Today, we are honoring St. Francis of Assisi and the Anglican Priest Arthur Broome. And, I’d like to begin with a story.
St. Francis and his companions were walking through the Spoleto Valley. Suddenly, Francis spotted a huge flock of birds of all kinds. There were doves, crows, larks and all sorts of birds. Swept up in the moment, Francis left his friends in the road and ran after the birds, who patiently waited for him. He greeted them, expecting them to scurry off into the air as he spoke. But they didn’t move.
Filled with awe, he asked if they would stay and listen to the Word of God. He said: “My brother and sister birds, you should praise your Creator and always love him. He gave you feathers for clothes, wings to fly and all other things that you need. It is God who made you noble among all creatures, making your home in thin, pure air. Without sowing or reaping, He feeds you and you receive God’s guidance and protection.”
At this the birds began to spread their wings, stretch their necks and gaze at Francis, rejoicing and singing God’s praise.
Then he gave them his blessing, making the sign of the cross over them. At that they flew off and Francis, rejoicing and giving thanks to God, went on his way.
This is just one of many cute stories about St. Francis and the animals. We can’t help but smile. It’s a natural reaction to smile at the idea of this holy mad-man preaching to the birds, because you and I know, these birds could not have understood a single word he was saying. But let’s suppose the birds did understand. I want you to notice, St. Francis did not preach to them about the Ten Commandments, he did not preach to them about the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or about marriage laws. Why would they care about any of these things that we humans have claimed are so “necessary” for Salvation? Instead, he talked to them about the one thing that truly is most necessary for Salvation, he talked to them about Gratitude. How wise he was! He knew, where there is no gratitude, there is no faith, no hope and no love…
But to focus on the birds stopping to listen and pay attention to the Saint’s sermon is really to miss the point of the story and to misunderstand St. Francis.
So often, we Christians strut about the earth, which by the way, God gave us dominion over. Yep, it’s right there in Genesis chapter one, God gave humankind complete dominion over the earth and all that’s in it. And so, we strut around imperiously, believing all of this is ours to do with as we please and without consequences. We’re so busy taking inventory, making plans and pursuing our own agendas that we don’t even see, much less pay real attention to anything that’s outside of our Day-planners and To-Do-Lists.
St. Francis, on the other hand, was known as “The Poor Man of Assisi”. And no wonder! He began his Christian life by standing in front of his father and the local bishop; renouncing his wealth, renouncing up his inheritance and his noble social status. He even stepped out of his rich clothes and gave them back to his dumb-struck and disbelieving father. Francis began his Christian life stripped naked before God and everybody, owning nothing and assuming nothing. For this reason, he was able to look upon the world as God’s creation, not his own dominion. Francis was able to see the beauty of the forest and field, the beauty of feather and fur without a grasping heart, without a greedy mind. Instead, he gazed upon this flock of birds and his heart was filled with gratitude, joy and wonder! So, the story of St. Francis preaching to the birds is not a story about the Saint trying to convert birds to Christianity, trying to save their little feathered souls. Rather, it’s a story about what is going on inside Francis’s own heart. It’s a story about St. Francis becoming reconciled with God and with God’s Creation, about becoming reunited… By the way, folks, this is how the vast majority of my Bible College professors defined the word “Salvation”. Salvation does not simply mean having your sins forgiven and going to Heaven. Salvation means being reconciled to God and to God’s Creation, it means being reunited, it means entering into right-relationship. This takes work. Work that we must begin here and now, if we are to stand here and say; “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth…,” with any honesty at all. We must be God’s compassionate eyes and God’s healing hands, embracing the entire creation with his love, here and now. This is the test of Christian discipleship. And we do it because we understand the agony and suffering of the Cross and we’ve promised to never let such a horror happen ever again.
Now, I want to tell you the story of another man, an Anglican priest, our very own St. Francis… A man who looked into the face of an innocent, neglected, abused dog and saw the face of the Crucified and suffering Christ looking back at him, crying out for help, crying out for mercy and for love. What was this priest to do?
This priest’s name is Arthur Broome. On June 16th 1824, he called a meeting. Those invited included four more Anglican priests and 2 members of the British House of Commons. The purpose of the meeting is to found the 1st national animal welfare society in the world. Two weeks later, the SPCA was born.
It is most unfortunate that today, the SPCA seems to have something of a bad reputation. When their name is mentioned, we automatically think of the “big bad dog-catcher” and we sneer… This kind of knee-jerk reaction on our part is sad and the SPCA does NOT deserve it.
Let me tell you a little about the SPCA. The SPCA takes in every animal, they turn no animal away. Each and every animal is given a health exam and veterinary care. All reasonably healthy animals are given food, shelter and are put up for adoption. Some sit waiting for adoption for months.
But the plain, simple and horrific facts are, there are not enough available homes for all the animals who need them and there are not enough resources out there to “warehouse” these animals… Even those wonderful no-kill shelters are over-whelmed. They are always filled to capacity or even over-flowing, forced to turn animals away… And so, ultimately, 10 million healthy companion animals are put to death every year.
Let me tell you, though. The SPCA is just as horrified by these circumstances as you and I are.
