The Rev. Sara Warfield
Scripture: Acts 4:32-35, 5:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
I’m not sure if I’ve ever preached about the epistle or the gospel for this Feast Day of St. Francis. I think on a day when we’re blessing our pets, it feels like it makes a little more sense to preach on Job and the mountain goats and the ostriches and how God has made them to be exactly what they need to be.
And also, who wants to preach about a husband and wife dropping dead in front of Peter after they lied about what they had to give? It seems a little harsh as far as punishments go. And what does a man asking Jesus to tell his brother to split his inheritance have to do with St. Francis and animals? Who chose these readings for this day anyway?
But, as I sat and prayed and reflected on these scriptures and on the life and ministry of St. Francis, it started to become clear to me that these two strange passages probably have more to do with our dear saint than even the Job passage.
Let’s dig into them a little more. In the Acts, we’re told:
God’s grace was so powerfully at work in that earliest Jesus-following community in Jerusalem that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
Then we hear about Ananias and Sapphira. They are drawn to this group of Jesus-followers who do not hold back in their generosity, whose deep and authentic concern is that everyone’s needs are met. It’s compelling to them. They want to be in with this group, to feel the joy that comes with being part of a deeply caring community.
But, it seems, they want the joy and belonging without the commitment and sacrifice. So they sell a piece of property, because that’s what all the cool kids are doing, but they keep some of the proceeds back for themselves, and bring only a portion to lay at the apostles’ feet.
Peter says to Ananias, “You didn’t have to sell your property. It could have remained yours. But you did sell it, and you promised to give the proceeds to this community, to God. Which means you did not lie to us, but you lied to God.” And Ananias falls dead right then and there. And his wife, too, just a little later.
I think it’s important to point out that Peter didn’t curse them or say anything that caused them to die, nor is there any indication that God was involved. They were confronted with their dishonesty, and they died.
Now I don’t know if this really happened, but I think the underlying meaning of this story is powerful: seeking the benefits of spirituality without committing to the life and work of spirituality renders our faith meaningless. If someone claims to follow Jesus but is not willing to love one’s neighbor, to care for the least of these, to put concern for others first, their belief is hollow. A spiritual life without follow-through, without a willingness to sacrifice for the well-being of others, as Jesus did, is a spiritual life lacking integrity. And a spiritual life lacking integrity is dead.
St. Francis of Assisi went 1,000% in on integrity. He didn’t just renounce his possessions when he gave his life to Jesus, as the story goes he stripped off his clothes in the church and only wore what rags a bishop gave him. He didn’t just side with the poor, he refused to eat anything that wasn’t given to him out of generosity. He built churches, as he believed God called him to do, but only with stones that he found or that people gave him, so the legend goes.
This leads to the gospel.
After the man asks Jesus to tell his brother to split the inheritance, Jesus shares a parable: a rich farming man has an enormous harvest, way more than he needs, and he decides to store it all up for himself.
I mean, Ananias and Sapphira offered at least some of their wealth to God, whatever their intentions. Not this guy. This guy doesn’t think of God at all. Instead, he checks in with himself and says, “yeah, you know what, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy my abundance.”
But God says to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
The problem with abundance, Jesus is saying, can be that we start to trust more in what we’ve stored up for ourselves than in what we trust God to provide.
St. Francis also went 1,000% in on trusting God. He and his followers went wherever the need was, whether that was to help in leper colonies where they could be exposed to deadly sickness or to preach to the animals in the forest. They followed the charge of Jesus to his disciples “to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on an extra tunic.”
Food, clothes, stones, health—St. Francis trusted in God for all of it.
I think that’s also what led to his affinity with animals. Not only did he see them as an essential part of God’s creation, he also saw in them an inherent trust, and an inherent integrity. Think about your own pets. They don’t know how to be duplicitous, to say one thing and then do another. When a cat wants a scratch behind the ear, they let you know. They also let you know when they’re done with that scratching. And who in this world doesn’t know when a dog wants you to pet their butt. They literally shift their entire bodies until your hand is exactly where they want it.
Now you might teach them how to manipulate you in order to get food or belly rubs. They just replicate behavior that has gotten them those things in the past. Because deep down their first instinct is to survive and they learn from the world around them how to do that.
Your pets are utterly trusting in you for their survival. That you’ll feed them and bring them in when the weather is dangerous and give them the care they need. And in the wild, animals do nothing but trust in God for their needs to be met.
It seems that St. Francis was inspired by that. We often see statues of him in yards where birds gather or art of him preaching to the deer and squirrels and skunks, but I imagine he believed that the animals were his teacher, his model for a faithful life, rather than the other way around.
So in a moment we will bless these teachers of ours, these pets who model integrity for us, who model trusting in God to provide; who give us the opportunity to practice living the love of Jesus with our commitment to and sacrifice for our furry and scaly and feathery and swimming friends.
As we bear witness to these blessings, let the joy that was in St. Francis stir up in each of us. Amen.
Leave a Reply