A Holy Jealousy

I suppose my knowledge of St. Francis was like most people's. If someone had asked me, a mid-western evangelical kid from Detroit, "Who was the most famous saint?" I would have puzzled for a moment and probably ended up by saying, "Oh, yes, St. Francis." If that person had then asked me what I knew about the famous saint, I would certainly have been stumped and, at best, come up with something about him loving birds and nature. St. Francis of the birdbath endures as one of the worst caricatures of history.

Years of university and seminary education did little to correct my shallow impression of the little poor man of Assisi. (Protestant seminaries generally don't do very well with the lives of saints.) It wasn't until a few years ago, when I had the rare commodity of a free evening, that I had my first real exposure to Francis. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, the movie produced by Franco Zeffirelli, was playing for a dollar at our local cheap movie theater on a double bill with Romeo and Juliet. I had seen the teenage romance before, but had heard that the other was good.

I was completely unprepared for my first meeting with the saint. It was the beginning of an intense and often painful friendship, one that has affected me profoundly.

Now, after studying the life of Francis, the movie seems quite inadequate, with an unnecessarily romantic and ethereal quality. The real Francis, I think, was much more human and powerful than Zeffirelli's fragile and otherworldly character. But despite the film's limitations, this introduction to Francis left me overwhelmed with emotion.

I left the theater stunned and speechless. On the way home in the dark car, I quietly began to weep. Never before had I encountered a life so consumed with the gospel, a man so on fire with the love of God, a disciple so single-mindedly focused on following after Jesus, a spirit so joyful in abandoning everything to serve his Lord. The evangelical poverty of Francis had evangelized me to the depths of my soul.

I immediately began to question everything about my life. His utter obedience to Christ was radiant in exposing the places where my commitment was still compromised. His intimacy with God created in me what the monks call "a holy jealousy." His wholehearted love for Jesus Christ made me love our Master more than I ever had before. Francis was converting me again to Jesus. I cried that night because my faith seemed so small and weak when compared to his. I wondered what my life was counting for.

It's so easy to be a "radical Christian" in America. Here the church is so affluent, so comfortable, so lukewarm, that the most basic kind of discipleship or the simplest acts of justice, mercy, and peace seem extraordinary by comparison. Living what should be just an ordinary Christian life is enough to be designated radical by a spiritually impoverished church.

It is a constant temptation to accept the designation and, worse yet, to allow the American church to become the standard by which we measure ourselves. For Francis, the standard was always Christ and Christ alone, not the 13th-century church, nor even the movement of renewal that he founded.

G.K. Chesterton wrote of him, "So soon as he certainly has followers, he does not compare himself with his followers, towards whom he might appear as a master; he compares himself more and more with his Master, towards whom he appears only as a servant."

That simple insight articulated by Chesterton struck deep within me that night. What is the measure of my life? How have I let the standard of others make me complacent to the standard of Christ? I felt a hunger in me for what I saw in this little man from Assisi.

What I saw was Christ vividly incarnate in the life of Francis. It was like meeting Jesus afresh.

Three years have passed, and my struggle with the testimony of Francis has grown. On a retreat, I read his biographies. Again I felt drawn closer to Jesus than at any time since my conversion and the founding of Sojourners. I came home with a deepening love for the humble saint and a growing desire for a closer walk with Christ.

Since then, Francis has been the subject of more reading, the cause of much reflection, the catalyst for prayer, the push for deeper self-examination.

Francis did not merely accept poverty, he pursued it. Some want to be poor for reasons of philosophy, ideology, or asceticism. Francis wanted to be poor because Jesus was poor and because his beloved Master so loved the poor. In other words, Francis stressed poverty so strongly, not for its own sake, but in order to become closer to God and nearer to the forgotten and suffering ones of the earth.

"Love for the poor was born in him," wrote St. Bonaventure. He virtually reveled in poverty and took the greatest joy in destitution. The great love affair between Francis and his "Lady Poverty" rivals all of the most famous romances of history.

For Francis, poverty without humility was no gain. "What is the use of renouncing the riches of the earth, if you intend to keep those of self-love?" he used to say to his friars, according to Omer Englebert.

He called his brothers Friars Minor, which means the little, unimportant ones. But for Francis humility was not a virtue to be sought after; rather, it was the natural result of a heart overflowing with the worship of God and the most profound respect and affection for every creature God had made.

Never has God been so freely praised nor ordinary men and women so highly regarded as in the life of Francis. His was a spiritual populism rooted in the love of God.

Chesterton reflects on this point:

I have said that St. Francis deliberately did not see the wood for the trees. It is even more true that he deliberately did not see the mob for the men. What distinguishes this very genuine democrat from any mere demagogue is that he never either deceived or was deceived by the illusion of mass-suggestion. Whatever his taste in monsters, he never saw before him a many-headed beast. He saw only the image of God multiplied but never monotonous. To him a man was always a man and did not disappear in a dense crowd any more than in a desert. He honoured all men; that is, he not only loved but respected them all. What gave him his extraordinary personal power was this: that from the Pope to the beggar, from the sultan of Syria in his pavilion to the ragged robbers crawling out of the wood, there was never a man who looked into those brown burning eyes without being certain that Francis Bernadone was really interested in him; in his own inner individual life from the cradle to the grave; that he himself was being valued and taken seriously, and not merely added to the spoils of some social policy or the names in some clerical document. Now for this particular moral and religious idea there is no external expression except courtesy. Exhortation does not express it, for it is not mere abstract enthusiasm; beneficence does not express it, for it is not mere pity. It can only be conveyed by a certain grand manner which may be called good manners. We may say if we like that St. Francis, in the bare and barren simplicity of his life, had clung to one rag of luxury; the manners of a court. But whereas in a court there is one king and a hundred courtiers, in this story there was one courtier, moving among a hundred kings. For he treated the whole mob of men as a mob of kings. And this was really and truly the only attitude that will appeal to that part of man to which he wished to appeal. It cannot be done by giving gold or even bread; for it is a proverb that any reveller may fling largesse in mere scorn. It cannot even be done by giving time and attention; for any number of philanthropists and benevolent bureaucrats do such work with a scorn far more cold and horrible in their hearts. No plans or proposals or efficient arrangements will give back to a broken man his self-respect and sense of speaking with an equal. One gesture will do it. (St. Francis of Assisi, Chesterton)

