PREACH THE GOSPEL AT ALL TIMES; WHEN NECESSARY, USE BEARDS
BY AARON ALFORD
Meditation: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
—MATTHEW 6:25–26
Quote of the Day: Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.
—SAINT FRANCIS (EXCEPT HE NEVER ACTUALLY SAID THAT!)
Saint Francis, arguably the church’s most famous saint, may also be its most misunderstood. He is embraced by some as a vaguely pantheist animal lover and appreciated by others as a nonthreatening hippie Jesus-follower who liked to hang around birdbaths. But both of these miss who Francis really was by a wide margin.
Francis was born into a well-to-do cloth merchant’s family in Assisi, Italy, in 1182. Dancing and drinking and carousing into the wee hours of the morning, Francis was famous in his younger days for being the city’s most enthusiastic partygoer.
He was a respected citizen of Assisi, and when the city went to war against the neighboring city of Perugia (cities at war with each other being not uncommon at the time), Francis enthusiastically enlisted. But his first day of battle did not bode well for him. He was captured and taken as a prisoner of war. For over a year, Francis rotted away in a dank cell, breathing in sickness and disease.
Eventually his family ransomed him and brought him home, where he remained homebound for another year, convalescing from his illness. He would never again be completely whole and healthy; sickness would return to him from time to time for the rest of his days.
The fourth crusade to Jerusalem was about to begin, and Francis insisted that he was well enough to fight. He set out to join a company of men in southern Italy, but turned back one day after leaving Assisi. The people of Assisi whispered of rumored visions from God that had cut his journey short. Others labeled him a coward. Most concluded that his imprisonment and sickness had taken more than his health; it had also taken his mind.
But Francis wasn’t just hearing voices. He was beginning to hear the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. To his father, Pietro’s, consternation, Francis was no longer held in high esteem by the townsfolk and no longer attended the parties over which he had once been crowned king. Instead, he spent his days riding the plains beneath the town and was even known to visit the nearby leper hospice. He stopped wearing the decadent clothing he used to wear and began wearing a plain brown fieldworker’s robe. The people’s suspicions about his mental health seemed to be confirmed when he began to talk of hearing Jesus speak to him in the ruins of an old chapel. He said that Jesus had told him to rebuild His church.
Francis took this command quite literally and set out to rebuild the ruined walls of the church where he had heard Jesus speak, the chapel of San Damiano. As any good son on a mission from God would do, he began to raise funds for his construction project by selling his father’s stuff.
Pietro became so enraged with his son that he locked him in a tiny stone closet under the stairs for several days. Then he dragged Francis before the bishop, publicly demanding justice. This he received in a form he never could have imagined. Of his own accord, his son returned to him every cent he had taken, and, along with the money, his sonship and the clothes off his back. Francis stood naked in front of his father, declaring that from that day forward, his Father in heaven would be enough.
From this place of profound confidence in the immense love of Father God, Francis began an accidental revolution in the town of Assisi, and eventually in all of Christendom.
Some of his closest friends left partygoing behind to join him in his life of poverty and service to the lowest and the forgotten. His small fraternity of friends became a movement that continued to grow, eventually inspiring thousands to embrace a life of poverty and simplicity. They spent their days communing with lepers and beggars, serving their needs, and creating friendship with those whom society deemed outcasts.
The effect Francis’s life would have on the world, and the renewal his spirituality of simplicity and trust brought to the church, would be immense. By his witness, not only did many people come to faith, but those within the church found new meaning in being Christians. The Christian life was suddenly an adventure in following in the footsteps of Jesus, serving the “least of these” and living in joyful trust of the heavenly Father.
Francis never did join a crusade, but he did risk his life behind enemy lines for his faith. Francis saw the violence happening around him in the name of God and decided that the best way to bring peace would be not to kill Muslims, but to convert them. Francis traveled to Egypt and crossed enemy lines into the camp of Sultan Malik Al-Kamil. Francis preached the gospel of Christ to the sultan, boldly and with great humility (for the two qualities are not mutually exclusive). Al-Kamil did not convert, but he was so taken by the love that Francis showed him that he arranged for Francis to visit Muslim-controlled Jerusalem as the sultan’s guest, a pilgrimage that would otherwise have been impossible at the time.