For this reason, they run a wonderful, low-cost spay and neuter program, to try and prevent the births of more feral, stray and unwanted animals. They also run a food program, where they give free pet food to low-income families. This, in the hope that these families will continue to house and care for their pets, as opposed to giving them up to a shelter or turning them out into the streets due to lack of funds. The SPCA also runs low-cost dog obedience and training courses, in the hopes that if they can help a dog to be an obedient, well-adjusted dog without any severe behavioral problems, then the owner will be reluctant to give the animal up or turn it out into the streets. In short, the SPCA is doing absolutely everything in its power to find homes for animals and to keep animals in those homes.
Still, the fact of the matter is, every year in the United States alone; 10 million companion animals put to death… What if there were no SPCA? These 10 million animals would be left to wander the streets; lost, alone, starving, freezing to death in the winter and dying of heat-stroke in the summer. Some would and DO wound or even kill each other in fights. Others drink the sweet-tasting antifreeze leaked from cars and die a long, slow, painful death days later. Others are teased and even tortured by gangs of kids who have nothing better to do… I have seen all of this and more, with my very own eyes. Life on the streets for a homeless animal is a living Hell.
If there were no SPCA, by the end of 2005, there would be 10 million animals wandering the terrifying streets of America. By the end of 2006, there would be at least 40 million, and by the end of 2010, there would be at least 160 million homeless, wandering animals and that is a CONSERVATIVE number. 160 million! The SPCA did not create this problem and it is receiving precious little help to face the problem. But they are dealing with it and in the most compassionate way possible, with the few resources available to them. Anyway, back to the story of Reverend Broome, the founder of the SPCA.
I do not have any anecdotal references, as to the horrific plight domestic animals were in, during Arthur Broome’s day. But, London in 1824, was a crowded, dirty and cruel place to live – even for humans… It must have been really bad, though, because it wasn’t long before Reverend Broome gave up his London Church and went to work full time for the SPCA – WITHOUT PAY. Sometime after that, the SPCA began to hire investigators to look into reports of animal neglect or animal cruelty. Reverend Broome paid these investigators out of his own pocket! So now, this man is essentially paying the SPCA for the privilege of working for them full time. That’s crazy! But that is the power of Love, that is the power of God’s Kingdom come! In the end, Reverend Broome sacrificed everything, absolutely everything, as he was the person who went to debtors prison to pay for the SPCA’s debts.
On July 16, 1837 – just 13 years after the SPCA was founded, Reverend Broome was buried in Birmingham, England. His grave is unmarked, unloved, uncared for. The man who changed the world for animals died in obscurity. He seems to have left this world unwept, unhonored and unsung… But somehow, I am sure Arthur Broome would stand here and tell you; that’s okay, because what really matters is that the SPCA he sacrificed everything for still exists! Not only in London, but around the world. Even better still, there are many other types of animal welfare and animal rights groups that have come into existence, inspired by the SPCA’s vision – all working to make this world a safer, more humane place for everyone to live.
That’s right, I said: all animal welfare groups and animal rights groups are working to make this world a safer, more humane place for everyone to live…
There are some out there wondering; Okay, aside from getting dangerous, unsanitary, possibly rabid and diseased animals off the street – how have groups like the SPCA, The Animal Legal Defense Fund, or PETA made this world a safer place for people, for ME to live in?… Please, allow me to tell one more story.
Imagine a scene in your mind. Experimental subjects are receiving diagnostic tests for tuberculosis. One test requires the instillation of tuberculin solution in the eye, another the injection of tuberculin in the muscle and the third a test injection of tuberculin into the skin. One hundred and sixty subjects are selected. The published report describes the discomforts and injuries resulting from the eye test, including “a decidedly uncomfortable lesion and serious inflammation of the eye”. One observer described the plight of the experimental subjects as follows “they would lie in their beds moaning all night from the pain in their eyes. They kept their little hands pressed over their eyes, unable to sleep from pain.”
These experiments were performed in 1908 by doctors of the William Pepper Clinical Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania. The experimental victims, however, were not animals but humans – children to be precise. In fact 160 orphans…
This was not an isolated incident. Children were regularly experimented upon, in the most horrific ways. There are many more examples like this one in a book called “Subjected to Science”, with the subtitle “Human Experimentation in America Before the 2nd World War. It is written by Susan Lederer, the associate professor of humanities at the Hershey Medical Center at Penn State University, and published by Johns Hopkins University Press…
One of Ms. Lederer’s principle claims is, “During this period (before the 2nd World War), the moral issues raised by experimenting on human beings were most intensely pursued by men and women committed to the protection of animals.” – Pg. 92 – 93
Hear what she says! It wasn’t the Church, it wasn’t a group of people under a Christian flag who were responsible for instituting a ban on human experimentation and human vivisection! It was animal welfare groups. Why?
I cannot explain to you why the Christian Churches failed to address this horror – or why some Christian Churches even contributed to this horror. But I can tell you why animal welfare groups believe that the mission of preventing human suffering and preventing animal suffering are not two separate missions, but one and the same mission.
