and perfect charity, sense and knowledge, Lord, that I may carry out your holy and true command. of love. Amen. (based on a Franciscan prayer)
When I think of someone who lived in the Spirit of God, I think of St. Francis.
In so many ways, Francis of Assisi, lived a holy life like the holy fools of the Orthodox faith…
As St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians: “We are fools for Christ, but you are wise through Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, but we are dishonored! 11 Up to this very moment we are hungry, thirsty, wearing rags, abused, and homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are insulted, we respond with a blessing; when we are harassed, we put up with it; 13 when our reputation is attacked, we are encouraging. We have become the scum of the earth, the waste that runs off everything, up to the present time.”
Bishop Kallistos Ware – “The Orthodox Way” p. 99 – fools in Christ
Indeed, Francis is a western church holy fool. He renounced the life he lived – he gave up the wealth he could have inherited from his father; he gave up on the glories of war; his place of privilege and status meant nothing to him when he heard the call from God, to repair the church. He gave it all up.
But when he started, he was rejected. He was mocked, laughed at, pelted with stones & mud.
Holy fools are not readily accepted, at least at first. But that’s not what they are doing.
As author Jon Sweeney puts it “Francis discovered a life of joy, simplicity, and wonder. The gift for expressing God’s joy and love involved being small not strong, avoiding positions of power altogether, thinking not about results but about virtue, and enjoying rather than avoiding moments of insecurity, fear, and awkwardness. These practices for being foolish in the eyes of the world were, for them, a sure way to discover the presence of God. That is what is available to anyone who chooses to walk the path of the Gospel in these countercultural ways.”
At the heart of Francis was his faith. A faith that spoke to him when he was lost; when he was searching for his way forward; a faith that spoke so deeply and clearly, that he changed his life.
It was that mustard seed faith that Jesus talked about.
When Jesus talked of faith, he didn’t talk about it using the mighty sequoia or the redwoods of California, the great cedars of Lebanon or the great charter oak of CT. No. He talks about faith as a mustard seed…
Jesus said, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.”
Mustard Seed. Small. Tiny.
It is as if Jesus is not expecting huge faith from us, from which we would do superhuman feats of faith and goodness. No, he expects us to find that tiny seed inside each of us.
In dilapidated church, Francis heard the voice of God and he found that seed. His life would not be easy. No holy fool is. But his life reminds us of the heart and soul of Jesus teaching, one you can’t learn simply in books, you must experience out here, in the real world, and put it into practice.
The holy fools are there to remind us of the deeper truths that the worldly stuff that we’ve been told we should preoccupy ourselves with, is not, in fact, real at all and not worthy of our time and effort.
"We don’t need to be running after the extraordinary, we simply need to get on and do that with which we have been tasked to do in our lives today, that which we know to be the work of the Kingdom of God as it grows out of our ordinary, everyday lives."
Thinking about faith and its outworking in this way gives us in turn a helpful lens to bring to bear on our attitudes towards others. St. Francis wandered; he touched the lives of so many; he preached to people, he preached to animals; he sought to stop war; nothing held back God’s spirit in him as he brought that spirit to all of God’s creation & creatures.
Our calling today is to strive to live into that mustard seed faith. To begin where we are, with who we are and what we have, and to work quietly and consistently with that, while seeking to grow and develop in skill and understanding through this experience of lived faithfulness. In the words of the Si Kahn song:
‘It’s not just what your born with
it’s what you choose to bear;
it’s not how large your share is
It’s how much you can share.
It’s not the fights you dreamed of
It’s those you really fought;
It’s not what you’ve been given
It’s what you do with what you’ve got’
St. Francis as a holy fool, played an important role for his time and ours, showing us what truly mattered and what you do with what you got. His last words to his fellow monks were "I have done what was mine to do; may Christ teach you what you are to do."
He heard that call, and it changed his life and he wanted everyone to have such an empowering experience. And yet, Francis never saw his life in such glowing terms. St. Francis once said, “I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.”
Indeed, God works through all of us. We are not called to be St. Francis but we can sure learn from his witness and respond to God working in us. May we live our lives faithfully and with integrity in our mustard seed faith. And just as St. Francis did as was his to do; may Christ teach all of us what we are to do today. Amen.
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