Francis received his vocation before the wooden crucifix of the abandoned church at San Damiano: "Francis, go repair my house, which is falling into ruins." To see the church restored to Christ was his driving passion and the heart of his calling. Like every authentic renewal movement in the history of the church, the Franciscan revolution was simply a return to the gospel, and Francis of Assisi returned to the gospel with such force that it shook the entire world.

The church always wanted Francis to write a rule for his order, as the leaders of all the other orders had done. But he always felt the gospel was enough:

At daybreak they set out for the Church of San Nicolo to hear Mass, taking with them Peter of Catanii, who had likewise resolved to leave the world. They opened the missal three times at random. The first time, their eyes fell on these words: "If you will be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor." The second time, they read: "Take nothing for your journey"; and the third time: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."

"Here," said Francis, "is what we are going to do, and all those who shall afterwards join us."

(St. Francis of Assisi, Englebert)

Those simple gospel imperatives became the basis for the Franciscan way of life and the foundation for the first Rule of 1209. Francis' rules were simply the repetition of gospel texts with some commentary and guidelines for regulating the life of the friars. The Sermon on the Mount would have sufficed as Francis' rule, if he had had his way.

The Rule of 1221, written near the end of his life and under increasing pressure from the church, merely reiterated the way of life that the friars had lived since the beginning, and beautifully expressed the behavior and spirit that Francis hoped would always characterize the movement he had begun (see page 24 in this issue). However, Francis' great rule was never officially accepted. The Rule of 1223 used more legal and traditional language in revising and adding to the words of Francis.

The desire of Francis and his brothers to live without property and security was always resisted by the church. The story of their first trip to Rome to gain acceptance of their order raised the central problem:

Thus all were of the opinion that so literal an interpretation of the Gospel went beyond human strength, and the Pope himself declared, "Although your zeal, my dear sons, reassures Us, We must nevertheless think of your successors, who may find the path you wish to follow too austere."

But the Cardinal of St. Paul replied, "If we reject this poor man's request on such a pretext, would not this be to declare that the Gospel cannot be practiced, and so to blaspheme Christ, its Author?"

(Englebert)

Francis lived and spoke directly to the confusion most of us still have between success and obedience, a particularly American affliction. One of his greatest masterpieces is the dialogue he had with Brother Leo about the meaning of "perfect joy":

"Brother Leo, God's Little Sheep, take your pen. I am going to dictate something to you," declared Francis.

"I am ready, Father."

"You are going to write what perfect joy is."

"Gladly, Father!"

"Well, then, supposing a messenger comes and tells us that all the doctors of Paris have entered the Order. Write that this would not give us perfect joy. And supposing that the same messenger were to tell us that all the bishops, archbishops, and prelates of the whole world, and likewise the kings of France and England, have become Friars Minor, that would still be no reason for having perfect joy. And supposing that my friars had gone to the infidels and converted them to the last man...."

"Yes, Father?"

"Even then, Brother Leo, this would still not be perfect joy."

(Englebert)

I'll leave it to Richard Rohr's article (December 1981) to finish the story, in which Francis dismisses even more potential successes and finally tells his astounded brother what perfect joy really is.

At the heart of Christian faith is the incarnation. I don't know what I would do without Jesus; abstract talk about God has always left me empty and longing for more. I need God made flesh, human like us, walking our streets, even in our shoes, teaching us the way of God. I also need people who teach me again the reality of the incarnation in their own lives and history. We all need that. That's why we began our Sojourners annual tradition some years ago of focusing each December on Christians who have been teachers of the incarnation.

Francis is perhaps our greatest teacher. He has been called both "the first Christian" and "the last Christian." My struggle is just that; his life presents the gospel in such stark contrast to the world, to the church, and to my own life. Sometimes his example convinces me that it is indeed possible, with God's abundant grace, to live the gospel life. Other times his star shines so bright that it only exposes my own darkness. Francis converts me over and over to Jesus, but he also makes me sometimes wonder if I really am or want to be a Christian. He both points to the great possibility and shows me how much further I have to go to see what he saw.

This year the church celebrates the 800th birthday of the greatest saint. Many Christians will have a fresh opportunity to meet him, to come to know him, to let themselves be touched by the little poor man. I must warn you that if you begin to follow after him as he dances through the world, he will certainly turn your life upside down, as he has mine. To walk with Francis, even a little way, is a great adventure, but also a painful one. It is a journey that I still find myself very much in the middle of.

I don't know where the journey will end, either for me or for you. But I do know that I want to commend him to you. Once you have looked into his eyes, you will never see the same again.

Jim Wallis was editor-in-chief of Sojourners when this article was published.