Ezekiel 17.22-24, Mark 4.26-34
The Third Sunday of Trinity, 16 June 2024,
Austwick, Clapham (Easy Church), Eldroth
One day, St Francis was walking from one city to the next to acquire more members for his new religious order. He noticed on the way a multitude of birds gathering in the trees and he was inspired to preach to them. This was what he said:
“My little sisters, many are the bonds which unite us to God. And your duty is to praise Him everywhere and always, because He has let you free to fly wherever you will, and has given you a double and threefold covering and the beautiful plumage you wear.
“Praise Him likewise for the food He provides for you without your working for it, for the songs He has taught you, for your numbers that His blessing has multiplied, for your species which He preserved in the ark of olden times, and for the realm of the air He has reserved for you.
“God sustains you without your having to reap or sow. He gives you fountains and streams to drink from, mountains and hills in which to take refuge, and tall trees in which to build your nests. Although you do not know how to sew or spin, He gives to you and your little ones the clothing you need.
“How the Creator must love you to grant you such favours! So, my sister birds, do not be ungrateful, but continually praise him who showers blessings upon you.”
The birds listened to Francis’ homily and flew away, singing in praise to their maker. Francis marvelled at their beauty and joined them in praising God. [1]
The life of St. Francis of Assisi has always fascinated people. He came from a well off family but renounced money, inheritance, and even respect to embrace poverty, prayer and obedience to God. He became a beggar who inspired a legion of others, even today. I've got some good friends who are Franciscans. They are among the poorest, and happiest, people I know.
One remarkable thing about Francis is his closeness to nature. He talked to the birds, and the birds took notice of him. They stayed calm near this human being. Wild birds rarely let people approach them closely. Perhaps wisely, they normally distrust our presence. But the birds allowed Francis to come close, so close that his clothes touched them. They trusted this human being more than any other.
Jesus said we can learn from the birds. He said, "Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Francis talked to the birds; and Jesus invited us to learn from them. I wonder if you think you can learn from them: and what things they can teach us. And I wonder if you talk to the birds - or other creatures. When I asked one congregation this question years ago, they shared many stories about talking with their animals, including one person’s pet, a 30+ year-old cockateel called Cocky.
Francis walked through the trees - he found the birds living in them; and Jesus also walked through the trees - he found something very profound to say about them. The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!' The Lord replied, 'If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea", and it would obey you. Jesus seems to be saying, if you talk to the trees they will hear you and follow what you say. If you only had a tiny bit of faith.
Now we might be inclined to keep our distance from people who talk to trees. When King Charles was a Prince who happily spoke to trees and plants and flowers, he was generally ridiculed, as are other such free spirits everywhere. Yet Jesus talked to the trees. The mulberry tree; the fig tree on the road to Jerusalem which he famously withered. And remember how Jesus reproved the wind - and it subsided; how he placated the waves - which obeyed him.
He was simply following his Father, who, at the very beginning of time, spoke to the light - and there was light; who spoke to the waters, and the waters appeared; who spoke to the earth, and the earth formed; who spoke to the plants and the creatures, and the plants and the creatures appeared in all their variety and all their beauty.
This speech is not a one-way conversation. Scripture is full of nature speaking back to God and to us. Ezekiel finds a cedar tree speaking to him of God’s future for Israel; Jesus finds a head of grain, a mustard seed, manifesting to him the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
We are able to appreciate that there is something good, and right, and even divine in being so close to nature that we can enter into a two-way conversation with it.
This must be why so many of us happily talk to the animals. And listen to them. A survey in the Church Times revealed that many people pray with their pets. They are their companions in life; they share the deepest things with them, it's natural to include them in their prayers. I know at least one person whose dog joins him for prayers each night.
A woman wrote in to the Church Times to tell about her father who was a vicar and whose three cats always followed him to Evening Prayer every day: "After he tolled the bell at 6.00 and donned his robes, they would quietly settle down: Dicky at his feet, Bill around his neck like a tabby scarf, and Mowley - well, she was more keen on checking the mouse population." In fact only one Church Times reader wrote in to say he didn't pray with his pet: "I don't have to," he said, "my pet is a praying mantis." [2]
When Jesus told his disciples to look at the birds of the air, and consider the lilies of the field, he was encouraging them to learn from our neighbours in nature how to be trusting and open to the Creator.
When Jesus explained the kingdom of God in terms of the mustard seed, the grain, he was demystifying God’s ways on earth, teaching us that his ways are the most natural ways.
There is no magic formula to increase our faith. It grows the more we appreciate the creatures and trees, the closer we get to God’s good earth and the world around us. God values all of this. God is in all of these. God speaks to, and through, all of them.
Sometimes, God wants us to listen to these, our companions in creation.
Sometimes, God delights when we talk to them.
Note
A rewrite of I talk to the trees, editorial in Lydford Parish and Community Magazine, May 2012, and I talk to the trees (A Franciscan conversation), preached in Liverpool, 2004.
[1] Mary Kroner, Why did Saint Francis preach to the birds? Southern Nebraska Register, 30 September 2022.
[2] Half say they pray with pets, Church Times, 1 October 2004.
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