Do you think that animals go to heaven?
Here is my theory. Ask yourself this: who got kicked out of Eden at the beginning? Was it the animals?
Only humans fell from harmony with God. Only humans have original sin. Only humans need to be baptized, to confess their sins. Animals need none of this. They never left Eden. When they die, the go to God. They never left, after all.
Bill was a therapist in a thriving hospital practice. He had been offered a job as an in house councilor in a big corporation. He did not know what to decide. One afternoon, he was walking down the street when he saw the door of a Catholic Church open. He went in, though he never went to church. He asked God what he should do. And he heard a voice in his head.
"I'll lead. You follow...All trust. No fear."
Brother Bill did not end up at either job. Instead he became a monk. He wore a robe made of patchwork from old jeans he had discarded. Every day, he goes out in the streets of Chicago and meets gang members on their turf. He calls them his brothers and they called him Brother Bill. He takes them around in his beat up old car. He takes them to the movies. When they get into fights with another gang and he gets wind of it, he comes to the scene and quietly just stands in between the gangs. One time a bullet flew very close to his head. Another time he was hit with a bottle but he did not move. He stands there, between guys who want to murder each other, he just stands there and loves them.
A saint is a crazy person. It is someone who does not see the world as we see it. They don't think down is down or up is up. They don't think that money is important or finding a companion of raising children right. They are so in love with God that they have returned to Eden. Being a saint is all about perspective. You have to fall in love with God totally and stop thinking like this world. When you do that, you begin to live in Eden again. Often people think that you are absolutely crazy. But hundreds of years later, they may realize you are a saint.
When Francis was a little boy, he saw a beggar. Francis was the son of a cloth merchant. He was in the town selling his fathers cloth. And there was this man who was hungry. Francis thought to himself, "This man is hungry!" so he ran after the man and gave him all the money he had made. When his father got home, Francis got severely punished. But the problem was that Francis did not see things as his father saw them. He saw a hungry man and he nothing else mattered but caring for that man, not money, not his dad's opinion, nothing.
Francis saw God in everything. He saw what God wanted and he saw what God made. It was as if he was already living in heaven. When his dad told him to come home, he said no, he was giving his life to God. His dad said, "Then give me your belongings." So Francis, in front of the Bishop and all the people, took off his clothes. All of them. And he stood, naked, like Adam and Eve. He was no longer concerned with what people thought of him. He thought only of God.
Francis saw this world as if it was Eden. When he saw a sunset, he would cry tears of joy at it's beauty. He spoke to the sun and the mom as if they were his companions. He held the animals and knew that they were precious in God's eyes, beautiful and valuable and magnificent.
Yesterday, Debbie our sexton found the body of a dragon fly. I stood before that dragon fly with some of the children and just stared at it in awe. It was so intricately made, so unbelievably beautiful! All the world could have just stopped for that one moment and witnessed its intricacy. That is how incredible is the handiwork of God. And Francis saw it.
Towards the end of his life, Francis got wounds in his hands and feet, just where the nails pierced Jesus. These wounds we now call stigmata. He did not show them to many people. He mostly hid them, but at was how deeply he felt the pain and joy of Jesus. He became just like Jesus.
Katie is a young woman in her 20's. In high school, she fell in love with God, like Bill, like Francis. She was homecoming queen and class president. But when she fell in love with God, she decided not to go to college but to move to Uganda. Because of war and a disease called AIDS, there are thousand of orphans on Uganda. Katie simply began to feed them and teach them about God. And then she started adopting. Now she is in her 20's and she has over 20 children. Is she crazy? Yes! Crazy in love with God. And supremely happy.
How much do you love God? Can you be crazy too? Or are you too afraid to let go of your reputation and your money? Look at these animals. You care for them. Don't you know that God will take care of you too? Look around you. Eden is still around us. It's called the Kingdom of God, but you have to Fall in love to see it. You have to let go of everything else to see it.
