NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON 1 P.M.
Sunday, August 12 , 2007 (Feast Day of St. Clare)
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears (Toronto)
1:00 p.m.
1st Lesson: 1 Corinthians 15: 1- 11
Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Gospel: Luke 18: 9 – 14
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
SERMON PROPER BEGINS
Depending on the church calendar, the feast day of St. Clare of Assisi is celebrated either August 11th or 12th. It is therefore appropriate to spend a few moments reflecting on the life of someone who has challenged me to be serious about faith, and yet also tried to get me to laugh at my own absurdities.
About 800 years ago Italy was in ferment. There were wars and political violence; religious strife, particularly between western Christians and the Muslim world, was a dominant factor in international affairs; economic hardships for some while new sources of wealth for others was an all too common source of social tension; epidemics and famine were feared.
And into this world came some very odd people. Voices for peace were raised by those in the military; people of property renounced their priviledge and lived among and as the most vulnerable; people of firm religious conviction found ways to listen for the voice of God across cultural and religious barriers—everyday stubborn and cantankerous people looked to find ways to love one another.
It seemed that the strangest area in Italy at that time was Assisi—for Assisi was the home both of Francesco Bernadone and Clare di Offreduccio.
Francesco was the son of a rich merchant, an army veteran and former POW, discharged due to health concerns. Clare was the daughter of wealthy minor nobility who had to flee her home for a while due to civil war. Both had a personal history of generosity to friends and those in need, but no more than any others who grasped the responsibility of those with wealth and power to the community they lived in.
These two, who we know as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi, were two of a large number of people who at about the same time heard the call to love one another and then set about exploring what such a call means to themselves, to their community and to the world. Some, like St. Francis, were orators and poets. Others, St. Clare, were administrators and organisers. All shared the idea that sainthood wasn’t for the perfect but for the imperfect—we can with the help of God, live in the here and now an echo of the shalom kingdom.
These early Franciscans and Poor Clares weren’t unfamiliar with living out the demands of their faith. They attended mass, gave to charitable endeavours, attempted to be good family members. And yet this wasn’t enough for them. They wanted to be respond more intimately to the loving presence of God and less to the structured way that a faithful life had become.
They didn’t see the life that they were called to—voluntary poverty and simplicity, a rejection of violence and priviledge and the social barriers so readily woven between individuals and communities—as a grand gesture that elevated them above other believers. Rather, they embraced their life and encouraged others to find truth in theirs, challenging everyone by example to move closer to the fullness of life shown in the example of Jesus’ life among us.
This spirit of seeking to be with those in need, to help one another, to embrace peace rather than conflict, to find a way of life closer to that of the creator, continues to move among us. There are many Poor Clares’ communities, living in ways inspired by the rule for the order devised by St. Clare, that seek through prayer and charity, contemplation and a model of life in community, to imitate in a joyous fashion the life of the risen
Christ.
Some 800 years St. Clare inspires not only those called to a life of simplicity and prayer. She inspires those that want to hear the voice of God in creation—a spiritual approach to cherishing the environment and seeking to share it with all those who are within God’s creation. She inspires those wanting to provide a haven for those on the outside—both those that do it through communities of hospitality such as the Catholic Worker movement and those that do so within a more formal structure such as St. Clare’s Multifaith Housing Society. And she inspires those who need to be reminded that prayer is active participation in the life of the world.
St. Clare, and the others in the circle that come together in Assisi, didn’t come to their conclusions in a vacuum. They had heard from their earliest moments of what happenned when God walked among us, that Jesus spoke to those, such as the Samaritan woman at the well and the tax collector for the Roman occupiers, who were outcasts and yet wanting to be included in the embrace of a loving creator. They learned about Jesus who called blessings on the peacemakers and healed the leper. They learned about the last judgement, when people would be held to account for how they treated the hungry and homeless and dispossessed of the world. They were challenged to renounce the things of this world and embrace the things of the next. And in a time of chaos and fear, they chose to do the ridiculous thing of becoming powerless, peaceful and poor.
The renounced and reclaimed—they renounced priviledge and reclaimed joy; they renounced power and reclaimed hope; they renounced status and reclaimed love. It was a time of liberation.
Life to St. Clare and for St. Francis was upside down. If one fasted, it wasn’t to deny life but to embrace a sense of freedom from the restrictions of normal life. If one wanted to be heard, one spoke to the birds as what was said in creation was forever present. This was a Pentecost movement, born in joy and exuberance and hard work and faith.
800 years later these are around us modern Clares. They will be found in places of conflict caring for the suffering. They will be found trying to encourage people to share what they have with one another. They will be found getting people to laugh at themselves. Some are within religious orders; others are in movements for calling for economic and social justice; some are in places of conflict seeking to explore non-violence in dangerous lands; others are found on the 4th floor of an apartment building making a meal for their neighbour who’s just got out of the hospital. They can be advising the powerful and panhandling on the streets—they are among us. Like all saints, they aren’t perfect. And like all saints, they make a difference in the same way we all can—doing what we are able to do to show that love is ever present in the world.
