Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, St. Francis (10-4-26)

There's something wonderfully untidy about this service. It's a small taste of what the world actually sounds like: crowded, noisy, and teeming with life. And every year, this gathering reminds us that the church has never really been meant for human beings alone.

But while we’re having some fun today, how about some bible trivia? Who receives the first blessing in all of Scripture? Hint: It isn't Adam or Eve, and it isn't Abraham...

It's the fish and the birds. In Genesis, before a single human being appears, God looks at the swarming seas and the crowded sky and blesses them: be fruitful, multiply, fill the waters, cover the earth. The first creatures in the biblical account ever to hear God say "I bless you" …had fins and feathers.

So what we're doing this morning isn't a novelty. But it is worth noticing what those fish and birds had done to earn that blessing,

which is nothing at all. They hadn't learned to sit or stay, and nobody was housebroken. God blessed them simply because they existed, and then looked at them and called them good.

The psalmist understands this well. Psalm 104 reads a bit like a nature documentary, with springs for the wild donkeys, trees for the nesting storks, high hills for the goats, rocks for the badgers, and lions roaring to God for their supper. The whole world is one enormous, noisy dinner table, and God is the one setting it.

Jesus picks up the same thread when he says, "Consider the ravens." Of all the birds he might have chosen, he picks ravens, which Leviticus lists among the unclean animals. They're scavengers, loud and not much loved. And Jesus says, look at them anyway. They don't plant or harvest, they don't have barns or savings accounts, and still God feeds them.

If God cares for the raven—the bird nobody particularly wanted—then God surely cares for the rescue mutt with one ear, the elderly cat on thyroid medication, and the goldfish your kid won at the fair.

And, of course, God cares for you, too.

About eight hundred years ago, a wealthy young man from Assisi came to understand this, and it rearranged his whole life. Francis gave away his father's money and began calling all of creation family: Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Brother Wind and Sister Water. There's a lovely story that he once stopped along the road to preach to a flock of birds, urging them to praise God for their feathers and for the open air, and that they stayed to listen, which is more than some human congregations can manage.

For Francis, creatures weren't props or property. They were kin-—fellow members of one large and wonderfully chaotic congregation, each praising God in its own language, whether bark or purr or birdsong, or whatever that sound is that guinea pigs make.

So perhaps the invitation today is not only to bless our animals, but to let them preach to us a little. Your dog doesn't worry about tomorrow. Your cat has never once apologized for resting (or probably for anything else, let’s be honest). The birds at the feeder simply trust that there will be seed.

"Do not be afraid, little flock," Jesus tells us, "for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." God takes pleasure in all of this, in all of them, and in all of you.



Amen.