“Francis found out that God was everywhere, not only in church. God was in the trees and the sun and the moon and the flowers and the animals. God was also in all of the people. It made Francis so happy. His heart was full of love, and he had friends wherever he went. Francis was rich in love.”

Sermon by Sally Howard at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on St. Francis Sunday, September 30, 2018.

Suddenly Jesus started to pray:
“Thank you, God of heaven and earth.
You’ve concealed your ways from the wise and learned,
but spelled them out clearly to the youngest children.
In the name of Your glorious love,
Amen

Happy St. Francis day, All Saints!  This is a day of joy and blessing.  It’s a day we do things we don’t do other days of the year, and today we are doing something we’ve never done before—we are bringing children’s church into this church service.  We are going to play-we are going to do a very special kind of play called Godly Play–and we are going to wonder together.

Will the children please join me on the steps?

Are you ready?

This is the desert box.  We use the desert box to tell stories about people who have come so close to God and so close to them, that they knew that God wanted them to do something new and brave—and they did it!

Today is the story of St Francis.  His story is in the desert box because he came close to God in a very special way.  Let’s see what Francis’s way was.
Frances didn’t live in the desert, he lived in a town, so we are going to make the desert into a town. And a country side too.

Frances lived in the town. You could hear the children laugh, and the horses go clip clop on the cobblestones and the blacksmith pound the anvil with his hammer.  You could hear the church bells rings every hour.

Here is Francis’s house.  He had a big house and lots of stuff and all the things that he needed.  He liked to have parties with his friends and he only wanted to be friends with people who were just like him.

On the other side of town lived the people who were poor.  They didn’t have a lot of clothes or good food.  Frances didn’t think about them very much.

Outside of town, there were people who had leprosy, which you could catch kind of like a cold, but it was much more dangerous.  People were afraid of being close to them, so they could never come into town. Especially Francis.  He was really afraid of the people who were sick and he didn’t like to think about them at all.

In the middle was a church.  Frances went to church on Sunday but he didn’t think much about God the rest of the week.  He thought God only lived at church.  He couldn’t see God anywhere else.

Frances thought if he had more money and more stuff, he would be even more special and important—maybe even the most special of all.

But it didn’t work that way.  The more he wanted to be more special than anybody else, the more he lonely and scared he felt on the inside.  His tummy was full, which was good, but his heart felt empty. He had lots of things on the outside, but he wasn’t very happy inside in his heart.

One day Frances got sick.  And while he was sick, an amazing thing happened: he began to think about all those sick people who couldn’t come into town.  Frances began to feel sad for them.  His heart began to grow and he started to feel closer to God.  Frances began to feel love for the people that weren’t like him.  Francis was learning that everyone is special to God.

Francis even started feeling less afraid of the people who were sick.  When he got well, Francis met a sick person on the road, instead of running away, he gave him a big hug.

Francis made new friends and they weren’t all like him.  Some were poor and one had a hard time learning in school and one person was very short and one person was very tall and one person spoke a different language and one person had been born with one leg.  They were not people who Frances would have invited to his big parties.  But Frances knew his new friends loved him and he loved them too.

Frances felt so happy and free, so overjoyed that his feet started moving!  In fact, he started dancing and his dancing carried him out into the countryside.  The birds were singing, the bees were buzzing, and you could feel the breeze.  You could hear the water rushing in the stream close by.

The sun was hot and a tree gave him shade with its big branches.  The tree’s leaves danced in the wind just like Francis danced. Francis felt God’s love in the tree and the wind and the leaves, and he felt it in his heart too.

The bright sun and the cool rain made the grass and flowers grow.   The bees danced inside the flowers and flew away to make honey.  Francis loved to taste the honey because it was so sweet and so good!  He saw that the sun and the rain and the flowers and the bees were all friends and helped each other.   They didn’t try to be the most important or most special.  They were special together.

Frances learned to be very quiet, and gentle.  And as he sat out there, the animals became curios and come up to him and were not afraid.

Francis even became friends with a wolf.  The wolf was scary but Francis was not afraid of it.   The wolf said Ow ow and “Grrr”.  Francis listened and knew that the wolf was very cranky because he was very hungry.  Francis made sure his friend the wolf got food to eat and the wolf wasn’t cranky anymore!  All the animals became Francis’s friend and his teachers too; and Francis knew that God was in the animals too.

Francis found out that God was everywhere, not only at church. God was in the trees and the sun and the moon and the flowers and all the animals- even the wolf—and God was in all of the people too.  It made Francis so happy!  His heart was full and he had friends everywhere he went.  Francis was rich in love.

Where do you see yourself in the story?

What’s the most important part?

What part could we leave out and have all we need?

The Gospel read by the children

And all God’s people say, “Amen!”