St. Francis: Rebuild My Church

         In 1 Corinthians, St Paul begins the letter with these words: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (1Cor 1:2-3)

         We are all called to be saints.  When Thomas Merton told his friends he wanted to be a monk, a friend asked, “What do you hope to accomplish?”  “To be a saint, of course,” Thomas replied.  His friend was shocked, “That’s incredibly arrogant of you, isn’t it?”  “No,” Merton replied. “It’s what all Christians are called to be.”

On this All Saints Sunday, we consider saints of the church, how saints have been examples to us of the holy life, and how we are called, in our own unique ways, to aspire to be saints.   We are all saints in the making.   Living faithfully, loving selflessly, striving to be honorable and loving all are ways that we walk in the footsteps of the saints of old and those still to come.

         One saint we hold up today is St. Francis of Assisi.  We now have a Pope who has taken on his name as a model of faith.  And Pope Francis seems to have some of the spirit of that saint from the 13th century.   Like the St. Francis of old, Pope Francis realizes that the church needs to be repaired, renewed and redirected.   Like the St. Francis of old, he is focusing on the needs of the poor and the value of spiritual poverty of spirit and of action.  Like the Francis of old, the Pope is reaching out to the destitute, the ill, the marginalized, the humble.  Pope Francis, in an interview he gave to American Magazine, spoke of the need to repair the church, with brave honesty and gentle love.   He said, “Humans are in search of themselves, and, of course, in this search they can also make mistakes.  The Church has experienced times of brilliance…but the church has lived also times of decline in its ability to think.  When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid?   When it loses sight of the human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself.” 

Yes, this is a time when the church desperately needs to be repaired, as St. Francis of old also realized. We have many lessons to learn from this poor saint. 

As a youth, Francesco became a devotee of troubadours and wore bright clothing, had rich friends, and a love of pleasures.  Yet he soon became  disillusioned toward this world that was so shallow and vain. Once he was selling cloth and velvet in the marketplace for his father, who was a wealthy silk merchant, when a beggar came to him asking for alms. At the conclusion of his business deal, Francis abandoned his wares and ran after the beggar. When he found him, Francis gave the man everything he had in his pockets. His friends chided and mocked him for his act of charity. When he got home, his father scolded him in rage.  Later, when being criticized by his father in front of the whole town, he stripped off every last shred of clothing and walked out in the surrounding fields, where he lived as a beggar.

Many young people in our age share Francis’ disillusionment with the materialism of our day, the vapid consumerism of the mall and on-line shopping, the crass bullying of advertisers and marketeers.   How many young people are disgusted by the stresses and pressures of job searching and unemployment and expectations of status and income?   How many strive instead to become aid workers or religious seekers or teachers or environmentalists to better this world? 

Francis moved into the ruins of a church called Portiuncula.  He worked, hauling stones and mortaring walls, fixing the roof and doors.  One day he had a vision when the Christ on the cross over the altar open his eyes, and called out to him: “Repair My Church!”  “Repair my church!”    As Mary Luti, UCC minister,  wrote: “Stone by stone, he rebuilt the chapel. Some say Jesus meant him to reform The Church, but Francis was literal-minded, inclined to the concrete, doable things in front of his nose.

”  He lived the life of compassion and equality, as Jesus had done before him. His clothing was a patchwork of scraps of cloth.  He became friends with and cared for the poor and the ill.   He embraced lepers and kissed their sores. He saw in the stories of Jesus someone who embraced poverty and trust in God’s providence, as we hear from Jesus in Matthew:

 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you— you of little faith?”

Francis lived this way of life with abandon.   On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter's Basilica.  When he returned home, began preaching on the streets, embraced a life of poverty, and soon amassed a following.  Francis had begun stone by stone, to repair his church, to return it to its true mission and vision and calling of compassion for the least and walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

 “Repair My Church!”   The church of St. Francis’ day was deeply corrupted by opulence and a fascination with power and show.  Rome as controlled by warring ruling families, the Pope was in charge of armies and vast territories, and acted more as an emperor controlling a country, than a pastor caring for a church.   Local church people had little say, and were treated with distain and neglect.   It is no wonder that a grassroots religious movement like Francis’ would gain traction and grow into a world-wide order.