Dr. Alex Hershaft, founder of a group called Farm Animal Reform Movement was a child during World War 2. He survived the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis… Dr. Hershaft recently said; “In the Warsaw Ghetto, I learned that human beings can treat other human beings like animals. From that, I concluded that the only way to end all oppression is to eliminate the oppression of the most oppressed – nonhuman animals.”
The FBI, too, acknowledges this. Ask any agent and they will tell you; all serial killers begin their grisly careers by torturing and killing animals…
Gandhi, too, has said; “You can measure the morals and greatness of a nation by the way they treat their animals.”
How is the U.S.A. doing? Aside from the 10 million healthy dogs and cats that are put to death each year, more than 20 million animals (including cats, dogs, rabbits and monkeys) are imprisoned and killed in biomedical and product testing laboratories. The majority of these animals suffer and die needlessly, for insurance, legal and bureaucratic purposes – rather than to protect you and I from unforeseen danger or side-effects.
Every year, 10 billion factory-farmed animals are killed after short lives spent in dark, filthy and horrifically claustrophobic confinement.
Where is the Church? God’s chosen instrument of mercy, justice, reconciliation, healing and peace?
The automated, institutionalized, routine massacre of billions of God’s creatures every year, for food, for profit, for science and for sport, raises the question whether Christians have lost their grasp of the reality of evil?
My friends! Do I have to tell you? Don’t you feel it in your gut, right now – as I speak? We have wandered as far away from St. Francis’s simplicity, gratitude and joy as we can possibly get. We’ve strayed as far away from Salvation, reconciliation and right-relationship as we can get!
In your heart, in your gut, you know that our concept of God forbids the idea of a cheap creation, of a throw-away universe in which everything (including living, breathing plants and animals) is expendable… Rather, all of creation finds its value, its worth in the Good God that has Fathered it all, in the God that declared all to be “Good”, in the God that has loved and redeemed it. That’s right, the love and redemption God has sent through Christ is not limited to humankind alone, but is for all of creation!
There are, literally dozens (if not hundreds) of very interesting Bible verses regarding God and Jesus’s relationship with animals. Obviously, we don’t have time for them all. But I’d like to share 6 references with you that make it very clear, Christ’s redemption is not at all limited to humankind but is for the entire multiverse!
Romans Chapter 8, verses 19 through 22;
“All creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For creation was condemned to lose its purpose… Yet there was the hope that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
Ephesians Chapter 1, verses 9 and 10;
“God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth.”
Colossians Chapter 1, verses 19 and 20;
“Through the Son, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself, God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.”
Hosea chapter 2, verse 18 – God promises to make a covenant with the “wild animals, the birds of the air and the things that crawl on the earth” that someday there will be an age without war so that all living creatures may “lie down in safety”.
Isaiah Chapter 11, verses 6 through 9.
“Wolves and sheep will live together in peace,
leopards will lie down with young goats.
Calves and lion cubs will feed together,
And little children will take care of them.
Cows and bears will eat together
their calves and cubs will lie down in peace.
Lions will eat straw as cattle do.
Even a baby will not be harmed
If it plays near a poisonous snake.”
Finally, Revelations Chapter 5, verse 13;
“I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, in the world below, and in the sea – all living beings in the universe – and they were singing:
To Him who sits on the throne
And to the Lamb
Be praise and honor,
Glory and might,
Forever and ever!”
All these Scriptures are descriptions of God’s very own love and care for plants and animals. Because He cares, we must care… All of these are descriptions of reconciliation, healing, right-relationship. As the compassionate eyes and healing hands of Christ, it is our job to make reconciliation happen, to heal whosoever suffers and to enter into right-relationship not only with God, but with the whole of his creation. “Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth!” We must begin here, we must begin now… There are a million small ways to make a big difference.
Recycle.
Eat vegetarian meals once a week, or even every other day.
Refuse to buy leather goods whenever it is possible to avoid it.
Write to lawmakers, ask them to push forward more protections for parks, wildlife and domesticated animals.
Be careful with your resources, waste not, want not.
Choose a companion animal from an animal shelter.
Donate money or volunteer a little time to animal shelters and to spay/neuter programs.
Buy only those products that say right on the package that they do not conduct animal testing.
But the single most important thing you can do? Open your eyes and your heart in true gratitude, joy and wonder of this beautiful world that God has gifted every living creature with.
Now, please let me leave you with my very best St. Francis imitation;
Little flock! Remember what our Lord has said: God’s eye is always lovingly upon even the smallest sparrow. Be not afraid! His eyes gaze lovingly upon you at all times as well.
Brothers and Sisters, God has chosen you to be noble, he has chosen you to have dominion. Rejoice with thankful hearts! That means God has chosen you to be like him, to rule as he rules. And God’s signature characteristic is that God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son… What joy! What privilege! He has chosen each one of you to so love the world!
And at the end of the day, when you are weary from doing your very best, my Friends, my Family… Know that the Lord, the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah, will do for you what he had so longed to do for Jerusalem; He will gather you to his breast, as a Mother Hen so gently and lovingly gathers her chicks under her wings.
-Amen.
