Readings: Job 9:1-16; Psalm9:1-16; Galatians 6:14-18; Matthew 11:25-30

Together we are walking with and celebrating the spirit of St. Francis on a journey of worship, service, fellowship and peace. 

We adopted that as our parish mission statement following an Advisory Board retreat two years ago.  It is a wonderful reminder of our patron saint whose life and witness we celebrate today.  

Francis journey through life was one that taught him that God loves us passionately.  God chases after us, chooses us, and creates a thirst for intimacy within us.  For him, it was about the Journey and the Dream and how they transformed his life.  And so I begin by sharing the story of Francis Journey and his Dream. 

“Standing on Mount Subasio, the wind biting into his face and cutting through his threadbare tunic, Francis wondered how he had kept the Dream alive through so much pain and so much terror and difficulty and trouble.  He hadn’t of course: Jesus had.  Jesus! How sweet the sound of that name in his heart.  Jesus ever at his side, Jesus sending the Dream, making the Journey possible.  Francis knew that no one survives on the plain without affection and support.  That was the whole point of just about everything he had written for his brothers.  For him, Jesus himself had been that affection and that support always whispering into his ear, Francis, little one, never doubt my love.  I will never leave you: and how faithful Jesus had been!” 

“Jesus had not just stood atop Mount Subasio as Francis did now, watching his knight-errant from these invigorating heights.  He had left the mountain and joined Francis on the plain.  They were fellow travellers on that dusty road, the Lord and his faithful knight.  But they never looked like royalty at all. They were actually more like two oxen pulling a cart behind them.  That was the image that came to Francis whenever he heard the Gospel passage, My yoke is sweet and my burden light.  The yoke was sweet because Francis knew that the ox next to him was the Lord himself, and the burden was light because they were pulling the Dream.  He loved that image.  He and Jesus, two humble oxen, and the Dream as light as gossamer floating behind them in a cart made of butterfly wings.” 

“So many would-be knights killed the Dream by trying to pull the cart all by themselves.  That made everything cockeyed and clumsy.  The yoke on the other side dragged on the ground and you had to lean crazily sideways and the cart tilted on its side soiling its wings and making the lopsided Dream look silly to everyone.  Only two could pull a cart built for two, and no Dream is ever just for you alone.  You pull the Dream with someone you love, for Dreams are made for lovers and the Journey keeps them alive.”  ^[i]

Today we celebrate the Journey and the Dream of our patron saint and look to what it means in our lives.  We celebrate his radical uniqueness.  So often people think of St. Francis in terms of his patronage of animals.  Unfortunately that relegates him as one person put it to being "the patron saint of birdbaths".  He is so much more than that. 

His Journey and his Dream show so much more than that. They demonstrate his radical uniqueness as a saint.  There is no doubt that Francis is the patron saint of the ecology.  For Francis creation was almost as important as the Bible as the means through which God is revealed to us.  He recognized that the things of nature bring us into relationship with God.  That is something that we all experience.  The beauty of a sunset, the changing seasons, a starry night, the awesome grandeur of a mountain, the quiet serenity of a babbling brook! How Francis must have appreciated that reading from the book of Job! As Job explores the wisdom and power of God, he forgets his suffering, his complaints, his neediness.  His strength is renewed as he recognizes that God acts with a power which no creature can resist.  St. Francis was in communion with all of nature. Even at the darkest times in his life he could feel that divine joy that empowered him to walk in the dark, knowing that God walked alongside.  

St. Francis is the patron of passion.  As his heart was on fire with love for God, Christ, humanity, and all of creation so he sets our hearts on fire.  Everything about his life showed that he belonged to God.  He understood as Paul did when he wrote to the Galatians, that salvation comes at a great price.  Christ died for us on the cross.  Francis walked closely with Christ.  He lived his life seeking to be Christ like. He prayed that God would allow him to share in everything that Christ had undergone.  “Let my body share the pain that Christ suffered”, he prayed.  “Let my heart share the love that Christ felt for the whole world.”  He literally carried the marks of Christ in his body.  Open wounds appeared on his hands, feet and side.  These wounds are called the Stigmata, the wounds of Christ.  In our twenty-first Century mindset it is impossible for us to understand that kind of ecstatic experience, but it attests to the relationship that he had with Christ.  It is the relationship of one who walked the walk. 

He was the patron saint of the laity.  A layperson himself, he encouraged people to live the gospel in their daily lives.  People were drawn to the Christ in him.  He followed Christ’s example of inclusivity by ministering to the poor and outcasts of society.  The Gospel speaks to us of a faith dependent not on our intellect, but on our experience of God.  We don’t need great intelligence or education to be close to God.  The Bible stories are meant to connect to our story.  The Acts of the Apostles and saints of the Church continue to be enacted in our communities through our actions.  We need to allow the Spirit of God to work in our lives.  Francis made those connections in his life.  He possessed great charm.  He was attractive to people.  People took to him.  They may have been startled by what he had to say, but they were drawn to his child-like curiosity, to his sense of humour, and to his sense of joy.  They listened to him and responded to his preaching.  More importantly they responded to the way he lived his life, to his close relationship to Christ. 

As we reflect on our life as a Christian community, where are our Journey and our Dream taking us?   As Francis did, we celebrate the Good News of Christ.   We worship God, serve our world, our country and our community and strive to be instruments of peace.  We don’t do it alone, for Christ is with us on the Journey.  Christ shares the Dream.  When our Journey becomes fraught with difficulty, Christ keeps sending us the Dream, making the Journey possible.  

^[i] The Journey and the Dream from Murray Bodo’s book about Francis of Assisi