October 6 2024, SAINT FRANCIS

Jay Hornbacher

                                                              

SERMON

In the name of God, Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit.

It’s a mighty privilege to share my words with the congregation I love, as we honor Beloved St. Francis. Thank you for the opportunity.

Francis of Assisi was born in 1181 and died in 1226 at the age of 45. He was canonized in 1228 and was thereafter known as St. Francis. In 1972, Pope John Paul II named Francis the patron saint of ecology and the environment, which is especially meaningful to this congregation.

Francis’ birth family was wealthy, and he grew up in luxury. He contracted a serious illness while serving as a soldier, an experience which marked him permanently. Following his illness, his growing attachment to the one he called Lady Poverty led him to renounce his family and his past as he embraced the life of a penitent.

A second family was that of his brother monks at San Damiano, where he founded the Franciscan order, eventually recognized and blessed by the church through Pope Innocent III. Francis and his order were joined at San Damiano by women known as the Sisters of Clare, still in existence as the Poor Clares.

But it is another family that is most central to his life. It is extensive, for he counts as his family Brother Sun and Sister Moon, with whom we are familiar. But his family also includes Sister Poverty, Brother Want, Sister Grace, Brother Love, Sister Chastity, Brother Wind, Sister Water, Mother Earth and more. These are but a few of his relatives, for he considered animals, birds, and all of nature part of his family, living relatives of his very flesh and bone.

As we hear in, the Book of Job:

“Engage the earth in conversation, it’s happy to share what it knows.”

It is in making friends with Francis family that we begin to know the natural world.

Father Richard Rohr, the most well-known of contemporary Franciscan Brothers, makes this observation: “Francis of Assisi was basically a hermit. He lived in the middle of nature. If we want nature to come to life for us, we have to live in the middle of it for a while. When we get away from the voices of human beings [including mine!] Then we really start hearing the voices of animals and trees. They start talking to us, as it were. And we start talking back.”

It is also worth noting the observation of contemporary theologian Ilio Delia, who said, “The more Francis wandered into the fields of nature, the more he wandered into the fields of his own heart.”

I want to mention the legend of Francis and the leper. Francis was revolted by lepers to the point of avoiding them at all costs. One day he came upon a leper in the road. For some reason, he resisted the strong impulse to hurry on by, and stopped. He embraced the leper, and even kissed the leper’s wounds and running sores. When he had done so, he looked around and saw the leper was nowhere to be seen. He then realized that by embracing the leper, he had embraced the suffering Christ. From that moment on Francis followed the example of Jesus in serving and ministering to the broken ones, and it is fitting that we are asked to walk the way of Jesus, as St. Francis did.

The legend of Francis and the Wolf is familiar to many of you. Near the town of Gubbio in Italy lived a vicious wolf who terrorized the entire area. He was known to kill livestock and had even attacked and killed humans. Much against the advice of the townspeople, Francis approached the wolf to try to tame it, As the wolf saw Francis coming, it bared its teeth and ran toward Francis, who made the sign of the cross, and the wolf stopped. Francis spoke to the wolf, telling the creature that what it was doing opposed the will of God who created and loved all beings. He told the wolf that the animal didn’t have to kill for food, but that the townspeople would see that the wolf was fed if it would end its reign of terror. Legend says that the wolf sat in front of Francis and offered its paw in friendship. and was a tamed and loving creature thereafter.

I turn once more to words from Job: Call on the animals to teach you.

The picture you see on the screen is NOT a picture of a reformed wolf, it’s a picture of a dog named Smokey, who does indeed look like a wolf. I could say that Gayle and I owned Smokey, but that would be a misnomer because it’s the other way around – he owned us for 13 years. Gayle gave him to me as a surprise birthday gift, knowing that I all but worshipped dogs. She went to the Humane Society in Phoenix to pick out a dog and saw any number of dogs clamoring for her attention. All but one beautiful dog who sat by himself, wearing a look that Gayle swears might have said, “Lady, if you don’t know quality when you see it, I can’t help you.” To her everlasting credit, she brought Smokey home and gave him to me for my birthday, the best gift I’ve ever gotten. For about a day I thought, “I have a busy job, what am I going to do with a dog?” but it soon became clear that I had a new best friend, who walked by my side for the next 13 years.

