October 6, 2024

Genesis 1:20-25; Matthew 6:25-29

God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

It was good. That line from scripture is repeated. God creates the light from the darkness, and it was good. God creates heaven and earth, and it was good. God creates the many creatures of this world, and it was good. It was good and it is good.

For our next installment of my sermon series on movies, we watched the Wizard of Oz. A movie from 1939, many think of it as the first film in color, but many such films had been made since the first in 1915. Most were not memorable. The Wizard of Oz is perhaps the most notable because of its interesting shift from black and white, actually sepia and white, to full color for the land of Oz. This cements the idea of black and white giving way to color.

I chose this movie because today also happens to be when we are blessing the animals among us. Why choose the Wizard of Oz? Because there is a dog in it, of course. But also, because there are important qualities lifted up in the movie that help us to understand the love we have for the many creatures around us, both four-footed and two-footed.

Remember the story. Dorothy finds herself lost after a tornado sends her, her dog Toto, and their house to the land of Oz. Her house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East and that sets off a series of encounters with the Wicked Witch of the West, who notably took issue with her sister’s demise.

She also wanted her sister’s ruby slippers which had become stuck on Dorothy’s feet. This had apparently come about through the work of the Good Witch of the North, Glinda, who for all her sequins and sparkles seems like a shady character to me. Recall that she never told Dorothy she had the power to go back home right away, forcing her and her friends to get rid of the Wicked Witch of the West. Definitely shady.

Dorothy travels to the Emerald City, looking for help from the Wizard of Oz. Along the way, she picks up three travel companions: the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion. The Scarecrow wishes to see the wizard so he can get what he is missing – a brain. The Tin Man joins the journey in search for a missing heart. And the Lion, also known as the Cowardly Lion, seeks to obtain courage from the mysterious wizard.

A brain, a heart, and courage. Each of these characters claims to lack something. However, along the way, an observant viewer might notice something. What they lack seems to be what most characterizes their efforts during the journey to see the wizard.

The supposedly brainless Scarecrow is the one who repeatedly sorts out troublesome situations. He tricks the haunted trees into throwing their apples for him and Dorothy to eat. He helps the group enter the Witch’s castle in disguise. He drops a chandelier onto some soldiers who are trying to capture them. For someone without a brain, he seems quite clever.

The Tin Man has no heart, or at least that is how he describes himself. But he is also the most sentimental and emotional of the crew. He repeatedly cries in the face of their difficulties, making everyone worry that he will rust himself. This was particularly interesting to me because tin actually does not rust. Their constant use of an oil can seems more a ritual than an effective treatment for whatever is happening, perhaps someone proverbially seizing up in social situations. Sounds more like anxiety than rust. Anyway, the Tin Man truly has a heart in the emotional sense, which is all he ever needed.

Now the Cowardly Lion is a bit more in need of help. He is afraid of his own shadow. But over the course of their travels, he places himself in harms way as they try to see the wizard and. later on, attempt to rescue Dorothy who was captured by the Witch. The Lion was fearful of many things, but there is a subtlety to this problem. Having courage does not mean living without any sense of fear. In fact, the concept of true courage may be meaningless to those who do not understand fear.

Today we are gathered to bless our animal companions, an occasion when we often remember one particular religious figure, Francis of Assisi. Francis was known for many things, like his dedication to the poor and his strict rules of personal poverty, but also for his close connection to animals. For example, when some noisy birds were interrupting his sermon one day, he asked them politely to keep it down and they immediately quieted themselves and listened intently.

I was thinking about Francis and these three elusive qualities of character from the Wizard of Oz. These qualities are not about what was missing from these three movie figures. They simply misunderstood at first what truly matters. They became hung up on the superficial aspects of having a brain, a heart, and courage. And yet these are aspects of personal virtue, not absent organs of the body, not lacking any sense of fear.

When we think about intelligence or education, we cannot assume that these make a person smart or clever. Intelligent people can at times be rather foolish. And well-educated people may be lacking any ability to practically apply their knowledge. As Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote, “Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” Because knowing something is a far cry from doing something. Francis of Assisi is not remembered because he was a learned scholar or remarkably intelligent. His teachings and his personal example arose from his care and concern for others.

