Celebrate Poverty

Friday, October 4, was St. Francis’ Day, the official feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. Here at St. Patrick’s we commemorated St. Francis' life and ministry in our Thursday evening Eucharist this past week. The Episcopal Church publishes a book called Lesser Feasts and Fasts. It sets out the calendar of saints’ days that we may observe in weekday services if we wish and provides a bit of biographical information on the various saints. One line in St. Francis’ biographical sketch really caught my attention. "Of all the saints, Francis is the most popular and admired, but probably the least imitated; few have attained to his total identification with the poverty and suffering of Christ." The most popular and admired, but probably the least imitated… Francis, after all, gave up absolutely every shred of material possession that was his, and he came from a wealthy family. That is indeed a hard example to imitate.

Paul speaks of imitation in the portion of the letter to the Philippians that we heard this morning. "Join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us." Paul encourages the Christians in the church in Philippi to imitate his (Paul’s) example. Paul is rarely short on self-confidence, but even for Paul this sounds a bit on the arrogant side, setting himself up as the model, the perfect example of Christian life. If only everyone were just like me, Paul seems to say; well, then the church would be in good shape. There have been plenty of people within the history of Christendom who have felt and said similar things, who have proclaimed themselves to be the model of perfect Christian behavior. Rarely to the long-term benefit of the Body of Christ. Is this really what Paul means?

Only sort of.  Listen to what Paul says a few verses before this morning’s reading from Philippians: "Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ." It is Paul’s hope that others will come to learn what he has learned, humility before God. What Paul wants others to imitate is his own sense of falling short, his sense of how very much he lacks before God.

Which brings us back, in a round about way, to St. Francis. That saint who is so widely admired and so rarely imitated. St. Francis was noteworthy for what he lacked. He completely renounced all power and status and every penny of material wealth and possession. So if we are to imitate St. Paul or St. Francis, we must imitate not what they had, but what they lacked. We must imitate their poverty.

We live in a world where everything is measured by what we have… how much we have… whether it’s material possessions, or nobler things like education, wisdom, or leadership. We count what we have. In our world, it’s always better to have things than not to have them. And the more we have the better. The stronger we are, for example, the better we feel about ourselves. Or if we think we have less imagination or patience than we should, we measure ourselves poorly. We are always wishing we could have more, whether it is material possessions or the more noble possessions of character, we still measure ourselves by what we have and we always long for more.

What if we could step completely out of this worldview. Turn it on its head! Let’s measure and celebrate what we don’t have. The church and the world would be a better place if we all could, in fact, imitate St. Francis. But even if we can’t give up everything like Francis did, maybe we can stop right where we are and look at our lives differently. Instead of measuring what we have; maybe we can measure what we don’t have. Instead of always wishing and working for more, maybe we can acknowledge and celebrate the poverty that is within our lives.

Let’s celebrate what we don’t have.

For example, we don’t have all the answers. And I don’t just mean all the answers about child rearing or responsible investing. We don’t have all the answers about God. We don’t have a full picture of what God intends for each of us in our lives, and we certainly don’t have all the answers about what God intends for others. We don’t have all the answers about God and human sexuality, or about God’s purpose for the relationship between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We don’t have all the answers about St. Patrick’s mission for the second 25 years of this community’s life. We don’t have all the answers about the meaning of Holy Scripture.

 In 1800 a young woman named Miss Caroline E. Smelt wrote to her cousin, "never enter a theatre, never play cards, and never attend tea parties. For if any one of these is evil, they all are; and of this I am absolutely certain." Absolutely certain… She was absolutely certain she knew God’s perspective. In the face of such certainty, I don’t imagine that God would have had much incentive to speak to Miss Smelt any further. And she would certainly have had no reason to listen. She knew all the answers.  Her relationship with God was dead.

Let us celebrate the things we don’t know. Let us give thanks for all of the questions yet unanswered. That is where God will speak to us in days to come. Those are the active and engaging conversations with God that will shape and form us as we grow in the days and years ahead. Rather than celebrating the knowledge we have attained, the things we think we do know, let us celebrate the infinite poverty of our knowledge. That poverty is an inexhaustible source of ongoing conversation with God. Unlike Miss Smelt, we have much to look forward to in our relationship with God.

And let us also celebrate the things we don’t have. That’s hard to do. Almost as hard as giving up the things we have, as Francis did. Most of us would rather try to acquire the things we think we lack, rather than celebrate the absence of what we can’t acquire. But there are things we can’t acquire, or haven’t yet acquired, no matter how well-off we may be. Despite the cliché, no one really has "everything a man could want." Not everything. And it seems to take lacking some possession we desire to enable us to see that possessions do not really bring us fulfillment. They may bring fleeting pleasure or comfort, but they do not give our lives enduring meaning. The new car we do not buy, the prime rib we do not eat, the expensive jewelry we will never afford, the larger home, the second home… whatever it may be that we consciously lack… that lack, that poverty is space where God may find room to enter our lives and offer us true riches. Thank God no matter how hard we try, our possessions can never truly fill our lives. There will always be at least pieces of poverty in what we have. That poverty creates space, at least some space, where we may receive God’s abundant gifts. So let us celebrate the things we do not have.

And finally, let us celebrate the things we cannot do. We cannot create love. We cannot control fate or ensure that good will triumph over evil. We cannot force the sun to rise or the grass to grow. We cannot program imagination. We cannot legislate repentance and reconciliation. We cannot earn or engineer eternal life. We cannot do these things. The poverty of our power is immense. And yet love and goodness and the dawn and imagination and reconciliation and eternal life are real; they are given to us in life. They are the fruits of God’s active, never-ending, eternally creative presence in our lives. As long as we recognize the poverty of our power and admit our desire, our need, for God, God will never put us aside. As long as we acknowledge that we are unfinished, God’s persistent creativity will never finish with us. So let us celebrate the things we cannot do. And anticipate all of the wondrous things that God will do to renew and enrich our hearts and souls.

Paul is quite clear on the fate of those who think they can manage on their own… those people who think they have it all or know it all. "Their minds are set on earthly things; their god is the belly; their end is destruction." St. Francis, on the other hand, is an example of someone who put aside earthly things and in poverty found joy. It is that simple joy that I think we find most admirable and endearing in Francis’ life. We may not have the courage to imitate Francis’ total poverty, and we may not find the seemingly total serenity and joy that he found. But we may, at least, make a beginning. We may celebrate the poverty that is in our lives… celebrate the things we do not know, celebrate the things we do not have, celebrate the things we cannot do. Poverty is a beginning. The creative beginning of a rich, joy-filled, never-ending relationship with an infinitely loving God.

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