Let all things their Creator bless

This week in our parish churches we are focussing on issues to do with the Creation
caring for the environment
and looking after animals.
We will, for our penance, have a service in which we bless pets!
The principal rationale for this is the feast of St Francis of Assissi which falls each year on October 4th.
Last week (see here) I talked about whether we have allowed our worship to become 'entertainment' instead of the genuine connection with God that it is supposed to be
Rightly one of my parishioners reminded me that the forthcoming Pet Blessing looks rather like such frivolity.
I hope that we can escape that.
It is a tight rope.
On the one hand bringing our pets to church to seek a blessing for them and us
is quite different from what we normally do, isn't it?
And may seem so way out that it looks trivial,
on the other hand as we look at St Francis
who had a simple devotion to the environment and to domestic animals
we can recognise that this is also one of the key real-life issues
that faces humanity today
How do we live in harmony with our living environment?
How do we act as good stewards, TODAY, of that which God has committed to our care?
Francis saw, too, tha the simple realities of life
draws us to the service of the poorest of the poor
and it is to those that we are to direct our attention.

To say St Francis seemed 'a bit eccentric'
is to understate his story!
Probably what most of us remember
is that he used to talk to animals!
some commentators suggest that this was a device he used to attract people's attention.
It certainly did that.
Thousands flocked to see this gentle man,
and while they were there listening to him talking to birds and the sheep,
they heard him also speak of God's love and care
for the whole of the world, its creatures
and everything that makes up our environment.
While they got alongside him, they aso realised that it was possible
to love and care for those who the world often rejects
The poor and the unlovely!
For the 12th century it is a profoundly modern message!

Some stories
He is also thought to be one of those people
who had a unique closeness to Jesus.
This crucifix pictured here is in St Damiano Church
and is said to have been so powerful for him
that he heard the voice of Jesus speak.
Many of us know those powerful moments from time to time.
He is characterised as receiving the stigmata...the wounds of Christ in his body...
a particular sign, gift, burden and responsibility
of blessing from God
An indication of his holiness.

These things do not sit easily with the understandings of the 21st century,
we may choose to rationalise them
or understand them more symbolically.
Nevertheless, as we juxtapose and put together some of these ideas
we get a powerful understanding of what might have been happening in Francis's life

It is, for example, in simple attention to the world in which we live
in particular to its poverty, simplicity and humility
that we will understand the mystery of the Crucified Christ.
It is as we live this out in our bodies
that we will know what it means to be like Christ
to understand his wounds
and to share in his work of redemption.

St Francis reminds us that this is not 'entertainment'
it is the opportunity that is at our very door.
As we look at the pressing issues of environment
and simply living in harmony in our world
(our pets are a nearby example of this)
we have the framework to hear Jesus speaking
and to take up our own Cross and share in that work.


Practical stuff.
Yet profoundly attractive to us who seek closeness to God.

YOU Tube presentation

And companions on the way

Ruth 1:1-8; Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:11-15, Mark 12:13-17, 28-34 Readings for Sunday 5th November, Pentecost 22 (Proper 31)

I always find this season both encouraging and challenging
As the year draws towards its close
we move in the Church's year from thinking about day to day life
to the fulfillment of the promises of God's kingdom.
In the Church of England this season is called Kingdom Time
It is, I think, a good name.
In my mind it begins around the end of October
with the feast of St Simon and St Jude (28th October)
So far as we know they are two of the apostles listed in the Gospels
but we know very little about them.
Jude is traditionally called "The Obscure" meaning that whoever he is we don't actually have any detail.

[Indeed that's why Thomas Hardy reminds us in his dark novel of failed ambition and thwarted hope which is entitled Jude the Obscure(full text here) of a man who fails to make it because he is unknown, unrecognised, unappreciated...he is indeed Obscure]

This feast is a prelude to the great feast day that we encounter on November 1st....All Saints Day...and which is followed the day after by All Soul's Day, when the dead are commemorated
We are here in a world which transcends the grave
what the Apostle's Creed calls the communion of saints
This is heady stuff! Too much for some!

But we may be prompted to ask what this is all about
Isn't it just religious mumbo-jumbo?
Of course it could be, that may indeed be the point.
If we get to the guts of it
the saints point us to how faith might be lived with authenticity and integrity
We are constantly tempted to whitewash the saints (like any heroes) and romanticise them.
Indeed we do this to Jesus!
But as we begin to scratch their stories we soon realise that their lives are anything but pristine.
Let me just reflect briefly on three saints.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is arguably the most influential Christian thinker of the 21st century.
His call to radical discipleship and to see the gospel as the challenge to freely decide to follow Christ in every aspect of life is now almost taken for granted.
It does not seem too radical, and yet for Bonhoeffer
his life was lived with a total commitment
to community, to prayer and to human action.
This latter ultimatley saw him caught up in the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Germany, he laid his life on the line by being one of those who sought to assassinate Hitler.
This cost him his life, he was arrested and ultimately imprisoned. Executed only weeks before the war ended
we see in his life
the Cost of Discipleship ( a title of one of his books) played out in reality in his own life.
Such a saint sets us before us the reality of Christian life,
of the possibility of being faithful in life to all that Christ sets before us.
Mother Teresa too, that amazing little Eastern European nun who ended up in India looking after the poorest of the poor
she did it because she felt called to do Something Beautiful for God (a book about her made popular by Malcolm Muggeridge in the 70s)
She too set before the world the possibility of being faithful
not just in word but in deed.
Francis catches the popular imagination for the same reason
Although an incurable idealist, he was a fundamental pragmatist
selling everything he worked to care for poor people
and those who no one else loved
He witnesses to the fact that it is possible to be faithful to Christ
in life, in word and in deed

THIS WEEK
Do you hear the call of the saints? The reality of the call to be faithful.
How is God calling you to practise your sainthood in your life?
What one thing can you do to be a saint this week...it will be loving, it will be faithful, it will be possible. So do it!