Brother Sun and Sister Moon

A Sermon preached by J. Stuart Taylor III

St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church

September 9, 2007

When you turn off the highway onto the dirt road that leads to Chaco Canyon, the first thing that gets your attention is the severity of this desert landscape. How could such a seemingly barren environment sustain any life much less a great civilization? Slowly the immense space of this place begins to open me up to larger horizons. As I bounce down this twenty mile dirt road in NW New Mexico, I remind myself why I have come here. I want to know more about the ancient ones, the Anasazi culture that thrived here in Chaco Canyon some 700 years ago. Most of all I want to commune with this place, approaching this little corner of God's creation as a sacred text. What I brought to this retreat along with my sleeping bag and flash light and camp food was the belief that by communing deeply with creation we come to know the Creator God who is present in creation. And what I have brought with me is the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, a hymn of praise written by St. Francis of Assisi. In the entire history of the church there is one voice more than any other who has called the church to praise the Creator who is present in creation. And that voice was St. Francis of Assisi. It is St. Francis of Assisi who can teach us how to pray with creation. The Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon is not just a beautiful poem. It is a spiritual vision of a transformed relationship between humankind and the created order to which we belong. I am hoping that in this preaching series on the creation spirituality of St. Francis we can reclaim a relationship to Francis as the patron saint of the environment and as a spiritual guide who can teaches us how to respond to the Loving Creator who is present in all of creation.

Now when we talk about creation spirituality, for some this might sound like pantheism- the idea that God and nature are the same. But creation spirituality from a Franciscan or Christian perspective is really pan-entheism, God in creation; God in everything, everything in God. Creation spirituality is a spiritual posture that seeks to behold and respond to the mystery of the divine being that shimmers in all creatures’ great and small. We might associate creation spirituality with Native Americans going back as far as the ancient ones of Anasazi culture. But what about in our own Christian tradition? Creation spirituality has not been emphasized within Christianity though that is beginning to change. There are many Biblical images that draw on nature. And starting next Sunday, in a class entitled the Green Bible, I am going to be exploring with you what the Bible teaches us about creation. And this class is dedicated to the memory of St. Francis, who reveled in the glory of God in creation. In the canticle of creation, Francis lived out of a sense of mystical union with all that is, calling out to all of creation as brother and sister. This is the spiritual center of the Franciscan world view of the world. The Creator is the Divine parent of all that is, and all creatures, are therefore brother and sister to one another. Everything created the earth, the oceans, plants and animals, rocks and waters everything animate and inanimate deserves brotherly love and sisterly respect. Can we even begin to imagine how much it would change our world if human beings learned to call all creatures, brother or sister? On the basis of this mysticism of universal brotherhood and sisterhood, Francis treated all things with respect and tenderness. He told his associates not to cut the trees down completely so that they could grow again and not to take the entire bee’s honey, lest they starve. Legends abound about Francis preaching to the birds as did Jesus. And these legends may contain a factual truth- somehow creatures responded to Francis without fear. Birds would gather around him and chirp as he called them to rejoice with him in the glory of the Creator. His love and respect for all his brothers and sisters in creation was driving force behind his outward ecological vision. But in the canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, we also see an inward ecology. Francis canticle of creation teaches us that when we open our hearts in gratitude to the Creator for the beauty and wonder of creation, we simultaneously lay hold of deeply spiritual truths at the core of our being.

“All praise be yours my Lord for Brother Sun who brings the day, and light you give us through him. How beautiful is he, how radiant in his entire splendor! All praise be yours my Lord through Sister Moon and Stars; in the heavens you have made them bright and fair.” Francis finds an inexhaustible source of joy in creation but this was first and foremost a joy in light. For Francis the cosmos is an epiphany of light. Even at the end of his life when he wrote the canticle, at a time when he was almost blind and in agony from an eye condition, Francis still celebrated the light he loved in his poem to Brother Sun and Sister Moon. The story is told of Francis that late one night he woke up the entire town of Assisi by ringing the cathedral bell that was used only for the direst emergencies. The townspeople flooded out of their homes only to find that fool Francis summoning them to see the beautiful moonrise over the Tuscan plain. St. Francis was my spiritual companion during that pilgrimage to Chaco Canyon, teaching me to pray with all creation. Francis taught me how Brother Sun is the image of the most high God – the divine splendor of the Sun and the abundance it radiates in the heavens. For Francis the sun symbolizes the sovereign reality that draws the soul toward it. The sun calls out to that which is deepest and most divine in us; Brother Sun draws our gaze within to a vision of ourselves as light filled beings. The sun is a glimpse of our own destiny to be transformed. To be in dialogue with the sun raises questions for me like where is my vocation calling me? Where is my life going? What is the vision of my own transformation that guides my journey? We all need to pray with Brother Sun in order to reclaim a vision of transformation, as individuals, as people of faith and indeed as the human family