This quality of humility was perhaps the most integral part of who Francis was, and it may be surprising to find out that this is why he is so often depicted with sparrows on his shoulders. Sparrows are small and often go unnoticed when compared with lovely little hummingbirds or great, soaring eagles. They are clothed in brown feathers and receive their sustenance, quite literally, off the crumbs from our tables. They do not reap or sow, but their Father in heaven knows their needs and sends them our leftover doughnuts and Big Mac buns. For this reason they have come to represent the poor, especially in art, and whenever you see an image of Francis with a sparrow on his finger, it’s saying less about his communion with animals than it is about his spirit of humility and his communion with the lowly.
And here, perhaps, is where that non-quote comes from about preaching the gospel at all times. You see, Francis actually spent quite a lot of time preaching. When he couldn’t find people to preach to, he preached to the birds, exhorting them to praise their Father in heaven. What made Francis’s preaching so unique, however, was the authority with which he spoke. It’s one thing for a wealthy man to tell you to live simply and trust your Father, but quite another for a poor man to tell you that. Francis made his life a sermon about the love of Jesus.
Francis, in his poverty, experienced the love of his heavenly Father in such profundity that everything in his life, whether he was washing the feet of a leper or preaching the gospel to a sultan, flowed from that deep well of trust.
Saint Francis, the former partygoer and soldier, became a bearded beggar. He traded the wealth of his earthly father for the riches of his heavenly Father. The gospel was not a matter of words for him, but a matter of trust, of simplicity, and of the deep joy of walking in the footprints of Jesus.
CONTEMPLATION
1. Are there ways you could simplify your life? How might simplifying help you become closer to your heavenly Father?
2. Are there people near you living in poverty or on the margins of society? What can you do to reach out to them in friendship?
3. Where might you see the footprints of Jesus in your life, or in your city? What can you do to walk in His steps today?
PRAYER
Lord, make us instruments of Your peace and channels of Your love.
THE HOLY FAMILY
BY AARON ALFORD
“You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son” (Judg. 13:3).
This was the angel’s proclamation to the mother of Samson. She dedicated her child to God even before his birth, and Samson was raised according to the strict vows of a Nazirite.
Hannah wept in the temple, begging God for the gift of a son. God heard her prayer, and the formerly barren woman gave birth to Samuel. In gratitude, Hannah gave her child to the Lord’s service, and Samuel grew up in the temple.
Christ Himself had a miraculous birth, the most miraculous of all. He, too, was dedicated to God at the temple. But unlike Samuel, He wasn’t raised there. Unlike Samson, He took no religious vows. Instead, Jesus’ childhood was spent living with an average family in the unremarkable town of Nazareth.
For thirty years, He lived a quiet life among family and friends who knew Him simply as Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary. And in His infinite humility, the Son of God subjected Himself to everything that being part of a family entails. Joseph was not a priest, and Mary was not a prophetess, but Jesus’ first earthly experience of love came in the embrace of His parents. He learned to walk by holding Joseph’s pinky finger and wobbling toward His mother. He learned to talk by staring into Mary’s eyes and listening to the sounds coming out of her smiling mouth.
He also learned the deeper things as He “grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52) in His experience of being in a family. He probably learned what patience looked like by watching His father work. Perhaps He learned grace by watching Mary bring a warm meal to the family in need down the street. And when Joseph fell short and had to ask his wife’s forgiveness for an unkind word, little Jesus was watching, learning what humility and grace looked like. He learned to love, just as He learned to walk and talk, by watching the way Joseph and Mary gave of themselves to each other.
Samson and Samuel were made holy by separating themselves from their families. But Jesus did the opposite. He made all families holy by becoming part of one.
If you are a parent, you have been given the highest and holiest of callings: to teach another human being how to love. As Jesus watched His earthly parents, your children are watching you. And it’s in watching this day-to-day vocation to love—the calling of every family—that your children will remember the delectable scent of holiness. They will remember it just as warmly as your homemade cookies. The first and best thing a child can learn is love, for love is the source of all that is holy.
Don’t be intimidated by this task, and don’t back down from it. Jesus has assured you not only of the sacredness of this vocation, but of His faithfulness to meet you there. He will give you the grace to live it. No family is perfect, but in Christ’s incarnation, God has made every family holy.