St. Francis Day.06                                                 October 1, 2006

Churches named for St. Francis of Assisi
        are marked with his image.
This is more true for St. Francis Churches
        than St. Anybody Else Churches.
Just Google St. Francis Church
        and look at the web sites of our fellow Franciscans.
We are all a little edgy, and, in a word, fun.

So who was this Francis whose name we bear?
The young Francis discovered God
        in both the beautiful and the broken,
        in both nature’s glory and in the ugliness of disease.
He found God everywhere except in human pride and ambition.

His favorite place to pray was in the ruin
        of an abandoned Church, San Damiano.
While Francis was praying, God spoke to him
        through the crucifix.
In his heart, Francis heard the voice that gave him his mission.
It said, “Francis, rebuild my church.”//
This was a mission with a double entendre.

Locally, the walls of San Damiano had collapsed.
There was no congregation.
San Damiano needed rebuilding physically.
Globally, the whole Christian church
        was in spiritual ruin.
It had evolved a hierarchy of power, pride, and pomposity.
So the Church had lost its moral authority in the eyes
        of ordinary people.
The whole Christian Church needed rebuilding spiritually.

Francis begged for stones in Assisi,
        and, with his own hands, he began rebuilding the church

        – not as an abstraction or spiritual ideal.
He worked in the brick and mortar, ordinary, material world.

But he didn’t do it alone.
He told others what he was doing
He didn’t berate anyone.
He didn’t threaten them with hell
        or promise them a free pass to heaven.

He just said, “This is what I’m doing
       for the glory of God.
It gives me joy. Why don’t you come along?”
And they did.

Francis didn’t act alone, so he could feel special.
He shared his mission.
By his simplicity, sincerity, and humility,
       he persuaded people to join in God’s project.
And they in turn persuaded others.
People joined Francis and each other
       in the seemingly absurd task
       of rebuilding a church with no congregation.

In the course of their work,
       three wonderful things happened.
       They restored the walls of San Damiano.
       Strangers became friends.
       And merely social friends became spiritual friends
               because they came together for a new purpose
                        at a deeper level.

Francis might have restored the walls alone.
But the spiritual rebuilding was the forming
       of a community with a mission.

When San Damiano was completed,
       Francis assumed he and his new friends
       should become cloistered monks
               and live quietly and prayerfully
               in the holy place they had built.
It would be their refuge from the corrupt society.
But then he got his next set of marching orders.
This the crucifix didn’t speak.
St. Clare did. She said,

       “No way, Frank, you’ve got a bigger church to rebuild.
       Get the bushel basket off this light of yours.
       You have to take this show on the road.”

So he did. Francis and his friends,
       now called the Order of Little Brothers,
       traveled from town to town preaching the good news.
They weren’t converting people to a new religion.
Everyone they met was already a church-going Christian.
They weren’t threatening people with the wrath of God.

They just said,

        “Look around you at the beauty of God
                manifest in creation.
        Rejoice in grace. Forget about status and wealth.
        Discover the joy of loving God
                and serving God in his poorest children.”
And by their simplicity, sincerity, and humility,
        they persuaded thousands of people to embrace
                this new movement of the Spirit.

There are two important things to notice
        about what happened next.
First, Francis did not do what some egocentric
        puffed up priests do today.
He didn’t draw people away from the Church.
His mission was to “rebuild the Church”

        – not break off a chunk of it for his own little cult.

Francis did not form a break-away sect.
He sought and received the Church’s blessing.
He advanced his revolutionary movement
        inside the Church – not against it.

I don’t want you to think I may be referring
        to the renegade American Anglican Council
        or the break-away church in Warner Robbins
                with it cult-of-personality priest.
I don’t want you think that.
I want you to know it.
That is exactly what I mean.

The mission to rebuild the church
         is accomplished by uniting people
         in common mission – not splitting them into factions.

The 2nd thing to notice is that when Francis
         and the Little Brothers invited people
                 to join their mission, people did –
         and the Franciscan movement grew
                 from a handful of friends
         into a religious order with thousands of members.

Because the Franciscan Order flourished and grew,
         Francis could not control it.
It isn’t that he lost control of it.
He never had control.
He didn’t try to control it.
He never wanted to control it.
He only wanted to inspire it and serve it.
That’s what he did to his dying day.

A movement of the Holy Spirit is never under our control.
But a church is often under our control.
It can be controlled by the clergy or the laity.
But St. Francis Churches are singularly difficult to control.
And when a St. Francis Church is Spirit-filled
        and mission driven, it is impossible to control.

When I look at this congregation today,
        I see a St. Francis Church at its best.
I see people with a mission to love and serve the Lord,
        and we do not carry out our mission as Lone Rangers.
We invite and inspire each other to share our mission.
We do not set ourselves against the Body of Christ,
        but direct our ministry through this parish,
        and through the ministries of our larger church

        – Episcopal Charities Foundation,
        the Global Mission Committee,
        the Haiti Partnership Project,
        and Episcopal Relief & Development.

We welcome new people into our family,
        even when that welcoming means surrendering
                 control of the mission to the Holy Spirit.
We do not seek to control the mission,
       but to inspire and serve it.

Last week our grounds were covered with people,
       raking, weeding, pruning and planting to the glory of God.
Last Sunday, in this room, I saw more adults than ever before
       gathered to minister to more children than ever before.
Yesterday I couldn’t count the people
       here working to set up for last night’s party.
At the same time, another group of us
       were at Jones Chapel feeding homeless people.

Our Shawl Ministry doesn’t just knit yarn into shawls.
       They knit people into the family of God.
The Community Ministries Team and Vestry
       have made St. Francis the first Bread for the World
                Covenant Church in Middle Georgia.
These are just a few examples of our common mission
       lived out in a gospel partnership.

At St. Francis, all we really do is love and serve the Lord,
       simply, sincerely, and humbly

               – inviting others to share our mission.
Everyone can share in it

       – some through hands on work;
       some, through financial support;
       some, through prayer.

We may not be able to do much or give much.
But we can do what we can,
       and we can pray for the mission,
       and we can invite, encourage, and inspire others
                to do what they can.

That’s all St. Francis did.
He did what he could,
       and he invited, encouraged, and inspired others.

The mission and ministry of this church
       is profoundly important

                – and not just to our members.
It is important to poor people in Macon and in Haiti,
       to displaced people in Mississippi and the Sudan,
       and to lost and alienated people everywhere.
It is important to people desperately seeking
       the hope and serenity which can be found in Christ
                if only we will show them Christ as he truly is.

                                                                  Amen.