During that retreat to Chaco Canyon, I learned about an amazing discovery made just a few years ago. On a peak in Chaco canyon called Fajada Butte there are pictographs that allowed the ancient ones to track with mathematical precision the movements of sun and moon over 20 year cycles. The Anasazi were acute observers of sun and moon. They carefully followed the movements of sun and moon and organized their society around that calendar. Their powers of observation were incredible. We now know that all of the buildings of Chaco canyon, from the central complex of the Great Kiva to the outlying settlements miles away are lined up precisely along the solar and lunar lines. Chaco Canyon is completely aligned by the movement of sun and moon over the landscape. As modern urban people our time underneath the sky is limited. We are mesmerized by the false light of the television and the computer. We have largely forgotten what it means to be children of the sky. But we can still appreciate the joy that Francis experienced in light. May we never take for granted the beautiful sunlight that can be found here in the desert southwest and how many different nuances it can bring from hour to hour, from season to season? And moonlight – I remember a few night hikes that I have taken here in Arizona. And then just two weeks ago driving home from a meeting I was slayed by the vision of a full moon rising over sabino. We know well how many people have moved to Tucson for a variety of health reasons. But lately I have been people who have moved here to escape what is being called light deprivation syndrome and the depression that it can bring. I think of the Native custom of greeting the sun each morning and asking its blessing upon the day. A member of this congregation told me that nothing has done more for her health than this practice of greeting the sun each morning. And did you see the story on cable news this week that a scientist is claiming that there are health benefits for moonlight as well. I have always believed that on Judgment day our Creator will ask us how many sunsets or moonrises did we truly see and appreciate.

Today human society is bringing new attention to reality of sun and moon. We understand that life exists on this planet because of our relationship to the Sun. Any farther away and this planet would be frozen. Any closer and it would be burned up. And we are recognizing that the devastating impact that human society is having upon this life giving membrane called our atmosphere. Even if we were to cut carbon emissions in half by tomorrow, we are still likely to experience dramatic climate across our planet in the decades ahead. We are faced with what is undoubtedly the most monumental challenge ever faced by humankind. This historical moment is both crisis and an opportunity – a crisis not just for polar bears in the Arctic but for all life on this planet which is increasingly at risk because of ecological devastation. But hidden in this crisis is an opportunity for profound conversion. We are living in a time when humankind must rise to its best self and begin to live in harmony with the earth. People of faith take heart in this struggle because we are a people of hope. If we hear the groaning of the creation under the weight of ecological destruction we can also hear with ears of faith the birth pangs of a new creation, struggling to be reborn. With all people of good will we are increasingly clear that our challenge is to live within the boundaries of our garden paradise. Or as the philosopher, Buckminster Fuller we are all passengers on the spaceship earth. And this space ship earth is powered by a mother ship, the sun. To sustain the spaceship earth for future generations we need to run off current solar income. Dipping into the carbon bank of the past for oil or coal is not only tantamount to going into debt; it overwhelms the waste absorption capacity of the earth. Brother Sun calls us to imagine a transformed future. Brother Sun help us to dream of that future, where the desert southwest is producing more than enough energy all from solar and wind technology. Brother Sun help us to imagine a future in which we really understand that our fragile desert environment cannot sustain unlimited growth. Brother Sun help us to imagine a future where we eat more local food that is safe and nourishing, Brother Sun, divine image of a transformed future, help us to imagine a society that harvests the bounty of rainfall. Because water is a sacred gift meant for the good of all. The Sun calls us to a vision of the human family existing in harmony with all creatures, caring for the earth. Brother Sun help us to imagine how St. Mark’s in a not too distant future, could become a green congregation, equipping each one of us and our families to live responsibly on earth. Brother Sun help us to imagine and live toward the day when our congregation will be a model for environmental stewardship.

Our dialogue with Brother Sun helps us to imagine our light filled destiny, our transformed future. But what does Sister Moon have to teach us. And as I watched the moon rise from my campsite in Chaco Canyon, I prayed that I might learn from sister moon. Sister Moon has much to teach us about how to move through the cycles of loss and change, of waxing and waning of death and resurrection as the process that carries us toward our transformation. Sister Moon teaches us about what it means to approach life as mystery, about how to accept the parts of our hearts that remain in darkness, unknown or unsolved. Sister Moon teaches us about death and resurrection. If we only relate to Brother Sun we would be like Icarus in the Greek myth that flew too close to the sun and perished. To relate only to brother Sun is to overemphasize reason over intuition, knowledge in the light of day over the mysteries of the night. Brother Sun embodies our divine transformation. Sister moon tells us how to get there. Through the waxing and waning of life. Through death and resurrection. Sister Moon teaches us about letting go of what holds us back. All praise by yours my Lord for Brother Sun and Sister Moon. We join with all God’s creatures this planet in this hymn of praise for our Creator. Together we will make this journey out of environmental crisis into a new heaven and a new earth. Francis gives us these gifts for the journey. The Creator God is our heavenly father and mother. This God has made us in the divine image, calls us to accept a vocation as stewards of this earthly paradise and asks us to treat all creatures as our brothers and sisters.