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| Statue from Sts. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Naperville, IL (not my photo, but I would love a copy of this statue) |
Readings:
This week (on October 4, actually), it
is our tradition to commemorate the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who is
remembered as one who extolled the integrity, the oneness of creation, one who
saw all of the universe, from the Sun and the Moon to even the tiniest
creatures, as giving praise to the God and Creator of All. Our two readings
today reflect that spirit of the joyful honoring of creation that Francis
taught.
In our gospel today, Jesus reminds us
of the joyful person he was during his earthly ministry. That’s important—too
often the humor and happiness of Jesus gets lost, especially as we move closer
to Jerusalem and his Passion. In our passage from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tenderly
reminds us about the joy and beauty present in the most common things we tend
to overlook in our distracted race through each day. He calls us to live in
each moment joyfully, bathed in God’s love.
Because it is so hard to fully live
into each moment, we instead too often fall into the trap of feeling isolated
from each other. That false sense of isolation leads to anxiety like Jesus was
addressing, and that anxiety fools us into believing we are separate from one
another. We see the effects of this belief right now in our city and throughout
society. Anxiety and fear and isolation make us forget God’s promise of love
and care.
Yet God’s promises to us are written
into the very bonds of love that bind us to God, to each other, and to every
living thing on the earth. That covenant that God established after the Great
Flood was not just with Noah, but with both humans and all creation, plants and
birds and all that lives, which, some scientists maintain, includes our very
planet itself as a living organism, if one takes a broad enough view. The
covenant story we heard from Genesis reminds us that creation is a full partner
in our relationship with God, and gives God praise and glory.
Jesus reminds us that God’s love
restores and renews us, so long as we center ourselves within each moment
enough to feel that shared love. It is there in the joyful songs of birds whose
welcome sings the morning into being. It is there in the lowliest, tiniest
wildflower growing in a roadside ditch, turning its hopeful face toward the
sun.
Instead of worry, Jesus calls us back
to mindfulness, an important spiritual practice in many world religions. And
not just any mindfulness, but the mindfulness of remembering how fully and
thoroughly God loves us and through that love binds us together. Coming back to
awareness of our unity with all living things is a wonderful place to start.
We see here in this anecdote that Jesus
was a keen observer of the beauty of creation, and that he had spent time
savoring the awareness of the birds singing and building their nests, and the
sight of wildflowers—what some might call weeds—cloaking the fields and hills
in beauty in a myriad of colors, all the hues of the rainbow mentioned in our
first reading. Both the rainbow and the raiment of the most humble flower are
signs to us of the promise God maintains with us and with all creation to love
us and care for us always—not just in the distant past but right now and
forever. Every living thing reminds us that God’s wondrous love bears the world
into being and sustains it in every moment.
Luckily, we are also reminded of God’s
love especially in the love and faithfulness of our companion animals, whose steadfast
joy in us models to us the love and devotion we ourselves are made to exhibit
toward our God.
Canines and cats, reptiles and rats,
Cows and conies, hamsters and ponies,
Sugar gliders and hedgehogs
potbellied pigs and guinea pigs (who
aren’t pigs at all),
fishes and fowl of all kinds—
they show their devotion to us
unswervingly. The very presence of all these living creatures in our lives
remind us of God’s love. They remind us, also, that we are charged from the
very first story in scripture with service to the earth and all the living
things upon it and within it. Even the smallest creature has been placed on
Earth to support the web of life on this planet, from humans to honeybees, and
none is dispensible—not even wasps or mosquitos, who, I have to admit, are not
my favorites.
Our companion animals’ devotion
exemplifies the devotion we owe God. Their love exemplifies the love we are
called to bear for each other, no matter our differences. St. Francis reminded us that all
of creation participates in demonstrating God’s love—the same lesson Jesus
taught us today in this gospel passage from Matthew. Each creature is a
reminder of God’s blessing to and love for us. It is that holy
and limitless love that binds all things together, just as mutual forces of
gravity and attraction hold galaxies and stars in their courses as they dance
through space.
I’ll close with this: I once heard a
clergyman boast that he had never participated in an animal blessing of any
sort, claiming it was undignified. Yet what could be more dignified and good
and right than acknowledging our dependence upon this good earth and all its
inhabitants, especially in this day and time? What could be more important than
exhibiting out mindfulness of the holy love embodied in every wagging tail or
rough kitten kiss?
But perhaps we have got it backwards. Perhaps
it’s the least we can do once a year to bless our pets, who spend every moment
blessing us, through their love, with the reminder of how devotedly God loves
us.
(This reflection was given at Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis, MO, at the 5 pm Blessing of the Animals on October 1, 2017)
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