so he imagine this you know think about the era late 11 century early early late 12th century early 13th century he says I’m gonna go meet with the sultan who is at war of the Christian kingdoms to persuade him about Christ. Can you imagine he’s in Italy and he’s gonna go take a boat to Egypt which would take him months and then he’s gonna convince the people legged that he should cross the lines that are openly at war with each other, and he’s gonna go have an audience with the Sultan to persuade him about Christ. This is the kind of radical obedience that he had the kind of radical sense that this is part of what I should be doing not gonna talk a lot about that encounter. He does meet the Sultan. It’s a peaceful exchange neither convinces the other, but the Sultan kind of grandson safe passage to lead after that point he spends about a year in the holy land visiting the sites of Christ and Bethlehem when he comes back, we don’t have a lot of what happened when he was in the holy land, he thinks to himself the celebration of Christmas needs to be a lot more robust needs to be a lot more robust so what he does is in 1223 he return he he goes to the people he wants him to experience the raw and published reality of Christ birth so when he’s in Bethlehem, it strikes in how poor Bethlehem is in his day so what he does is he goes to a noble money. He says we’re gonna set up a cave in Grigio why Grigio well there’s parts of Italy that actually look like the holy land so if you’re a fan of Mel Gibson s, the passion or if you’re gonna be watching the chosen is gonna have a scene about the resurrection where they’re filming Madera Italy actually looks like the holy land, Jerusalem that’s why they filmed there Madera just in God‘s Providence is the place where those who first made icons which was controversial in even the Aunt fled. They lived in Madera and wrote their icons on the cave so I think it’s just interesting in God‘s economy that several centuries later we’re still telling the big story is about Jesus I’m saying that because this part of Italy looks like Bethlehem that’s why Saint Francis chose it as a place to do it so what did he do?
He got a live a live donkey on Christmas Eve. They went to the countryside, carrying torches and candles, and they went into a dark cave Saint Francis, who is a deacon never priest he is a lifelong. Deacon starts chanting the midnight mass and eyewitnesses record from St. Thomas of Celino that a little child appears in an empty manger, whether they all had a vision, whether it was actually the child I leave that to the Lord’s Providence, I’m not gonna make a judgment call from here. I wasn’t not there, but I believe God can do such things. It impressed the people there so much that the popularity of the nativity scene isn’t just a great reenactment is the sense that Jesus is really present in someway and that’s what convicted those in those early days you see Saint Francis this radical obedience in this move towards the kingdom of God now this last part where I’m talking about his love for the poor and in the way you lived his life I talk a little bit about how does this intersect with angle criticism before I do that so this is a lot this is a Catholic saint, but it’s really a saint of the church, orthodox and Anglican vendor this Anglican sort of love for Saint Francis. I would say it starts really in the early 20th century so I’m all creatures of our God and King that’s a rendition of the mechanicals of creation so William Draper 1919 when he does all creatures of our God King, that’s one of the writings that Saint Francis actually wrote the mechanicals of the creatures is the first writing of any major saint in Italian so at this point Latin still the majority church language and it is the first full Italian vernacular song that we have so early 20th century William Draper, translated into all creatures of our God in king second society of Saint Francis. A religious order also comes into existence in the angle can communion in 1921 and this prayer that has become very popular make me an instrument of your peace. You may know that prayer has been popularized. I would say by the English speaking world and Anglican even probably more than the Catholic world so if you go to Assisi today, most of the merchandise is in English more than Italian so this has been our contribution is Anglican to Saint Francis. The last piece on his love for the poor if you’re like me in the Christian life, you may feel like loving the least of these in the poor is a complicated endeavor. Do you feel that it’s not particularly easy or simple anything from a simple as what do I do if someone asked me for money to how do I encounter someone who is on house and what do I do There? I think Saint Francis taught me as one of the teachers that I am to respond in simplicity yet, let my simplicity know if someone asked me for money. Judge not least I’d be judged Saint Francis learn this lesson very very in a very hard way when he was a young man he was revolted by the poor I mean, revolted to the point where he probably had indigestion seeing the physical poor he did not want to be around them part of his experience in 1205 he kind of comes more fully into loving Christ in 1206 is he meets a leopard now leopards in those days aren’t just people who were just really sick. They had to call out in front of them leopard leopard to avoid the contamination they had to physically by law communicate who they were. Frances heard the bail on the call so they had a bell while he was walking, he, he had an impulse of Grace from Christ.
