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St. Frances's encounter with the hungry wolf of Gubbio
SERMON – 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 20th September 2009
Revd. Chris Tweddell
[Earlier in the service, before the children left for Sunday school, we heard the story of St. Frances encountering village people who had been terrorised by a hungry wolf. As St. Frances seeks to calm the people and appease the wolf, he makes the point that hunger makes the wolf fearsome and furious.]
As we heard in the children's reflection, St. Frances makes the point that hunger makes the wolf fearsome and furious.
Hunger felt in the pit of the stomach and hunger as a social condition.
The prophet Jeremiah lived with this kind of hunger.
He was caught between the fall and rise of empires.
And he weeps for the nation and its people.
"Go up and down the streets
look around and consider,
search through her squares,
can you find one person who deals honestly
and seeks the truth. "(Jeremiah 5:1).
Critical words cutting into the heart of his community.
Dividing his family who wanted him removed.
This death threat is what we have in our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures today.
"They devised schemes saying...(you have to imagine Marlon Brando's voice from the movie the Godfather)
"Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living"
The people are hungry and it makes them fearsome and furious.
Jeremiah is also afraid and in a moment of crisis he cries out to God
"Why do the ways of the wicked prosper?"
It doesn't take him long to come up with an answer, a solution!
God I am on your side so, let me see your Vengeance on them.
Six hundred years later the writer of the book of James describes a similar set of circumstances within the early Christian church.
"Is it not this? That your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel and you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly.
Jeremiah initially asked God for the wrong thing - to have his relatives visited with vengeance.
The people of Gubbio at first ask for the wrong thing: they want the blood of the wolf.
I don't really know you that well. So I can only speak for myself when I say that sometimes I have felt afraid and furious. In this state of mind I have asked God for the wrong thing.
Make them see that I am right Lord!
Show them the error of their ways!
If only you would give me the chance to be in charge God!
I could really show them what leadership is all about!
St Frances and the writer of James would have us consider another option.
Not a human option but a God option.
To quote the book of James:
"The Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere."
This idea, this notion, is so radically counter cultural, so other, so out there, that it can only be truly comprehended when seen in action.
Frances stood his ground in the presence of a hungry frightened wild animal.
In the blazing eyes of the wolf, he did not see hatred and fear -- they were of course present -- he saw his brother.
Brothers can be of different kinds. The followers of Jesus were brothers. Their relationship to one another ran deep and like any other brotherly relationship, much of their time was spent deciding who was the greatest.
We know this because the writers of the gospel accounts have included these arguments.
And it was, just such an argument that we heard in our Gospel reading today.
Jesus asks his disciples what they have been talking about. They say nothing because they had been arguing about who was the greatest.
In my current job I work with about six hundred young teenage boys and about the same number of girls. Most of the arguments that arise are over this issue of who's on top.
Stereotypically the boys are less subtle than the girls, they are likely to use physical strength to show who the boss is. The girls on the other hand are more cunning and use their phones.
Don't misunderstand me I work in a wonderful school with wonderful children. However, after two thousand years, everyone's favourite game is still who is the greatest.
But luckily for us there have been those down through the ages who proposed a different set of rules.
To be fair to Jeremiah, while he at first looks for revenge, he eventually realises that even the wicked can be turned and that God's vision may be broader than his own.
Frances's encounter with the Hungry wolf of Gubbio also shows us what God intended. Whether you believe the story to be literal or not what it illustrates is the capacity of humans to see their enemy as their brother.
And what does Jesus have to say himself when faced with the power struggle game?
"If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and the servant of all."
And he underlines his point with an act of inclusive Love.
He took a child and put them in the midst of them.
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.
How is this idea of service and the child connected?
I want to suggest that it is with the same spirit that Frances sees in the wolf as brother.
Humbleness is the key. The state of mind that makes us open to the possibility of seeing something without our worldly human eye glasses.
I am here for you, the real you, the you that is created in the image of God, the you that is in the wolf or in the simple nature of the child.
The kind community that takes this teaching to heart will be a community that is not at war with itself.
Where jealousy and selfish ambition do not exist and difference is not only tolerated but celebrated.
This is the kind of community that will strive for justice and freedom for all its members and for all members of society.
This is a community that will be radically inclusive, a community not constrained by its walls, however ornate. A community without walls to divide or shut out.
A community of humility, a community of love, a community of Christians living in the service and the light of Christ.
Amen
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