A sermon for the Celebration of St. Francis

In the spirit of St. Francis, I bid you peace. To celebrate the Feast of St. Francis I just had to come out here into the beauty of Creation. Just look around!  Isn’t this spectacular? Let’s take a moment to focus our attention on these beautiful flowers! Yes, I am well aware that these flowers are blooming weeds. But aren’t they simply beautiful? Take a good look. In this spectacular season of autumn weeds are everywhere. You can’t go for a walk, or a drive in the country without being confronted by the existence of fecund weeds; weeds flowering and seeding, so that next year more and more the existence of weeds. Weeds flowering and seeding so that next year more and more weeds will sprout up. Creation is alive with the miracle of weeds. Out here in the magnificence of it all, I am reminded of the words of St. Francis who wrote:

“I think God might be a little prejudiced. For once God asked me to join God on a walk through this world, and we gazed into every heart on this earth, and I noticed God lingered a bit longer before any face that was weeping, and before any eyes that were laughing. And sometimes when we passed a soul in worship God too would kneel down. I have Come to learn:  God adores God’s Creation.”  

I hope that we all learn as Francis did that the CREATOR of all that is, simply adores Creation. As a splendid miracle yourself, I hope that when you looked into the mirror this morning, you recognized yourself as the beautiful miracle of Creation which you are! Perhaps you may have looked into your mirror and saw yourself not as a beautiful flower. Maybe when you look in a mirror you are tempted to dismiss yourself as just an ordinary weed. Well, we can’t all be lilies of the field. What a dull place the world would be if we were all just lilies, flapping around in the breeze. Each of us, like these amazing, beautiful flowering weeds, each one of us has our own particular beauty to bring to the miracle which we call Creation. Weeds, lilies, chrysanthemums, golden rod, roses, delphiniums, or these wildflowers each and everyone have their own particular beauty. Their individual existence is a miracle in and of itself, collectivity they sway back and forth in the fields as testament to the miracle that Creation exists at all. Billions and billions of years of ever-evolving particles to create just one variety and so far, cataloguers of plants tell us that there are more than half a million varieties of flowering beauties. Look at the birds of the sky, from the lowly crow and the much-maligned Canada Goose to the magnificent eagle and the beautiful blue-jay, they are each and every one miracles.

Now close your eyes, if you will, now remember your own face in the mirror this morning; a little tired perhaps, slightly haggard, or ravishingly, excitingly, beautiful, that face of yours is a miracle. There’s not another one like you in all the world. Similar perhaps, in the way flowers and birds resemble one another. But there is no one out there like you. You are a unique miracle. Take a long deep breath and soak in the truth of your splendour. For as beautiful as these flowers are, and these woods are, as exquisite as a bird is in flight, as lavish as our Creator has been in adorning Creation, we humans are unique miracles. We humans are endowed by our Creator with adornments which don’t just bloom today and are gone tomorrow for we are capable of such great goodness, such wonderful creativity, even as we are capable of doing immense harm.

Just think for a moment about the multitudinous miracles of life upon this miraculous planet upon which we are blessed to live.  This sacred Earth, teaming with life and beauty, is a miracle beyond comprehension. The vastness of blessings with which we are surrounded, overwhelms the challenges life brings our way. We are blessed with riches beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors. The Earth lavishes her inhabitants with more than enough to satisfy our needs. Our cups are over-flowering with blessings. The extravagance of our CREATOR cannot be captured in words or by our greed. As much as we concern ourselves with storing up the bounty of the Earth, Creation continues to confound us with miracles. Beauty, the kind of beauty which calls forth the LOVE out of which each and every one of us was created. For GOD is LOVE and in the words of Julian of Norwich, “We are not just made by GOD, we are made of GOD.” The LOVE which is DIVINITY lives in, with, through, and beyond us. That miraculous, unique face you see in the mirror every morning is made of LOVE, to be LOVE. That same LOVE which is DIVINITY constantly allures us to be the LOVE we are created to be, so that each of us can blossom into LOVE in the world.

We are called to be like weeds, growing LOVE here, there and everywhere. St. Francis is famous for many things, but of all the words ever written by or about Francis which rings true to me here in the midst of so many blessed miracles, is the question Francis asked himself over and over again, “Am I being loving enough with all that I have?” “Am I, are you being loving enough with what you I have? .. with all of what you have?” Our MAKER has sown the seeds of LOVE all over this planet; so much so that the plethora of our blessings goes way beyond our ability to number. Are we being LOVing enough with all we have? Are we sowing the seeds of love like the extravagance of the SOWER that IS the SOURCE OF EVERYTHING?

St. Francis insisted that “It was easy to love GOD in all that was beautiful. He wrote that the lessons of deeper knowledge tough instruct us to embrace all things in God.” The Apostle Paul described our MAKER as the “ONE in whom we live and move and have our being.” This means that we are all in DIVINITY and DIVINITY is in all things. Embracing GOD, LOVING GOD, requires us to see DIVINITY in all things, which means LOVING Creation, all of Creation, each and every blessed thing upon the Earth, the weeds, the flowers, the insects, the birds, the trees, the sisters and brothers of every tribe and nation, the good, the bad and yes even the ugly, friend and foe alike. This is our calling. This is the promise of the peace we long for. In the spirit of St. Francis let us bid one another peace. Let us be LOVE in the World. Thanks be to all that is HOLY.

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