When we think about having a heart, it sometimes gets washed out by notions of sentimentality. Having a heart becomes a particular expression of public charity, tightly focused on a prescribed set of socially pleasing goals. We help the poor, but we would never, ever associate with the poor. And yet Francis, who was the son of a wealthy merchant, gave all that up, the trappings of wealth and personal comfort, to live and to work alongside the poor. He cared about creation, the poor people and the poor animals that he came across in his days.

But what about courage? Francis does not seem to be an example of courageous living. But that is perhaps his most notable characteristic if you dig down deeper. Francis rejected the wealth of his family, but he also rejected the wealth of the church. Francis refused to accept the money and lands that most medieval religious groups solicited from the faithful. He wanted every day to be a charitable undertaking by him and his followers.

What was our reading from the Gospel? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 

In a sense, Francis embraced the underlying bounty of creation itself as his source of support. To this day, members of the Franciscan order cannot own anything directly, other than the robes on their backs and the sandals on their feet. Some even beg for their daily bread. When most people worry about having a roof over their heads and money in the bank, they have faith that God will provide for their most basic necessities.

Now, to be upfront with you, I am not recommending this perspective on life. There are degrees to these qualities of brain, heart, and courage.

Intelligence needs to be reined in by wisdom. Wisdom meaning what one should do with the knowledge and capacities that we possess for the good of others as well as ourselves.

Compassion needs to be limited by some measure of self-awareness and self-concern. You can love widely and deeply without exhausting yourself and living solely for the sake of others. For example, Francis frequently fasted to the point of illness and near death. Don’t do that.

And courage needs to be more than blind faith or blind reliance upon God to fill in our every want and need. The birds of the air do not sow or reap, but they know how to gather for the winter and to build shelters for themselves. They do not wait for God.

The animals around us take care of themselves, but they do not live without a care in the world. Indeed, they may live shortened lives as a result of scrambling to find food and shelter from storms. It should therefore be no surprise that when we choose to care for animals, they live longer. They often, if not always, live more enriched lives if we are good companions to them. And for that reason, it takes work to tend to their needs just like it takes work to tend to the needs of children. Work that one should consider carefully before taking on a pet that might live with you for 20ish years, if one is fortunate.

The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion wanted the Wizard of Oz to give them something that they already possessed. We come to realize this as they journey toward the Emerald City. We also come to understand that they needed to work toward, and at, those important qualities. The Scarecrow needed to think and plan to realize that he could think and plan. The Tin Man needed to care for those around him, even when he did not have the object he most desired. And the Cowardly Lion needed to acknowledge and to overcome his fears, not get rid of them. He needed to do that to protect those who were important to him.

In our own lives, we must work toward these same qualities. We need to do more than simply know things, but to act upon that knowledge and education for the good of ourselves and others. We need to do more than feel badly for others, but to act upon that sense of empathy and compassion in our daily lives. Love is not merely a sentiment, but a way of living. And we need to do more than imagine ourselves as brave, or to cower helplessly behind our fears. Courage is about acknowledging what we fear and taking steps, even baby steps, to overcome them.

None of this is easy. None of this is simple. None of this will be solved by a quick trip down the Yellow Brick Road to see some wizard. And none of it will be solved by hoping and praying for God to do the sowing and the reaping that we need to do in order to live. The birds do not wait, so neither should we.

Another word for character is virtue and virtue is simply the good habits we develop and follow in our lives. Good habits like eating right or taking a walk or keeping in touch with those we know and love.

It is like the routines we follow when we take care of animals, giving them food and water, taking them out for a bit of exercise, and even playing with them when they, or we, get bored. Those are the same sorts of habits we need to grow in our lives, to build our relationships, to care for the two-footed animals around us.

And those are the sorts of habits that help us to love God and to love one another. It is the simple habit of caring for others that enriches our lives even as it enriches the lives of others, whether animals or humans, friends or strangers. Love is the good habit of caring for others and it is a habit well worth embracing.

So ends the sermon.