Saturday, October 31, 2009

Sermon Oct. 4 St. Francis, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Looking around at you this morning, you are amazing;
you are all such lovely and loveable people.
It is so good to be here with you
in this beautiful space, all of us gathered together
to sing God’s praises along with the stars and moon and sun
and all God’s creation
and to plunge again into the incredible Mystery of the Eucharist
communing with the Heart of Christ, and with each other.

I am just back from a 30 day meditation retreat,
the entire month of September off in the woods near Spokane
with a few other veteran meditators
getting grilled daily by my meditation teacher about my practice
and reveling in the uninterrupted silence
of several hours of meditation each day.

Now I should say something about this retreat
because I know a number of people will ask me, “How was the retreat?”
And the quick answer that usually is all we have time for is “fine.”

But I think it is more helpful to say
what value this meditation retreat has had for me.
To that I can say with greater clarity
that meditation for me is energizing,
that it is the most effect way for me to process what I am feeling
and for being with what is really going on with me,
and that meditation is grounding for me,
especially during high demand times.
Through meditation I am empowered for action, for service, for ministry.

And just as we are here communing with God and with each other,
so too the retreat was a form of communion,
a Eucharist not of bread and wine
but of all creation.

Communion in that setting was different in configuration
than here at this altar.
Our retreat facility was set very closely within the natural setting of creation.

We were the interlopers intruding into the habitat of white tailed deer,
chipmunks, rabbits, hawks and crickets,
quail and myriad varieties of beetles,
coyotes singing to the moon,
and wild turkeys, always the wild turkeys making their daily visit
to the buffet table that seemed to be spread
right outside the barn we used for our meditation room.
All this set back up in the pine-covered hills away from civilization.

Then came the task of returning to “civilization”
which is often more like UN-civilization
returning to traffic lights and grocery stores
and mechanical sounds and artificial vistas of cityscapes
and the need to lock one’s door.

However, while in this beautiful pine forest perched on a hill
happily ensconced in my little hermitage,
I thought about Francis of Assisi,
whose Feast Day is today.
I thought about Francis of Assisi on a similar meditation retreat
likewise during the month of September 800 years earlier
perched on another high hill, Mount La Verna,
meditating there at the time of the Feast of the Holy Cross
and receiving within his own body
the same wounds as our Lord absorbed at the crucifixion.

This was more than Francis identifying with our Lord Jesus
and therefore wishing to imitate him to the ultimate degree,
although that certainly was expressed in all the literature
about this remarkable event.

This was more about Francis’ personal realization of oneness with Christ,
of being in Christ, as the Apostle Paul wrote about,
of baptismal identity in the Eternal Word of God.
And in that Francis’ own body then manifested this blood baptism
as a sign and witness of this union, this unity of being,
to his generation and for all generations to come.

That September of 1223/4 alone in the woods of Mount La Verna
Francis was in intimate connection with his environment.
You might even say that the distinction between self and environment was gone,
for that distinction is really arbitrary and dependent
for one cannot be distinct from environment,
we are ourselves part of the environment.

Admittedly this is not as easy for us to recognize,
because we can separate ourselves off from the environment so readily:
step inside a building, climb into our cars,
set the thermostat, screen the windows,
plant our gardens in neat rows and remove the weeds,
spray for cockroaches and ants in the kitchen.
We place ourselves over and against the environment
building artificial barriers.

It was after this time when Francis received the stigmata
that he composed his famous Canticle of Creation.
In it he expresses this interrelationship and interdependence
of all living beings in creation
all living beings including Brother Sun, Sister Moon,
Brother Fire, Sister Water, Brother Wind,
and our sister, Mother Earth,
all the primal elements
and all of them speaking in each their own way the praise of Creator God.

Francis, you see, is the ecological saint,
who saw the intrinsic connection between us humans
and all the other creatures, indeed the whole planet,
the entire ecosystem,
the interrelatedness of all life forms,
the interconnection that binds up all our destinies together,
so that we must both honor
our four legged and winged brothers and sisters,
and our sister Mother Earth,
both honor them and serve them for the sake of us all.

And also listen to them.

Did you pick up on that from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible reading
for today? From Job, chapter 12
7 "…ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.”

The animals can teach us if we will let them.
The birds of the air have been trying to tell us, but will we listen?
Their very disappearance speaks volumes to us!

I grieve that it is more and more likely
that I will not again hear the song of the meadow lark
or the haunting call of the loon that graced my growing up years.

And should we not all tremble at how this gives us warning
of the likelihood of our own extinction?
of the madness of our own self-destructive behavior
that ignores their message.

St. Francis of Assisi saw clearly that interconnectedness
exhibited to him through all members of creation
as examples to illustrate the need for and the way to
reconciliation,
for indeed Francis is a saint for reconciliation,
for peace making
for relationship to creation and care for all living beings
for embracing Gospel poverty, non-ownership, as key to this
for the embodiment of a love for Jesus in imitation of his life and death
and for the power of that love, fiery and sweet as honey,
to save us from our own foolishness.

Francis was so remarkable in his own day 8 centuries ago
that thousands and thousands of people followed him,
and history was changed in Europe because of it.

Today within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion
there are those of us who are caught up in the same vision
that Francis had,
who see Francis as role model in living out faith
in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Third Order, Society of St. Francis, of which I am a member,
there are many of us who take this ecological interdependence
with all the other life forms very seriously,
and we look critically at our own relationship to creation
and interdependence with other species of living beings.

We have been blessed to have my dear friend and fellow Franciscan,
Susan Pitchford, with us again today for the education hour.
This last Lent when she was with us, she was very well received.
Susan had more to say about the Franciscan understanding
of relationship with creation
and indeed our communion with creation.

And while I am taking a moment here to kind of make announcements
in the course of this sermon,
I want to mention the outstanding internationally known person
that we are bringing to Emmanuel as a guest lecturer on January 30,
Bishop Mark MacDonald, another Third Order Franciscan,
former Bishop of Alaska
and currently serving as Anglican Bishop
for the native peoples of Canada.
Bishop MacDonald will also preach here on January 31.

His is another voice echoing St. Francis,
helping us see this relationship of communion with creation
with astonishing freshness and clarity.

So this morning I stagger out of that space
of living in communion with creation
listening to coyotes and wild turkeys
singing the praises of Creator God.
and I come once again to this sacred ground, this holy table
for communion with you, beloved creatures of God.

And this afternoon when we include our animal companions
in our celebration of this feast day of St. Francis,
but may it also be a time of reflection about our relationship
with all our brothers and sisters of the diversity of creation,
the four legged and winged brothers and sisters,
and the ways in which they bless us
and the ways in which we are dependent on them
for our own existence.

And for all of us living, breathing beings
may we know more truly how each breath
is an incredible miracle and gift from God,
the One who is Source of all life, Creator and Sustainer,
in Whom we live and move and have our being.
Amen.

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