This
morning’s passage is a hard one, from both an interpretation standpoint
(there’s no agreement on what exactly it means) and a theological one (seems
like works righteousness to me). So, I decided to scrap our discussion of this
passage, and talk about popes instead. Did you know that there is an online Roman
Catholic encyclopedia? There is—it’s
called New Advent, and if you go there, you can find a list of all the popes in
the history of the church. If you start
with St.Peter, who they claim as their first, there have been 265 others. And as we all know, they take on an official,
I guess you could call it Papal name,
when they take office. (I’m sure there’s
a technical name for it, probably in Latin, but I don’t know what it is.) Anyway, in 1978, Karol Jósef Wojtyła became
Pope John Paul II; twenty seven years later, he was succeeded by Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, AKA Pope Benedict XVI. Popes have multiple names, which indicate
their multiple personas—one might even say identities—depending
on where they are (such as residence or palace), who they are with and what hat
they are wearing, both literally and figuratively. They even have different personas depending
on which chair they are sitting in:
when the Pope sits on the throne of St.
James, then—and only then—is he the
infallible mouthpiece of God.
Of
course, the Bishop of Rome isn’t the only one with multiple identities . . . Most
of us have public personas—ones we show professionally or within different
circles of friends—and private ones that we show to our spouse and kids. In political figures, they can be quite
pronounced and formal: Barak Obama is
“Mr. President,”, but you can bet that
isn’t what Michelle calls him when she asks him to take out the trash.
But
back to popes . . . here’s a pope, er … pop
quiz: what has been the most popular papal name in the 1900-odd years since the
crucifixion? No fair Googling “pope names” or calling 1-800-dial-a-pope,
either. Any guesses? You’d think it might be Peter, wouldn’t you? Or maybe Paul, the first great theologian of
the church. But if you guessed those you’d
be wrong: the most popular Pope name, at 23 instances—and presumably counting—is
John. Seems even Popes can’t resist being associate with the disciple Jesus loved.
Ok. One more fun fact: the last singular Papal title
(i.e., that doesn’t have number after it) was Pope Lando (no Star Wars jokes,
please), eleven hundred years ago. That’s right: for over a thousand years there
hasn't been one original pope name—unless you count John Paul I who took two common names, and who was quickly
succeeded by John Paul II anyway. For eleven
centuries there have been no completely first-time pope names until last year when Jorge Mario Bergoglio
took the name Francis.
And
everybody was surprised—no shocked—that
he named himself after St. Francis, they couldn’t believe it, and my question
is: why? Why did naming himself after a
verified saint surprise so many
within the church ranks, as well as a fair number outside of them? After all, St. Francis has a whole order
named after him. He may be the most painted saint, generally portrayed in natural
settings, festooned with birds and squirrels and the like. So why the surprise, or—equally
interesting—why hasn’t a pope taken his name before now?
Well. Maybe a look at St. Francis’ life is in order. After all, when popes name themselves after
somebody there’s usually a reason.
Often, they’re making a statement by whom they name, that their papacy
will be somehow informed by their
illustrious predecessor. St. Francis was
born Giovanni di Pietro
di Bernardone in around 1180 CE to a wealthy Italian merchant family in
the town of Assisi. When he was still an
infant, his father came home from France calling him Francesco, which means
“the Frenchman;” nobody is certain why.
He was a wild young man, enjoying
all the privileges and pastimes of his class, until he went off to war, where a
year in captivity may have caused him to question his vocation; it is certain
that a vision he had during his second stint in the military did. He returned home where he began to immerse
himself in spirituality, but not just any
spirituality: it was a spirituality from below, a spirituality of the streets. One of his first occupations was to nurse
lepers at a lazar house near Assisi, and when he made a pilgrimage to Rome, he
didn’t do it in the luxury those of his class would normally do. Instead, he joined the the poor in begging
outside the churches.
As
you might imagine, his wealthy father took a dim view of all of this,
especially after Francis sold some goods to restore a poor chapel in the
countryside. He tried to talk him out of
it, then resorted to beatings. Finally,
appearing before a Bishop’s court, Francis renounced his father and his
inheritance, and proceeded to live first as a beggar and then a penitent in the region around Assisi, doing
food works as he found them.