The Franciscan Order was authorized by Pope Innocent III in 1210.  From then on, his new Order grew quickly with new vocations.  When hearing Francis preaching in the church of San Rufino in Assisi in 1209, Clare of Assisi became deeply touched by his message and she realized her calling.  On the night of Palm Sunday, March 28, 1211, Clare sneaked out of her family's palace. Francis received Clare at the Porziuncola, and hereby established the Order of Poor Ladies, later called Poor Clares.  This was an Order for women, and he gave a religious habit, or dress, similar to his own to the noblewoman later known as St. Clare of Assisi, before he then lodged her and a few companions in a nearby monastery of nuns. There they were joined by many other women of Assisi.

The church of our own day is still in need of repair.   I just spoke with an interim minister in a small, struggling UCC church.  She has been doing good work, creating a creative children’s ministry in the midst of the worship service, holding weekly musical gatherings and family programs that have attracted many new families. Seven are set to become new members this Sunday.  You would think the older members of the church would be thrilled with this change, especially since she is taking in many new members.  Instead, at their annual meeting last week, they railed against the changes.  The elders complained that the children’s program was noisy and might damage the rug in the sanctuary.  They spoke out against “those people” who are coming in, saying they are not “our kind of people.”   One called them ‘bottom feeders’.  Another got up at the meeting and said, “Charity begins at home,” arguing against giving to any outside charities.  (The pastor wanted to ask where that was in the bible.)  All these new programs should stop, the elders have insisted; and since they control the purse strings, they have power.   Several of us have encouraged this minister to keep fighting and to remind the elders of the church of the what the ministry of Jesus Christ and the church is meant to be: a way of compassion, equality, and service.

         Isn’t the call of the church to value children more than the carpet, to be hospitable to newcomers and to treat them with equality instead of calling them: ‘those people’?  Wouldn’t Jesus and Francis welcome the poor, the young, the needy?  Didn’t Jesus get in trouble for hanging out with “those people” – beggers, lepers, fishermen and carpenters?   Wasn’t he homeless at times himself?   Look how he reached out to Zaccheus, the tax collector, who was wealthy, but who was also labeled a sinner, an outcaste, and a hated oppressor.  See how Jesus invited himself to his house for dinner, treating Zaccheus as a close friend, equal and worthy, including him wholeheartedly and calling him a ‘son of Abraham’.    If we are going to ‘Repair the church’ then we need to reclaim this vision of the church of Jesus Christ, a church that is welcoming to all people, rich or poor, saints and sinners, all races, all backgrounds, sexual orientations, or needs, with joyful, extravagant hospitality.

Mother Teresa, a modern day Francis, said this: 
"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile."

We strive to live this way in this church; and this is a way we are not only seeking to repair our church but to repair this world. In the Jewish tradition they speak of Tikkun Olam – to heal or repair the world.   As we build our new Fellowship Hall and as we build a community of compassion, we are doing this.

         Francis gave this vision to the church of his day.  By embracing poverty, by giving up all ambition to social standing or material wealth, he returned to the open-hearted simplicity, caring, and warmth of the early church.  As Protestants seeking reform by returning to the example of the early church, we are in tune with the Franciscans of old.   We relate to Francis’ love for our Savior who walked in warn sandals down dusty roads; wearing an old cloak; eating with beggars, sinners and fisherfolk; who chastised religious leaders for wearing embroidered robes and gold jewelry and expensive shawls. 

         Mary Luti wrote this about St. Francis:  “Francis loved everybody, even the luxurious Pope down in the holy cesspool of Rome (who'd surprised everyone by approving the Franciscan Rule). But most of all, Francis loved Jesus, following him with unhinged joy down to the last detail of Christ's freedom and agony. One night, legend says, seraphim lasered the wounds of Jesus onto his scrawny flesh. 

Before Francis died, naked on the ground outside the Portiuncula—dust to dust—he told his brothers, "I have done my part. Christ teach you to do yours." He also said, "We have only begun to live the gospel."  We, even dying Francis, have only begun.

” 

         Let us begin, in our own ways, to aspire to be saints; to walk as Francis did in the footsteps of our Savior, praying:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.


Where there is hatred, let me sow love;


Where there is injury, pardon;


Where there is doubt, faith;


Where there is despair, hope;


Where there is darkness, light;


Where there is sadness, joy.
 


O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek


To be consoled as to console,


To be understood as to understand,


To be loved as to love;


For it is in giving that we receive;


It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;


It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.