Take no gold
Francis strips in the square
Francis is the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, raised to inherit a fortune in fine fabric and the comfortable Christianity that came folded in with it. Then the gospel's plain command to the twelve reaches him without padding: carry no gold, no silver, no money in your belt. He takes it literally, all the way to the skin. In the public square, before the bishop and a gathering crowd and his furious father, Francis strips off the costly clothes that mark him as his father's heir, hands them back, and stands there with nothing. He walks out of that square wedded to what he will call Lady Poverty, owning nothing, begging his bread, repairing broken chapels with his own hands. It looks like madness, a rich boy throwing his birthright into the dirt. It is the spark of a renewal that will sweep through the whole medieval church. He does not argue the comfortable Christians out of their comfort. He simply lives the gospel's instruction so nakedly, so completely, that the contrast itself becomes the sermon. He took no gold, and the church remembered, watching him, what it had quietly let itself forget.
“Don't take any gold, nor silver, nor brass in your money belts.”
— Jesus, sending the twelve — Matthew 10:9 (WEB)
“You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.”
Disconnect, made costly and visible. This is the deliberate break with wealth that sparks renewal where comfort had dulled it. The phase asks for more than a softened heart toward money; it asks for the act itself, the concrete release. Disconnect here means an open hand that actually opens, and a hold on security you actually let fall.
The grip money has on you does not loosen because you decide it should. It loosens through breaks, and usually only through breaks that cost. Francis is the extreme edge of this, and you are almost certainly not called as far as the public square and the bare skin and the begging bowl. But the principle underneath his extremity reaches every one of us. Real freedom from Mammon is rarely a change of heart you merely intend; it tends to require an actual release, a hand opened and something genuinely let go, money given where it leaves a mark. You can feel generous for years while your grip never truly loosens, because the feeling costs nothing and the grip was never tested.
Francis tested his all the way to the bone. The question his break leaves is not whether you admire him; almost everyone admires him from a safe distance. The question is whether there is one concrete, costing release you have been intending and never making. Lady Poverty does not marry the well-meaning. She marries those who actually walk out of the square.
When the Church grows rich and the gospel grows comfortable, renewal has repeatedly come through movements of radical simplicity, the friars and reformers and the voluntarily poor who broke with wealth and shamed the comfortable Church back toward Christ. Francis stripping off his costly clothes in the square at Assisi did not argue the prosperous out of their prosperity; he simply lived the gospel's plain command so nakedly that the contrast itself became the sermon, and the medieval Church remembered, watching him, what it had quietly let itself forget. The visible break with Mammon carries a strange renewing power across the whole Body. A people that has forgotten the gospel remembers it, watching someone live it all the way to the skin before a watching world.
What cannot be shaken is the Christ who, being rich, became poor for our sakes, that we through His poverty might become rich. Every fortune surrendered points to His. The wealth Mammon offers is shaken and falls; the riches that come through His chosen poverty cannot be taken away.
- Where is my generosity an intention I admire in myself but have never actually acted on?
- What concrete, costing release have I been putting off because letting go would leave a real mark?
- What does my grip on money tell me about who I am quietly serving?
Lord, You who were rich became poor so that I might be rich in You, and still my hands close tight around what I have. Loosen them. Show me the one release I have only ever intended, and give me courage to make it. Free me from Mammon, all the way to the bone. Amen.