The Courage and Love of St. Francis

From G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis of Assisi, this excerpt records an event early on in Francis' life:

      An incident occurred which is perhaps the shortest and sharpest summary that could be given of a certain curious things which were a part of his character, long before it was transfigured by transcendental faith. While he was selling velvet and fine embroideries to some solid merchant of the town, a beggar came imploring alms; evidently in a somewhat tactless manner. It was a rude and simple society and there were no laws to punish a starving man for expressing his need for food, such as have been established in a more humanitarian age; and the lack of any organised police permitted such persons to pester the wealthy without any great danger. But there was, I believe, in many places a local custom of the guild forbidding outsiders to interrupt a fair bargain; and it is possible that some such thing put the mendicant more than normally in the wrong. Francis had all his life a great liking for people who had been put hopelessly in the wrong. On this occasion he seems to have dealt with the double interview with rather a divided mind; certainly with distraction, possibly with irritation. Perhaps he was all the more uneasy because of the almost fastidious standard of manners that came to him quite naturally....Anyhow Francis was evidently torn two ways with the botheration of two talkers, but finished his business with the merchant somehow; and when he had finished it, found the beggar was gone. Francis leapt from his booth, left all the bales of velvet and embroidery behind him apparently unprotected, and went racing across the market place like an arrow from the bow. Still running, he threaded the labyrinth of the narrow and crooked streets of the little town, looking for his beggar, whom he eventually discovered; and loaded that astonished mendicant with money. Then he straightened himself, so to speak, and swore before God that he would never all his life refuse to help a poor man. The sweeping simplicity of this undertaking is extremely characteristic. Never was any man so little afraid of his own promises. His life was one riot of rash vows; or rash vows that turned out right. 

Chesterton goes on to talk about the courage of St. Francis, not only in battle (he was a soldier for a while), but in love and service, not being afraid to give to the needy or hug the leper.

I want to be like that.

Kenosis Love

With committing Himself to successive covenants with Israel, we see an unlimited God limiting Himself. With Abraham, with Moses, with David, the Lord makes these covenants to which He is bound to this people. The idea that a God who cannot be bound by anything in the entire universe (since He created it) would purposefully and humbly choose to be bound in such a way is pretty incredible.

With this new covenant we find ourselves in, this same Lord chooses to limit Himself even more, completely emptying Himself of all power, subjecting Himself to weakness and shame, even unto dying on the cross. The Greek word that is used here for the concept of "emptying" is kenosis. The place in Scripture that is most famous for this term is Philippians chapter 2:6-11, which is often called the Kenosis Hymn:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied (kenao) himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 The love of God compelled Him to empty Himself of all things. This is agape love--self-sacrificial, unconditional love that puts the needs of others before oneself. Jesus Christ became empty of all but love in order to save us. And it is through this emptying that He became exalted in glory.

Similarly, we are called to the same sacrificial, self-emptying love. Like Paul exhorts us: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." We are called to pour ourselves out in love in the name and example of Jesus Christ. And in this we might find glory. This is the foolish logic of love, that by giving everything away we can then gain everything, that by dying we can find life, that by losing our life we can find it.

It does seem foolish, doesn't it? Because this kind of love is going to force us into weakness. It is going to cause people to take advantage of us. It is going to strike a blow at our pride. But it is only through this emptying, the pouring out of ourselves for the sake of God and others, that we can truly come to know the heart of God. No amount of studying theology or the Bible will get us to this intimate knowledge of the Lord. But only by becoming like Him in His love will we truly come to know Him.

We must become empty in order for the love of God to fill us. Let us follow in the example of the Lord Jesus, in Spirit and in Truth, to let the power of love show forth in our weakness. And in this we will find unity with God.

"By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, 'I abide in Him,' ought to walk just as he walked."
- 1 John 2:5-6

On Being Taken Advantage Of

I shared this thought last night at the community prayer meeting, and I figured I would flesh it out here, because this is something that the Lord has really been teaching me recently.

As I've wrote about earlier, the Lord has really been urging me on to serve the homeless and the outcast. To truly try to love like Jesus loved, in loving the unlovely, reaching out to the social outcast, and seeing the image of God in all people, no matter how skewed that image may have become. This is something that I have come to believe is essential for Christians to do, if we are to truly follow Jesus and continue His ministry to this world.

Anyways, this begins with a small story. A few weeks ago, after the Lord has laid this conviction on my heart, I encountered a homeless man on campus who asked me for money. I offered to buy him a meal instead, so we went to Jimmy John's. When we got there, I told him to order whatever he wanted, and in his slightly drunken speech he asked for the biggest thing on the menu. It was an $8 sandwich. Part of me was like, really? Can't you order the basic $4 sandwich to tie you over? But by the grace of God I kept my mouth shut and gladly paid for his meal.

The Lord taught me a lesson in that instance about serving: when you serve, when you give of yourself in order to love others as Christ loves them, then there will undoubtedly be many instances where you will be taken advantage of. And that's okay, for that's part of what love is.