In
February of 1209 Francis heard a sermon that changed his life. Its was from Matthew 10, and the sending out
of the disciples to proclaim the Kingdom of God. In doing so, they were to “Cure the sick,
raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without
payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your
belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff” (Matt.
10:8-10a). From this, he determined to
devote himself to the poor. Clad in a
rough-hewn garment, barefoot and without staff or legal tender, he set off to
preach repentance, and soon began to accrue followers; from there, the
Franciscan order was formed.
Until
his death 16 years later, he continued to follow that path: he wouldn’t allow his
followers to enter the priesthood, and never himself became a priest. He and his brothers lived in an abandoned
leper house outside of Assisi. One of
his followers, a noblewoman named Chiara, took the name of Clare and founded
her own mendicant (or begging) order of women, which after her death came to be
nicknamed the “Poor Clares.” They lived
a life “unplugged” from society, an existence off the grid. Lives outside the power structure of the day.
And
yet, they exercised authority in that separation, authority over themselves and
their followers, who spread rapidly over Southern Europe. Franciscan Friar and author Richard Rohr calls
it authority from the edge: from a place just inside the church power
structure, but close to the people they served—the people on the margins of
society. The poor, the marginalized, the
disenfranchised.
And
now, perhaps, we’re beginning to see why the Roman Catholic cognoscenti were so
surprised that Pope Francis took the name that he did. Saint Francis lived a live that was the
complete opposite from that of a pope. A
pope is the quintessential company man, heavily invested in the hierarchy of
the church. Saint Francis was the
antithesis of all this: he refused to become a part that hierarchy, as did at
least his immediate followers. A pope is
the supreme leader, even—at times—the voice of God. He leads a church with billions of dollars of
assets from the very top. Saint Francis
refused to own anything but the clothes in his back . . . he lived, as
Tennessee Williams would say, by the kindness of strangers. He led, if you could say that he led at all,
from very nearly the very bottom.
When
Jorge Mario Bergoglio took the name Francis, he identified with that all of that.
He identified with the poor
and the marginalized, with leading from below rather than above. Even though he
did not take a vow of poverty himself, even though he is firmly entrenched in
the Catholic hierarchy, he identifies with
the values of the one whose name he took.
And
of course, we know who Francis
identified with, don’t we? The one who
told his followers to take nothing along on the road with them, not even a
staff or an extra cloak. Who associated
with lowest of the low, tax collectors and unclean women, who led from he
margins, from the edge, and whose manner and life were so controversial, so
subversive—think of the lilies indeed—that
they killed him. Saint Francis
identified with Jesus the Christ, who never met an outcast he didn’t like.
But—and
here’s the real question—with whom
did Jesus identify? Whose values did he take on, whose did he emulate?
Well, of course, those of his parent, God the almighty, but someone
else, as well . . . Paul put it this way:
he “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human
likeness.” Jesus identified himself with
human beings, with us.
But
not in just any old way, not in just any old manner, and is is where this
morning’s passage comes in (you didn’t really
think I’d abandoned it, did you?). Though
there are some problems with the passage, some interpretive travails, the basic
gist of it is this: Christ identifies with
the poor, the marginalized, those on the edge.
He identifies with them so much
that whatever we do to one of those—the stranger, the sick and the hungry; the thirsty, the naked and the prisoner—we do
to him.
Sisters
and brothers, on Christ the King Sunday, we’re to think upon how Christ is
King, in which manner he rules, how he leads.
And we’ve seen that, as modeled by Saint Francis and countless like him,
that he led from below, so much so that he became of of the least of these I.
His life, work and death. And I know it
gives me pause, as I think upon
leading this church, as I think upon my lust for the latest gadget or
electronic toy, and I hope it gives us all pause as we enter the glittering
time of Advent, the shining time of Christmas, just how glittery, just how shiny the life and rule of Jesus, who,
we name ourselves after, really was.
Amen.
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