Feast of St Francis

 

Acts: 4: 32-35, 5:1-11; Luke 12: 13-21

Today is the Feast of St Francis, and it is particularly great that October 4 falls on a Sunday this year because this is also a jubilee year for St Francis marking 800 years since his death and inviting us to remember his enduring legacy and impact on the church.  The Feast of St Francis traditionally is a day across the church and especially in the Episcopal church where we often celebrate St Francis’ deep love of animals and nature with Pet Blessings and outdoor worship and all manner of animal and creation themed activities.  Which is good.  But we did all that last month when the bishop was here.  And now at least for me, I am just really thankful after this crazy month that we are back inside our clean, warm and newly unsmelly sanctuary.  And so instead, I think that this year we have a really wonderful opportunity to think more deeply about St Francis and the wider legacy of his life and what it can teach us this season about the real meaning of God’s abundance. 

And chances are, many of you don’t actually know much about St Francis other than his love for animals and maybe a prayer or song or two associated with him.  But St Francis was born Giovanni di Peietro di Berdardone to a wealthy Italian noble family in 1181.  And by all accounts he spent his youth like many rich young men, sporting, drinking, partying and thoroughly enjoying his family’s wealth and privilege.   Then at 22, inspired by the ballads of the troubadours, he decided to become a gallant knight and joined a miliary campaign where instead he was injured and held captive for a year.  He came back a changed man. 

Over the next few years, much to his family and friends’ dismay, he publicly renounced his position, gave away everything he owned, became a beggar and devoted himself to restoring dilapidated churches and caring for the sick and outcast.  Yet to others, his witness and the authenticity with which he lived was immensely compelling.  He almost immediately started drawing followers and soon created a simple rule of life for his brother friars that espoused poverty, simplicity and generosity eschewing the ownership of anything or any outward displays of wealth.  He and his fellow friars traveled the countryside and around the region preaching, teaching, setting up communities and caring for the sick, especially lepers.  Yet, life was still not easy for Francis, he contracted Malaria on a missionary trip to the Holy Land, slowly and painfully sickened and died on Oct 3, 1226 at the age of 45.

Nevertheless, the religious order he founded grew by leaps and bounds and by the time of his death had thousands of members across Europe and the Middle east.  Today, it remains the largest Christian religious order in the world, with orders for professed men, women, and catholic lay people, as well as Anglican,  Lutheran, and other independent orders.  All of whom dedicate themselves to the values of poverty, fraternity and obedience.

And so for us today, there is still lots that we can learn from Francis about what a life of abundance really means.  Because Francis lived a truly abundant life just not in the ways that he in is his youth or we are trained to expect.  Francis found that it was only by letting go of trappings of material wealth that true abundance and community was found.  One of the most remarkable and countercultural things about the Franciscan way of life is the way that letting go of the illusion of self-sufficiency leads his followers ever more deeply into community.  Early Franciscans modeled their way of life on the example of how Jesus sent out the first apostles in the Gospels.  They traveled with only simple clothes and no bag or purse, they relied on daily work and the generosity of people in the community for food and shelter and they were not allowed to accept or carry any money.  Because Francis believed that being totally dependent on those around them would connect them much more deeply to the community, put them in solidarity with the poor and would require them to stay in relationship with their fellow brothers and sisters in a much deeper way.

And so, following the example of Francis, during this season we are going to consider as a congregation the ways that practicing generosity and abundance creates places of welcome and community here in this congregation and in all the places we touch. 

And I think that is what our, at first glance somewhat disturbing readings for today are getting at as well.  They carefully address the ways that focusing on wealth, accumulating and holding on to what we have and protecting it at all costs, basically this illusion of self-sufficiency, can separate us from living in the sort of beloved community God envisions for us.  Our gospel reminds us that life is short and that as the old adage says, ‘we can’t take it with us’.  How much time might that man have lost building and stocking barns filled with provisions he would never enjoy that he could have spent enriching the lives of those around him and creating a legacy of love?

Even in our rather disturbing Epistle lesson, the fundamental error of Ananias and Saphira was not that they didn’t give enough, it was not that they held something back, it was that they lied about it.  Peter tells them plainly “While [the field] remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!”  And in doing so, in misrepresenting themselves, in lying to the community and perhaps even to themselves,  perhaps out of selfishness or fear or to try to make people think better of them, they separated themselves from the community and created a rift in trust and faith that was not easily crossed.  And it cost them dearly.

But the opposite is even more true.  When we open our hearts to true generosity of spirit, we create a community of radical welcome and relationships that can be found almost nowhere else.  Francis truly understood perhaps far better than most, that as it says in the famous canticle he wrote, it is “in giving of our ourselves that we receive”.

This month we will be sharing stories of abundance and welcome, stories of faith and transformation and the ways that being part of this community has changed our lives.  It is unlikely that any of us here are called to the true charism of poverty, to giving away literally everything we own, as even many modern Franciscan are not, but if we take the time to look, we can all find the ways that participating in the work of God, giving of our time, talents, treasure, love, compassion and hope, has enriched not only the lives around us but our own lives as well.  Amen.