Prayer of St. Francis, Part Two

   Prayer of St. Francis, Part Two:  Hatred to Love & Injury to Pardon

   Do you think revenge feels good? Have you wanted to seek revenge because someone injured you in some way, or you felt the Hatred toward you for any reason?

   Maybe you felt that way because of the injury caused by a co-worker, a team mate, spouse, family, neighbor or acquaintance? Sometimes the hurt can be awful, sometimes it’s physical, but often in today’s world, It’s emotional or psychological in nature. Maybe you have been fortunate, give thanks to God for that escape. But there is so much evidence of hatred and injury around us, we can’t help but notice or identify with those who are going through this injury and hate.

   This week the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) sent out a fund raising letter and a map identifying by state 1,020 hate groups in our country. The hate groups are varied like Ku Klux Klan, or Neo-Nazi or White Nationalists. All identifying a group of people as the object of their hate. The reason could be skin color, country of origin and in some cases religious affiliation. Tweets that hurt are also in this group.

   But you can understand why we have an urge for revenge or retribution can’t you? A survey of recent very popular movies contain something about revenge. Whether it be a Liam Neeson movie because someone was Taken. A Jason Bourne movie, or even the comic book heroes of the Avengers. We are surrounded by the encouragement to seek revenge and the good feelings that revenge can bring to us.

   No wonder it is so hard to practice our faith against these odds. But Jesus says in the scripture read today from Matthew 5: 28-39  Turn the other cheek, Love your enemies, if they should sue you for your shirt, give them you coat as well. If they demand one mile, give them two. If they ask to borrow, lend to them. Forgive the one who has hurt you, remember God has forgiven you.

   This is so hard to do. We will need to work extremely hard to overcome the undertow that the world we live in has created.

   St. Francis can help us a little bit here. His desire was driven by his complete motivation to become like Jesus. He wanted to be filled with God’s love, and he felt he could see and hear God speak to him about that love in the whole world around him. Nature particularly reflected God’s care for us. That’s one of the reasons for starting our worship this morning with a visual invocation of pictures, to remind us of God as we worship, so that we may be filled with that love as well. We want to turn hatred into love, to turn injury into pardon.

   Have you ever tried turning the other cheek? How did that go? Have you offered forgiveness in a dramatic way for the injury or hatred you experience? Have you gone out of your way to pardon or help repair an injury? Even if it wasn’t your fault? One of the great things about this church is it’s mission commitment, and like this past week, the volunteers who served meals at the County Women’s Shelter, were offering a pardon blessing to help people work through some injury.

   We want to find ways to be Instruments of Peace. We want to develop our inner conscience to be able to offer Peace to those who desperately need it. We want to develop the power within us to share by our actions and words, the full benefit of the Instrument of Peace, all of it.

   This is going to be very hard to do. The majority of culture, seems to want to work against this very Christ like task. And for some who claim the name of Jesus, we can become a part of the injury, our negligence can be the very reason for the injury, or the feeling of hatred. And some who call themselves Christian have done the most damage.

   We need to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit so that we can develop the fortitude to show Christ like love and be the instruments of peace, our world so desperately needs. That comes with a deep commitment to grow in our faith, to become even more familiar with God’s help, the teachings of Jesus and the fruits of the Spirit, so that we can be the channel of healing and peace. One of the avenues to develop our strength for peace, is growing more intentional in our prayer life. That’s why we did the Presence Prayer idea, as a part of our worship this morning. We should look for ways to be present with God in prayer, and to stretch the time in praying to sense that help from the Spirit.

   St. Francis wanted to be so much like Jesus that he devoted time to hear from God. And what he heard led him to help others.

   There once was a feud between the Mayor of Assissi and the Bishop, the reason was never quite clear. You see even in the 1200 there were challenges between church and state. The mayor withdrew from the church and withdrew certain resources for the church. The Bishop responded by excommunicating the Mayor and praying against him. It was very public and very nasty.

   So St. Francis added a new verse to his Canticle for the Sun, that specifically addressed the feud and taught it to the friars in his order. He then persuaded or tricked, the Mayor and the Bishop to be in the same place. The friars then broke into song, and the feuding heard the voice of God and reason and peace in the song. They put aside their injury and offered pardon, restoring a much needed sense of peace to Assissi.

   One of the words of wisdom in our section of the prayer today is the three letter word between hatred and love. The word is “sow”. This word will remind us that sometimes the outcome of love starts with a tiny seed, sown to begin to work toward resolving the injury and the hatred that exists. We want everything to be so instant and fast. We think delivery of our order by tomorrow, seems to take too long. We just want instant everything. I bought an Apple Mac Mini the other day, they upgraded that computer for the first time since 2012. I was in the middle of transferring the files when the screen said one hour and 48 minutes to completion of the transfer. Wow, I can’t wait that long…. But we must.

   To sow love where there is hatred, will also be tiny steps and take time. It will be up to us to find small seed like moments to help the love to grow. Prayers for others, words of kindness, efforts to help one another, can all be tiny seeds that will end up growing love and pardon, where there is hatred and injury.

   We need to commit to the large effort on our part to grow in faith like Christ. We need to commit to more prayer, more reading of scripture, especially the Gospels. We need to hang around others who have the same challenge and desire to sow love, like members of a congregation like ours. It will take determination to replace hatred and injury with love and pardon. But we are not alone in this.

Romans 8:31-39 The Message (MSG)

^31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

   So I invite you to be an Instrument of Peace. I invite you to live confidently with the Spirit of Christ so that you play a part in turning hatred into love and injury for pardon. You are not alone. We have the example of Christ to follow, we have the story of St. Francis who worked so hard to embody that spirit. We have the confidence of St. Paul that God will provide for us that strength. And we have the words of wisdom in the prayer from a hundred years ago, Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Blessings

Pastor Jeff