The Rev. Will Bryant
25th June 2023: Pentecost 4 (Proper 7)
Good morning, St. Paul’s!
What a joy it is to be here with you again.
My year as a young adult service corps volunteer among you back in 2014-15 was such a transformational experience for me.
So transformative in fact that I went on to seminary soon after I returned to the US. And then, by the grace of god, was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in 2021.
And so now, in the blink of an eye, your faithful intern is back (albeit with no hair), in this beautiful nave, in this amazing city, looking out at many familiar faces, and my heart is full.
But I do not come alone!
Here with me today are 15 other pilgrims from The Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, North Carolina.
We are together the Episcopal Youth Community, or EYC, a group of teenagers that meet regularly throughout the year to learn about what it means to follow Jesus, do service work and then also just have fun.
Thank you, Fr. Austin and Maleah for being so welcoming to us this week. We are so deeply grateful for your hospitality.
As father Austin mentioned earlier, We are on Pilgrimage in this country.
We didn’t come here just for the gelato!
No, we are on pilgrimage in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi.
This pilgrimage we have been planning and preparing for all year.
We have a window dedicated to Francis in our Cathedral nave but for many in our group, they had never heard of Italy’s patron Saint.
Throughout the year, we have studied this person of Francis.
We learned a lot!
His love of creation; his embrace of the leper, his welcome of the stranger; his time spent as a prisoner of war; his exchange of peace with the Sultan of Egypt during the crusades.
And yesterday, we were so fortunate to spend the day in Assisi. To experience and witness the place where Francis lived and worked.
It was amazing!
But there is an overlooked story in the canon of Franciscan lore.
A story which is every bit as painful and humiliating as Francis’ languishing in a medieval prison or his struggle with the stigmata, the wounds of Christ he received.
A story which echoes the words of Jesus in todays Gospel from Matthew
“Do not think I have come to bring peace to earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in law against her mother in law, and one’s foes will be members of one’s household.”
It’s important to remember that before all the miracles, before all the teaching, the preaching to animals, that Francis was first a son, who had a father and a mother who loved him.
Who clothed him in the finest clothes and made his life easy.
They supported him even as he put his life in danger, becoming a soldier to fight in battles with neighboring city states.
Many of you know that after one such battle Francis was imprisoned after his army suffered a terrible defeat.
He was a prisoner for months before his father, a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, spent a fortune to rescue him and bring him home.
His father’s wish in buying his freedom was for Francis to come home, to be productive and industrious, to take on the family business and make money; to carry on the family bloodline!
But Francis felt called in another direction.
On the outskirts of Assisi, Francis one day heard the voice of God call to him in an old, crumbling church.
“Francis,” God said, “Rebuild my church.”
Francis didn’t need to hear the words twice! His heart leaped at this call to follow Gods will.
There was one problem though.
Francis needed money.
Francis had a solution though, he went back into town, crept into his fathers cloth warehouse and stole a bale of silk (a very precious commodity in those days) and then he sold it to help repair the old crumbling church.
Francis’ father was furious.
Furious.
So furious in fact that we are told in Francis first biography of his life, written in 1230 AD that his father locked him up in his house for days and beat him.
But the worst was yet to come.
In the ultimate act of humiliation, Francis father marched his son in front of the bishop, in front of his entire town to renounce Francis’ property, his birthright.
And in this moment, Francis did the unthinkable.
Without hesitation, without missing a beat, Francis took off his cloak.
He shed the tunic underneath, and he removed his sandals.
He even removed his underwear!
And, completely naked, he renounced all ties to his father.
He renounced his large inheritance, and he walked away.
There is no mention of Francis ever speaking or interacting with his father again.
“Do not think I have come to bring peace to earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father. One’s foes will be members of one’s household.”
These words from Jesus, this story of Francis, teach us so much about the cost of discipleship, so much about the perils of trying to listen and follow God’s call in our lives.
They teach us that taking on the mantle of Christ, calling one self a Christian, living fully into our baptismal vows to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend the sick, to love God and love neighbor, puts us on a collision course with common, seductive, temporal ideologies that would have us do the very opposite.
Make money. Obtain power. Hoard wealth.
Doctrines of domination which we are consciously and subconsciously trained to follow in society from an early age.
Doctrines which would have us value profits over people, and choose judgment over compassion.
And when these ideologies collide, our identities – who we truly are, what we truly value, who and what we truly worship are on full display – this is a vulnerable space.
A terrifying place.
A place where are stripped, naked and bare for all to see.
This is a place where – rather we would like it or not, we have to make a choice.
Choices which can divide us in painful ways, choices which can divide not just families but nations.
Father against son; mother against daughter; brother against sister.
Members of the household become ones foes.
We heard it about one example of it with Francis this morning.
We have heard Jesus allude to this division in his missionary discourse as he prepares his disciples to go out and spread the Gospel among the people.
But haven’t we all had this experience?
This experience where we are made to choose between Christ and culture.
To choose between our baptismal vows and our allegiances to a culture of domination and consumer capitalism?
For many Americans in the last decade, faithful Christian’s have been put in this position in the political arena
The elections of 2016 and 2020 divided friends and families not only on political fault lines but religious ones.
Christians on the left and right, were at each others throats as one side struggled to uphold Gods greatest Commandments to love God and Neighbor, to respect the human dignity of every human being – including immigrants, women and people of color, while another group struggled to defend thinly veiled idolatry and policies that excluded those on the margins.
American Christians were made to choose at the ballot box.
Baptismal Vows or Political Party allegiances?
Should I champion people or should I champion a cheap, hollow, religious piety?
And what followed?
Father against son, mother against daughter, brother against sister.
Members of the household become ones foes.
Friends, our discipleship, our Christian identity will inevitably put us in position to make hard choices, difficult choices.
This has been true since Christ first walked this earth, since he warned the disciples about the perils of spreading this radical movement.
Since Francis stood in front of all of Assisi and renounced his inheritance.
Today, marks the entrance for some in this congregation into this beautiful, sometimes difficult position.
Leek, Agot, Deng, your baptism today marks the entrance into this arena where you, like Francis, like Jesus will be put in tough circumstances.
The path is difficult, there is no doubt.
But there is good news!
The tough journey of discipleship is also a fulfilling journey.
A journey that may not lead to material wealth but to a spiritual wealth
A journey where we may feel divided by family and friends – but where we may be gifted with new brothers and sisters in Christ.
In all of it…Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
God sends this message to Hagar as her faith is tested in the desert.
Do not be afraid.
Jesus tells the disciples that over and over again as their Gospel movement collides with empire and a tired orthodoxy.
Do not be afraid.
So to you, Leek, Agot, Deng, and to all of St Pauls who stand before God renewing your baptismal vows today.
Take heart, Do not be afraid!
Know that that you are not alone.
We walk this pilgrimage road of discipleship – fraught with difficult choices and moments that leave us stripped and bare, and we walk it TOGETHER. Amen.