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

Needing an Instrument of Peace

Instrument of Thy Peace Prayer   A Summer Sermon Series 2019

   This summer I thought I would preach a series of sermons on the Prayer credited to St. Francis, known as the “Instrument of Peace” prayer. Listening to the news, reading the papers and the internet, it was quite obvious that we need peace. Even my own family and our church family has been hit by sudden deaths and so we are all deeply in need of peace.

   We have probably all felt a need for comfort and a desire to reduce the stress and noise that surrounds us. A prayer offering peace is much needed.

   St. Francis was only 44 when he died, but he left a huge legacy that has even grown with time. Both Catholic and Protestants admire his teaching and influence. We need the upside-down nature of this prayer, which reflects the upside down Kingdom that Jesus offered us in the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 5:1-12 The Message (MSG)  You’re Blessed

5 ^1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

³ “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

⁴ “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

⁵ “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

⁶ “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

⁷ “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

⁸ “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

⁹ “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

¹⁰ “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

^11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.”

   Francis was born into a well to do family in Assisi, Italy in 1182/3, records weren’t kept the same way we do. His family had resources because his father was a merchant of cloth, and did pretty well at it, Francis was something of a rascal. He got into some trouble and was rescued with his father’s help. He even joined the army, hoping to become some kind of hero.

   In those days a lot of the battles were between cities, and Francis was captured by the enemy. One strategy at the time was to hold the prisoners for ransom. He was imprisoned for a year, before his father came to pay the ransom to get him out. Francis was becoming more familiar with the challenges of life and not having everything go his way.

   After a conversion experience of sorts, he felt compelled to help the poor around him. He did so by giving away his father’s resources. His father tried to stop that by taking him to a church court, run by the bishop. In the trial before the Bishop, Francis decided that he would disconnect from his family in order to be fully available to God, so he stripped down to nakedness, folded his clothes and gave them back to his father and declared his total dependency on God.

   He really began his ministry when he heard a voice from God saying to him, “Repair my church.”  He began to collect money to repair the building, which was in disrepair, but God spoke to him again about the need to repair his church, not the building. He soon realized that this was a spiritual dimension and began to truly focus on God. To hear from God he became open to the beauty of nature as a sign from God. He connected to all dimension of nature, and in many ways we know him for his love of animals and creation. Even we celebrate a blessing of the animals in early October, to coincide with his death date of Oct. 3 1226.

   We can see how his influence calls us to be mindful of all of Creation.

   This prayer is surely in the Spirit of Jesus, whom St. Francis wanted to emulate, and reflects much of St. Francis teaching. But, the prayer did not come from him. It first appeared in a local church newsletter in France in 1919, as Europe was recovering from World War I. It was much needed then, as it is needed now. The prayer caught the globe by storm and it was shared and spread around the world very quickly.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, I

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

   So, to find peace this summer we begin by looking at ways we need this gift from God. Have you ever felt the need to overcome hate? Has it been directed at you, or have you witnessed it?

   Remember when you were injured, either physically, or emotionally, or found out just how limited your resources are for fixing life’s challenges?

   Remember moments of doubt? Was it doubting your friendship, or doubting your family? Was it even related to doubting that God could help you, or doubting your level of faith to handle the crisis?

   Remember your last moment of despair or sadness? We who have been close to those who suddenly died recently can certainly give a witness to that pain.

   Have you had moments in darkness? Was it not knowing where you were going or because you could not figure out the right choices to make? That depth of darkness can be from a variety of sources. Out of that darkness, you probably began to wish for someone to console you, or needing to be understood, or needing to be loved?

   So you can identify with the need for the Instrument of Peace. You can recognize the desire to have the Spirit of Jesus provide a way to overcome, or reverse or flip right side up what seems so upside down.

   One of the gifts of peace is the work of Jesus to reconcile us to God. As we share in Holy Communion this morning, we remember that Christ is offering us the peace which passes all understanding. In this Bread and Cup, his Body and Blood, we receive the very nature of Christ to find Peace. We taste and swallow and welcome into our being, the Spirit and the presence of the one who is an Instrument Peace.

   I hope you feel this gift today. And come back this summer as we explore more deeply the benefits of each of the phrases in this great prayer. Amen.

Blessings,  Pastor Jeff