Two weeks ago, when Lisa preached about the great value of play, I remembered a wonderful scene. Smokey and I often took our last walk at night, at the end of which he would run to the end of the living room and crouch, waiting for me to crouch so that we could wrestle. We’d do so for quite a while, until we’d hear Gayle’s voice, pretending to be stern, saying “OK, boys, that’s enough roughhousing, it’s bedtime.” When Lisa mentioned play in her sermon, I smiled at the memory of Gayle telling a 70-something year old man and a dog that it was time to stop playing and come to bed.

Smokey taught me much, beyond play and companionship. Many years ago I was going through a period of deep depression that would not lift. I wrote about this to my friend Reverend Steve Davis, a soul brother with whom I had taken a two-year course in Spiritual Direction. He responded with these words: “I understand. Now let Smokey be your spiritual director.” I did exactly that, to great advantage.

While Smokey was my spiritual director in many small ways, there were two instances in which his behavior went beyond my rational understanding. One winter day we were walking a wooded trail. He was about 20 yards ahead of me, sniffing and looking, and suddenly he stopped and stood still for a few seconds. Then he began leaping into the air and turning circles, and as he did so I swear he was laughing. He was leaping and turning circles because he could not contain his joy and needed to show the world the sheer joy of being alive. In those moments, he was my spiritual director, showing me what it meant to be alive and filled with a joy that cried out for expression.

However, as is the case with all of God’s creatures, he grew old. The walks were shorter and less frequent as his hips and back legs became weaker. He had trouble with his right rear hip, which we w would happen someday because he tore an ACL when he was about 3 years old when he was, yes, running in the rain. At the age of 14 he sometimes stumbled when walking and I had to help him to his feet. Special diet, pills, and a harness only delayed the inevitable. Truly, I let him live too long because I didn’t want to lose the one who enlivened my spirit.  But we finally decided it was time and agreed to call the vet to come to our house and put him down the next morning. One or both of us were with him all night, sitting with him on his rug from which he hadn’t moved for the better part of a day,

Then, in the early morning, he gave some of the most mystical spiritual direction I have ever experienced, which I hope I can live up to. To our shock and surprise, he got up on his own, walked to the front door, and looked back at us as if to say, “Aren’t you coming?” We let him out, and he walked – hobbled – stumbled for about a half a block, falling and getting up on his own, all the while looking at the sky, listening to the birds with ears long since deafened by age, sniffing the grass, the weeds, the rocks, the bushes, the trees, everything. He came back on his own and collapsed on his rug. It was clear to us that this dear creature had said, “I want one more walk in this beautiful world that I love, and then I can leave it behind.”

I made the phone call, and a kind vet came to our house. Smokey gave one feeble protective growl when she came in, and then lay still.  We talked for a moment, and then she gave him the shot that would let him run free wherever dogs run when they leave us behind. She went outside while we cried and said goodbye, and then she took his body to be cremated.

In his last and possibly best act of spiritual direction, Smokey had taught me not to fear Francis’ friend Sister Death.

We contacted friends and family to tell them Smokey had died, and I especially remember two responses. One person gave the nod to Smokey’s spiritual strength when she wrote, “I always felt Smokey knew more than a dog should know.” Another said, “Smokey thanks you, and will watch over you forever.”

(Slide: picture of small St. Francis statue)

This statue of St. Francis has graced our home everywhere we have lived, and now it’s at our cabin in northern Minnesota. It sits beneath a Smokey flag given to us by a friend. Some of Smokey’s ashes are beneath the statue, and there is communal love between them in an eternal bond.

In closing, I call on these words of Meister Eckhart, 13^th Century Christian mystic:

If the only prayer you ever offer is “Thank you,” it is enough.

And I do give thanks.

To Smokey.

To St. Francis.

And most of all, to the loving, living God who created this beautiful world.

AMEN

10am Service