St Francis - October 4, 2012

 St. Francis save us for we are sinking under our own weight?

Watched a couple movies this last week and they were a reminder for me of the old adage “sunk under its own weight”. The first was Dustin Lance Black' s film Virginia, which has wonderful actors but it goes all over the place. Part of me wanted to see Virginia Beech but it was filmed in Michigan but it might have been a better movie if it was chopped up into five different 20 minute short stories- each with a different view of the same events but they didn't ask me. As it was it seemed a little like the blender smoothies I sometimes make for breakfast- a lot of fine stuff but buried. The other was The Lorax, an adaptation of the Dr, Seuss fable of ecology and respect for nature. It is a nice story but what have they done? All the charm has been wrung out of it in favor of cute 3-D spectacle of “Gee Whiz” gadgetry animation.

The movies hit me at the same time I have been thinking about St. Francis – today is the Feast of St,. Francis and on Sunday we did the blessing of the animals using the lessons for the Feast day. We held the service outside and it was a simple service to try to get across the message of Francis expressed in the 13^th century for wonder of God and turning away from the excesses of the church that was sinking under its own weight.

As more than one writer said: "Francis is the most popular, most admired and least imitated of all the saints." I have a statue of St. Francis in  a flower garden, a painting by a native American artist in New Mexico, of St. Francis in my living room. I have a medal of St. Francis on my dog's collar. I do the services of St. Francis but I am always not ready to follow him into poverty, into giving up control, into trust, into the comfort of a big ego. He scares me, I guess because he is always calling me and the church to abandon our idols of security and who am I without the things that I have? Without the outward and visible sign of my worth I would have to trust that God's love would be enough. But I have so much and I consume so much that I am indeed in danger of sinking under my own weight. I have lost some physical weight but the weight of my sense of who I am is staggering.
Francis' order had to be reformed after Francis' death because it was in danger of sinking under its own weight. So many people were charmed by the idea of Francis that they left legacies to his order. The order has had to constantly "reform" itself and return to the central principles of faith in Christ. I need to do it- my church needs to do it- and if we can ever hope to call ourselves Christians we all need to do it. What would it be like to shed ourselves of all of our doctrines and creeds and and agendas and tried loving God  and neighbor for a change instead of building bigger houses for all of the stuff in which we place our faith?