For in that moment, I felt the Lord saying to me, How many times have you taken advantage of My love? How many times have you rejected my gracious offering to you, instead choosing to spit it back in my face? I came and I suffered, I was rejected, I was murdered, and my love was reduced to shame. And still you take advantage of me. But it's okay, for that's what love is. 


If we are to truly love as Jesus loved, then we have to be willing to put ourselves on the line, to put the needs of others before our own, to lay down our lives. And that can be terrifying, but that's what love is. It can make us feel weak and abused (and may I kindly point you to this), but somehow it is still the greatest thing in the world.


Let us love as Christ loves. Or rather, let us be the channel through which Christ loves. And as His love continues to transform our hearts and minds, may we love others with reckless abandon, as He has called us to.

Lay your weapons down

What does it look like to fight in a battle that’s already won? This thought has been bustling around in my mind recently, and I'd like to try to unpack it in a specific way, if you don't mind. Feel free to join me. 

In this battle, we do have a real Enemy, but I think we as Christians have the tendency to confuse the Enemy with those that we are trying to love and see reconciled to God. We have the tendency to direct our fighting against people or groups or ideologies, creating this culture of separation between us and other people who are made in the image of God. Maybe instead of fighting, instead of creating the dichotomy of “us vs. them”, maybe we can come to nonbelievers with a white flag of humility, understanding that we are all fighting on the same field. Maybe we can beat our swords into plowshares, our spears into pruning hooks and turn the battle field into a garden, working to create something beautiful on this journey we are on together. Maybe instead of creating more and more separation with nonbelievers, we can work to identify with them, coming alongside them where they are in love and grace—the same love and grace that we have been shown where we do not deserve it.

As the Church, we need to emulate our Lord, with His outstretched hands on the cross, inviting in the enemy (you and me!—see Romans 5:8) to share in His Kingdom, His love, and yes, even His sufferings. We also need to obey His command for us to “Go out.” We go with confidence, knowing that our Lord has already won the victory. We go with humility, knowing that we were nothing before He saved us, knowing but not knowing this Mystery that dwells within us, working through our weakness. And so a new paradox of our ministry is created. We are ever going out while ever inviting in. We are to be ever inviting people into the heart of the Church while ever working to expand the heart of the Church to the fringes, the outer margins of society and faith.

It’s this concept of working to identify with people in order to bring them to reconciliation with God that fascinates me. Because that’s exactly what Jesus did. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” Even to ones who don’t believe in Him, Jesus identified with them when He cried out on the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “Let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.” In this in another lesson for us: in our moments of doubt and uncertainty, we need to cherish those painful times and use them to identify with nonbelievers.

Identification towards salvation—this is what Jesus is all about. This is what Christianity should be all about. We can’t be their savior, but in humility we point them to the only One who can save them. You can’t love someone like this while attacking them and considering them an “enemy.” We are called to be separated from this world, but we need to be careful not to become separated from people, which is exactly opposite of our mission here. 

How does this actually happen in real life? I have no idea, but I pray that we trust the Holy Spirit to work Jesus’ incarnational ministry through us for His glory. So lay your weapons down. Begin to see your “enemies” as brothers and sisters, and beautiful things can happen.

Love can only lead to poverty

At a time when spiritual leaders were teaching believers to collect, count, and carefully record their good deeds, [St. Therese de Lisieux] firmly rejected that sort of accounting: I count nothing. I simply do everything out of love--and if I then stand empty-handed and utterly poor in the ranks of those who collected, counted, and recorded their merits, isn't that, after all, the poverty that Christ speaks about in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor?

-Tomas Halik, Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing in Us, pg. 33

Love through Community

I am going to tell a story, one that happened to me, not to toot my own horn, but to glorify God because of how He works and to demonstrate a larger point.

The other day i was in the midst of my prayer time and randomly a friend of mine popped into my head, and the feeling that i should pray for them. I did, as well as i knew how, but then afterward emailed that friend to see if there was anything that i could be praying for them about. The friend emailed me back the next day and said, yes, actually there was some crap going on in their life, below the surface, that really needed prayer. The friend remarked how incredible God was, because in the past few days, no fewer than 5 people had come to them, saying that the Lord had put them on their heart or asking if they needed prayer.

Now, this isn't an incredible, rock-your-world kind of story, but to me, this was a Kingdom story. This was a story about how God works through the Body of Christ to show His love and His strength in my friend's life. This was a story about how, through several, God gave grace to one. And this just caused me to praise God for His faithfulness and His goodness and His love.

God is glorified when we submit to be used by Him. This is the cycle of glory--all for God's glory, for the sake of His people. One is encouraged or comforted, and the rest praise God for His work in that person's life. The Community of Christ exists for God's glory--to showcase His power and His love in our lives. We are all ministers of God's grace, not only to the world at large, but to each other. If YOU are a member of this community, then your purpose is to be a vessel of God's grace to EVERYONE, for the sake of God's glory and His Kingdom. How can God be working through YOU? WHO is God trying to reach through you?