He walked straight up to the man placed a coin in his disfigured hand. He had never touched a leopard bending down Frances wrapped his arms around the leopard and kiss his hand in face. The leopard return Frances‘s gesture, giving him the kiss of peace back a man who never wanted to touch a leopard there may be places in your life or God is calling you to do something big that you have trouble doing know that Saint Francis knows what that’s like and he believed in that kind of exchange. This started his lifelong love for the port Frances in the first men who became Franciscan’s worked for their daily bread by laboring in the field when their supply of food was not enough to provide what they needed. They begged door-to-door never accepting money but food can you imagine a priest coming to you begging for food? How shocking that would be Frances was not a priest. He was a deacon but a religious person asking you for food a Bishop even asking you for food I need food his life and teaching were meant to enter and reach people where they were at. He teaches us to go out into the world, just like Christ and to say the Christian teachings we see in the beatitudes aren’t abstractions love your enemy, love the least the lost they’re part of our daily fabric of life and they’re meant for us to go forward in these encounters, and this is the way Saint Francis taught his his order in his brother so what does this all mean and had us tie into our scriptures for today in Isaiah? We read the verses that God was looking for justice and the only found bloodshed Saint Francis also lived in a very violent time. He took simple steps and he invites us through Christ not through himself, but through Christ to take simple steps to battle, the injustices that we see that could take a simple form it could be avoid avoiding paying a day laborer, for instance because they don’t get insurance or paying them the right way could take a simple form of responding to those who I need who might need money, but maybe providing food instead they could take a simple form of calling that relative that you’ve neglected. It’s on my list that you haven’t talked to you in a while saying I love you. I’m thinking about you. It can take simple forms God is not looking for the great reformer. He is looking for the small reformer through Christ by the Holy Spirit in our heart, simple things. Psalm restore us, and we shall be whole Saint Francis believe that God could restore the brokenness that he experienced with his family and his parents, do we believe that our deepest wounds can be restored that God‘s goodness lives in the land of the living what might that look like in Matthew Saint Francis lived his life believing that the master would return to set the house in order so one of his big practices were service and simplicity the belief in the holy Eucharist in the church as the means for restoration, which is incredible. I know it’s incredible even for me to say because the church has so many flaws. The church makes scandals in every paper on earth that was true in Saint Francis‘s day as well maybe not the Free Press but the scandal part absolutely, and yet Frances believed it was through the church not outside the church. The God would work that was what his life was about. That’s what he gave his life for that God would work for the ordinary means of the church and so a prayer perhaps before Eucharist could be restore our faith, Lord, that a church can actually work to change the community that we’re in because it takes believe we’re like the doubting Thomas I believe help my unbelief Saint Francis believed in the church. The third part he believed in was holy obedience, he spoke a lot about judgment that the Lord would judge the church and that you need to obey obedience is not a word that we like I’m gonna close on this. It’s not a word that feels good. It’s not a word that rubs are American sensibilities as well but it’s a trust. It’s a trust that God is working in institutions and in people. It’s a trust that God will reform that which is broken in.
It is a trust not to put ourselves as our own gods, as though we knew everything, but that we in Community would discern what is best and that God works through Community so it is an act of faith Saint Francis live that active faith, he believed in the gospel of Matthew that the master would return, and that his vineyard was supposed to operate a certain way noticed the vineyard was a corporal thing he wasn’t returning to an abstraction. He was returning to something that was supposed to be working in Saint Francis said live your life as though that we’re true live your life as though that we were true, was closing prayer, gracious Father we thank you for the life in the example of Saint Francis his hard teaching his love and his passion, the mystery of his life. We asked that those of us formed in the Anglican communion might learn from his example which points primarily to our own example, which is Christ, the name of the father son and Holy Spirit.
