Has it happened in your family, that a teenager with great promise has suddenly reject the path laid out for him, whether it be a university education, or joining the family business, or learning a trade? Has that teenager or young adult left home and chosen what appears to be an erratic life, involved with drugs, or following rock bands around the country, or joining a commune, or following a guru, generally living an irresponsible life? I’m not going to ask you to raise your hands for this question, but I know that many of us present, myself included, have a brother or sister, a son or daughter, a cousin or a grandchild, who fits that description.

It is interesting to reflect that Jesus himself fit that pattern, having presumably worked at Joseph’s trade of carpentry for 10 years, and then suddenly leaving family, home and trade to go listen to that guru in the wilderness, John the Baptist. I bring this pattern to your attention because today we are remembering St. Francis, who died in 1226, a few days ahead of his feast on October 4th. Probably even more than Jesus, Francis was the prime example of this pattern. We know that Francis’ father was grooming him to join in the business of importing cloth, and indulged the wanderings of his son up to a point. But finally in an act of desperation, the father hauled the son before the bishop, hoping that the authority of the church might succeed where the authority of the father had failed. What happened there was the recognition by Francis of a higher authority than the church. Francis calmly took off all his clothes, handed them to his father, and said, “until now I have called you father, but from now on I can say without reserve, our father who art in heaven”. Francis traded luxury for poverty, in order to follow Jesus. He came to believe that all our possessions are merely on loan from God; and therefore whenever anyone tried to protect him from the cold by giving him a coat, he would give it to the next person in need whom he met.

What caused this big shift in Francis’ life? Why does anyone depart from the path laid out for them or the first path in life they have chosen for themselves? Very often it is a loss that sets in motion a process of change. It may be a death of a loved one, the loss of a marriage, a major illness, or disillusionment with a dream. In Francis’ case, two of these things happened--he became disillusioned with the dream of becoming a military hero, and he suffered from wounds received in battle. During a lengthy recovery, it gradually became apparent to him that he had lost interest in his father’s business, that he no longer cared to go out drinking and carousing with friends, and he certainly didn’t want to be a soldier. His interest in the spiritual life had awakened, and he thought he heard Jesus asking him to repair his church. So for several years, he gave his energy to construction, repairing three churches in the vicinity of his home. It was only at the end of this period that the famous scene in front of the bishop occurred.

The story of Francis reminded me of a theory about life transitions I read in the 1980’s, and have reviewed recently. It is in a book we have in the library called Transitions, by William Bridges. His theory is that many life transitions do begin with a significant ending, of a phase in our lives, or a way of living. Then we go through a time of confusion and disorientation; and finally we create a new way of life~~ a beginning. This pattern fits the life of Francis, especially because he didn’t find his new direction all at once. He had several years after he had given up on the cloth business, and before he committed himself to building a community of friars who would preach the Gospel. During that time, he was shifting his attention away from himself and his own needs, and turning his attention toward people who needed spiritual nourishment.

Compare the life of St. Francis to the life of the rich man in today’s Gospel parable. Here I must caution you that this parable gives us no information about heaven and hell. It is solely a story intended to wake up the listeners. So consider the rich man, who is the extreme opposite of St. Francis. He never shifted his attention away from himself, and therefore kept all his wealth for himself and his family. The rich man did not end up in the flames of Hades because he was rich; he was in the flames because he had no awareness of, or compassion for the poor man outside his door. Neither Jesus, nor Abraham, expected him to give away all that he had; he was simply expected to offer assistance to a person in need whom he probably saw every day. The rich man could have given Lazarus food; or he could have found him work; or he could have brought him to an inn, as the Good Samaritan did.

This parable would certainly have caught the attention of the rich men listening to Jesus, because of the instruction given by Abraham: “they have Moses and the prophets: they should listen to them”. There are literally hundreds of verses from Moses and the prophets on our responsibility to care for the poor in our community. I’ll just pick a representative one, Deuteronomy 15:7, “If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community . . . do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward your needy neighbor. . . .you should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need”. If the rich man had remembered this verse from Moses, what would have prevented him from helping Lazarus?

Well, I can’t answer for the rich men of the first century, but I have some idea of what gets in the way for us in the 21st century, and perhaps we are not very different. First, we are only likely to help the needy if we have compassion. This is something that most people have naturally for members of our families who are suffering. But compassion for strangers is something we learn from parents, or others who are teaching us, and showing us by example. It is all too easy to ignore the suffering of strangers, especially for people who have grown up with images of violence on televison and in movies. Those images make us insensitive to the real suffering of real people, unless we have learned to over-ride the thought that “it’s not my responsibility”. Part of what it means to learn compassion, is to know specifically that Moses, and Jesus, ask us in God’s name, to have compassion, to be “generous and ready to share”. Probably that thought needs to be combined with an effort of imagination. If only someone could teach us to pay attention to the needy person,, and then to try to put ourselves in that person’s shoes. If we can imagine how Lazarus is feeling, in his ragged clothes, scrounging through the garbage for something to eat, weak from hunger and disease, then perhaps we could set aside the question of why he is poor. What difference does the reason for his poverty really make, if a human life is wasting away?

The second thing that might have prevented the rich man from helping Lazarus, is the feeling that “I have a responsibility to keep this wealth for the care of my family”. This is certainly what our popular culture encourages us to believe: keep your wealth, invest it carefully, save for emergencies. The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures have entirely different assumptions: the ability to create wealth comes from God, who provides the raw materials, the energy to work, and creativity in design. Therefore the wealth itself is a gift from God, and not a possession to which we have a right. Wealth is to be used for the well-being of the community, not of the single individual or family. Think of all the encouragements in the teaching of Jesus not to limit your responsibility to your family: the sayings about servant-hood, the invitations to take up your cross, the parables about the Good Samaritan, and the laborers in the vineyard who only worked an hour. The people who understand these assumptions, will be delighted with the privilege of giving and sharing some of their wealth.

We have a higher calling than to satisfy ourselves by keeping the wealth we have earned. That calling is to care for the human lives around us; and with St. Francis, to care also for the animals, the plants, and the whole creation in which we live. At the 10:30 service today, this higher calling is expressed in a new hymn by Michael Hudson, inspired by St. Francis. In the 4th verse, Hudson says:

“All we creatures, great and small,

are the heirs of sacred wealth,
and we all, together, live

by the other’s Lasting Health.”

It is time for us as Christians, and as Americans, to let go of the assumptions we have made about wealth. On the one hand, we must learn to identify ourselves as stewards of the sacred wealth of the earth, and on the other hand, we must try to deepen our compassion for, and commitment to, the needy people in our county, and across the world. The joy of giving to, and working for the lasting health of humanity, is our higher calling. Are you ready to have this joy? Do you hear God’s call to share in the giving?