You have a purpose. You have a mission. You are here to show your brothers and sisters, and to show the world, that God's love is strong, stronger than any chains that might be binding them, stronger than any walls that they may have built up between them and God, stronger than the power of sin and death in their lives. God's love is strong, and YOU have the strength of that love within you, waiting to be unleashed to the world. YOU are a vessel of the LORD Almighty, and of His love. You are a minister of His grace.

And you are a member of this divine community. Take advantage of it. Use it for the glory of God. When you are going through crap in your life, tell your brothers and sisters and ask them to pray for you. And when you witness a Kingdom moment, share it with brothers and sisters so that you can all praise God together. Build each other up, hold each other accountable, worship together--all of this is for the glory of God.

Don't waste time. Don't waste your life. Start fulfilling your purpose NOW. God wants to use you. Yes, you. He wants to show His love through you. Will you submit to Him, or keep giving in to the myth that your purpose is greater than His purpose?

Wow.

Go read this awesomely titled blog post by Halden on the pathetic nature of Christian love.

I Love Love

I saw these lyrics on a friend's away message on AIM today. It's from the song "Inches and Falling" by a band called The Format. I've never heard of the band or the song, but the lyrics caught my attention. Here's one of the choruses (chorus's? chorii?):

I love love
I love being in love
I don't care what it does to me
These pills are fine to pass the time
'til I find my new drug
Then
We'll take our chances
we'll last a month
we'll never speak again

I thought that was a very interesting commentary on love and dating in our society. People are more in love with love, or the idea of love, than they are with their significant others. Part of the blame is probably to go to Hollywood, but most of it just lies with us, because we fantasize about the perfect relationship, and are disappointed when it doesn't come around. Love has become a drug. People have to get their fix, or else they won't be complete. In a cruel twist of irony, love--intended as a selfless denial and focus on others--has become an idol for our self-indulgence.

Now I've never really been in love, so I'm probably not the best person to comment on this, but I've struggled through this before, as have many other people, I think. I've been in love with the idea of love, and all I know about it is that it causes problems. What happened to love being about commitment? When did love become a feeling to satisfy ourselves rather than an act of the will to pour out ourselves for other's sake?

Unfortunately, I don't think the song above actually resolved anything, but it did point out the problem. I think the solution (if you can call it that) is to go back to Christ, the source of all love. He is the supreme example of love for us. God is love (1 John 4:8). And we need to learn what an idol our society has made of love. We worship it, rather than its Source. We need to get back to love as a commitment, not just a feeling.

I'll end with words from my dear friend Trey, who I think is spot on in this: "I believe that real love is a thing of the will and of reason, and that emotions follow a decision to like or to love someone. I don’t just mean this in terms of romantic relationships, but in all relationships. Try it sometime: choose to care about someone, then act like it, and then feel it."

St. Augustine on Love and Lust

I'm currently reading "Confessions" by St. Augustine. It continues to amaze me that this man who lived around 1700 years or so ago can still speak to my struggles and sorrows and joys today. The vulnerability of his writing and the philosophy of his thinking astound me. I'm not very far into the book still, but every so often there will come a section that hits me hard, right where I'm at. I read such a section today, and I want to share it:

Book III.1

"I went to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust. I had not yet fallen in love, but I was in love with the idea of it, and this feeling that something was missing made me despise myself for not being more anxious to satisfy the need. I began to look around for some object for my love, since I badly wanted to love something. I had no liking for the safe path without pitfalls, for although my real need was you, my God, who are the food of the soul, I was not aware of this hunger. I felt no need for the food that does not perish, not because I had had my fill of it, but because the more I was starved of it the less palatable it seemed. Because of this my soul fell sick. It broke out in ulcers and looked about desperately for some material, worldly means of relieving the itch which they caused. But material things, which have no soul, could not be true objects for my love. To love and to have my love returned was my heart's desire, and it would be all the sweeter if I could also enjoy the body of the one who loved me.
So I muddied the stream of friendship with the filth of lewdness and clouded its clear waters with hell's black river of lust. And yet, in spite of this rank depravity, I was vain enough to have ambitions of cutting a fine figure in the world. I also fell in love, which was a snare of my own choosing. My God, my God of mercy, how good you were to me, for you mixed much bitterness in that cup of pleasure! My love was returned and finally shackled me in the bonds of its consummation. In the midst of my joy I was caught up in the coils of trouble, for I was lashed with the cruel, fiery rods of jealousy and suspicion, fear, anger, and quarrels."

With all my thoughts this past year about love and singleness, this really spoke to me. Augustine's description of the process of falling in love with the idea of love is spot on with what I've experienced. As long as I continue to seek after nourishment that is perishable, I'll continue to struggle and be left unsatisfied. So often I'm not hungry for the nourishment of God because I haven't had it in so long. It became "less palatable."

Augustine is one of my new heroes.