Saint Francis stepped out into a world being recast by the emerging market economy. He lived amid a decaying old order in which his father was greedily buying up the small farms of debtors, moving quickly into the new entrepreneurial class.
.. Third, and most radically, he looked to the underside of his society, to the suffering, for an understanding of how God transforms us.
.. Francis set out to read reality through the eyes and authority of those who have “suffered and been rejected”—and, with Jesus, come out resurrected. This is the “privileged seeing” of those who have been initiated by life. It is the true baptism of “fire and Spirit” with which, Jesus says, we must all be baptized (see Mark 10:39).
.. Finally, he had to be poor (to be able to read reality from the side of powerlessness). He realized that experiencing reality from the side of money, success, and power is to leave yourself out of sympathy with 99% of the people who have ever lived.
Once You Are in an Authority Position in any Institution, Your Job is to Preserve That Institution
Francis knew that once you are in an authority position in any institution, your job is to preserve that institution, and your freedom to live and speak the full truth becomes limited.
.. The early Franciscans said the first Bible was not the written Bible, but creation itself, the cosmos.
.. The job of religion and theology is to help us look in the mirror that is already present. All this “mirroring” eventually effects a complete change in consciousness.
Incarnation instead of Atonement
Franciscans never believed in the sacrificial atonement theory because it wasn’t necessary. Christ was Plan A, not Plan B. Atonement implies that God had a plan, we messed it up, and then God had to come back in to mop-up our mistakes.
.. As I mentioned earlier this month, Franciscan John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) said the plan from the beginning was to reveal Godself as Christ. Jesus didn’t come as a remedy for sin—as if God would need blood before God could love what God created. The idea that God, who is love, would demand the sacrifice of his beloved Son in order to be able to love what God created is the conundrum that reveals how unsatisfying that quid pro quo logic really is.
Franciscans believe that Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity. It didn’t need changing: God has organically, inherently loved what God created from the moment God created. Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.
.. For now, just realize that the Church in the thirteenth century was broad-minded enough to accept this alternative orthodoxy as a minority position.
Covenant Love
YHWH, YHWH, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and abounding in faithfulness. For the thousandth generation, YHWH maintains his kindness, forgiving all our faults, transgressions, and sins. —Exodus 34:6-7
.. “I am not doing this for your sake, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name” (Ezekiel 36:22). God is God’s own reference point. God is just being true to Godself in loving. God’s faithfulness has never been dependent on our worthiness or readiness. This is restorative justice, the divine form of justice.
.. The word translated as “steadfast love” is often rendered “covenant love” or “faithful love.” Today we often call it unconditional love. It’s “one-sided love,” if you will, because Israel never keeps its side of the covenant, just as we never keep our side of the relationship to this day. YHWH has learned to do it all from God’s side since we are basically unreliable as lovers. That is the constant message of much of the Hebrew Scriptures from Moses to Job. Yet, as Paul says, “Is it possible that YHWH has rejected God’s people? Of course not!” (Romans 11:1). Divine Love is not determined by the worthiness of the object but by the Total Generosity of the Subject.