Proper
22 A
Blessing
of the Animals
Transcribed
from a sermon given
October
2, 2011
Saint
Barnabas Episcopal Church
The
Rev. Valerie Ann Hart
May the words of
my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O
Lord our strength and our redeemer.
Please be seated,
or should I say “Sit!”
If you were
reading along or singing the psalm with the choir you saw where I got that
statement that I almost always use to begin my sermons. It is from that Psalm,
number 19.
I would like to tell
the parable that Jesus gave us today in the manner it might be told in the 21st
century. Let’s imagine that Bill Gates has discovered a new area that is very
poor and a town that has absolutely nothing. So he goes there and he builds a
factory. He puts in wells. He builds houses for the people who will work in the
factory. He puts in a large garden so the people can be well fed. He plants
fruit trees for the future and sets everything up for this town to thrive. The
people of the town are so thankful, so appreciative of what they have been
given. Then Mr. Gates picks out a few of the more intelligent and sophisticated
of the people and says; "Now you will be the managers and you will oversee
what happens.” You are to send me a certain percentage of whatever you make so
I can reinvest it other places, and you are to see to it that everyone has a
good life. Then he goes off to another country in another part of the world to
help them out.
Well, at first the people are so
thankful to Mr. Gates for having done this and helping them out that when it
comes time and they add up how much money they’ve made that year they have no
trouble sending the percentage that was expected back to Mr. Gates. They have
more than enough now, with enough food and housing, and so forth. Well a few
years down the road the managers realize that they haven’t heard back from Mr.
Gates and there is no way for Mr. Gates to know how much they are making, so
why are we sending him the full percentage? We can send him less and he would
never know. So each year they send a little bit of a smaller percentage of what
they have made, because after all they are enjoying how they live and they want
to live better. Especially the managers who want to build some new houses that
are a little bigger than the other houses and they need that extra money to
take care of it. Well this goes on for a few years and then comes the rumor.
The rumor is, (I think they read it on the internet) the rumor is that Mr.
Gates has died. Oh, well, if Mr. Gates has died then this is no longer his
factory - it’s now ours. Right? So we don’t need to send him anything. We can
just enjoy it, and the managers discover that they need more and more. They
work harder than everybody else so they need to have more than everyone else. Some
of the people are starting to be a little poor, but that’s their choice that
they don’t have as much because they don’t work as hard.
Well after a
couple of years Bill Gates say, “How come I haven’t gotten any money from that
one town? It has been several years now. I’m going to send one of my chief aids
to go and figure out what’s going on.” Well, this chief aid of Bill Gates is a
little smarter than the ones in Jesus’ parable and he doesn’t go there and tell
them who he is. He just tries to figure out what’s going on. Then he says that
this isn’t right. This isn’t yours, this was given to you to use, to take care
of and you shouldn’t be treating some people as less than. Some of the people
hear and some don’t.
Then that person
goes back to Mr. Gates and says, “I’m really concerned. I’m hoping they will
change their ways, but there is no guarantee.” Well a few more years go by and
they are still not getting their share of the profits so finally Bill Gates
sends his son. And his son goes. Well when they find out that it is Bill Gates
son they say, “Ah, if Bill Gates is truly dead then if we kill the son it will
be ours. We’ll inherit it.”
In this version
of the story Bill Gates’ son doesn’t get killed but what do you think of those
people? Those people who were given a great gift. They were given a gift of new
life. They were given so much opportunity, and they forgot it was a gift. They
forgot it didn’t belong to them. What would happen to such a people?
What would happen
to us, because after all, everything, everything we have, is a gift from God.
The sunshine isn’t ours. The rain isn’t ours. The seeds that are planted and
grow up to make food aren’t ours. Our bodies were created by God and are a gift
from God. Our intellectual capacity is a gift from God. We didn’t make
ourselves smart; we didn’t make ourselves talented. Our hands, with these
wonderful opposable thumbs which means we would be able to create all this
amazing technology, that was a gift from God. We didn’t will and decide that we
would have all of that. It is all a gift.
Now we are
celebrating St. Francis today, but I am using the readings that are normally
used for this Sunday, not the readings that are for St. Francis, but they
certainly fit with Francis.
Let’s begin with
the Old Testament reading. It is always good to remember what those basic
commandments are. And the very first one, the very first one is, “I am the Lord
who brought you out of slavery in Egypt, you will have no other gods before me.”
The very first commandment is a reminder that God gives us everything. Our
freedom, our lives, all of it. And we are supposed to keep God as number 1.
That’s the foundation. That’s the first commandment. No ifs, ands or buts. No I
am number 1 except when there is a good football game on. Not I am number 1 but
make as much money as you can. Not I am number 1 and if you make me number 1
then I will give you something. It is not a deal. It is not an exchange. I am
number 1, period. End of that first commandment.
And when we make
God number 1, when we appreciate and realize that God is the source of
everything, all of our lives, how can we not live a life of thankfulness and
praise. All the time. And that’s St. Francis. St. Francis praised and loved God
all the time. No matter what.
He chose poverty
because he knew that everything he had was God’s anyway. And he gave away all
of it. He wrote some of the words we have been singing today in some of the
songs about praising God. One of the last things he wrote was a wonderful ode
to God, a poem of praise, which is Hymn 406. So if you look in the blue hymnal
for hymn 406 you will recognize the words. “Most high omnipotent good Lord to
thee be ceaseless praise outpoured, and blessing without measure. From thee
alone all creatures came no one is worthy thee to name. My lord be praised by
brother sun who through the skies his course doth run.” And it goes on that
everything in creation should praise God. It is a joyous hymn of praise, a poem
of praise.
You would expect
that someone who could write that sort of praise for God was probably feeling
pretty good at the time. But the truth is this was written near the end of
Francis’ life. The last few years of his life he was constantly in excruciating
pain. His feet were in so much pain he couldn’t walk. So when he wrote this he
was in great physical pain. And he was also in emotional and spiritual pain
because the order that had founded based on the idea that they would own
nothing was now under the control of some of his followers and was starting to
buy property. Which he was against. He could see that his order, although still
doing good work, was not living up to the deepest commitment that he had. The
absolute poverty of Francis was too much for even the Franciscans. And so he
was in anguish about that. Imagine being in constant pain and seeing your life
work going in a different direction than you’d intended it and being able to
write such wonderful praise to God. That was St. Francis. That was St. Francis.
We bless animals
around the time of St. Francis’ feast day because it is said that he loved
animals. There is a story of him with a wolf and there are stories that he so
needed to preach the love of God that if there were no people around to hear it
he would preach to the birds. I sometimes try to imagine what Francis might
have said to the birds. And I imagine that Francis said to the birds, “You
beautiful creatures of God, creatures created by the loving God, sing God’s
praise all the time.” And I imagine that if Francis was here today and saw the
wonderful creatures we have here, these wonderful dogs who are being so very,
very good, he would say, “Animals, you are beloved creatures of God. Created to
praise him. Praise and serve God with every breath, with every pant, with every
bark. Sing God’s praise.
And I think that
Francis might say to us two legged creatures who are gathered here today, “You
wonderful creations of God, you blessed of God, know that God loves you and
praise God with every breath.”
Amen
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