'as a madman': The Life of Francis Xavier

MP3 of this talk is here

Once upon a time, before the internet was cool, “The Onion” was just a little satirical Midwest newspaper and you could only get it if you lived in Madison, Wisconsin… fortunately, I did. You could literally hold it in your hands…it was adorable.


So one day I picked it up and found the following headline on the front page.

A previously unknown and unexplored land mass discovered between the New York and California coasts – here is what the article said

A U.S. Geological Survey expeditionary force announced Tuesday that it has discovered a previously unknown and unexplored land mass between the New York and California coasts known as the "Midwest." The Geological Survey team discovered the vast region while searching for the fabled Midwest Passage, the mythical overland route passing through the uncharted area between Ithaca, NY, and Bakersfield, CA.

"I long suspected something was there," said Franklin Eldred, a Manhattan native and leader of the 200-man exploratory force. "I'd flown between New York and L.A. on business many times, and the unusually long duration of my flights seemed to indicate that some sort of large area was being traversed, an area of unknown composition."

I think of this article every time I teach historical theology like we have done the last few weeks. You see, I feel like a similar headline could be written about contemporary evangelicals that might go something like this:

“A previously unknown and unexplored time period appears to have elapsed between the writing of Revelation and Blue Like Jazz”


But we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We are just a small part of a continuous story that God has been fashioning with the pen of his Spirit on the materials of human hearts. And both Dan and I have found that studying the lives and events that comprise that story have been helpful and nourishing component of our Christian lives. We have found that CS Lewis was right and wise to say:

“I have lived nearly sixty years with myself and my own century and am not so enamored of either as to not desire a glimpse beyond them.” C.S. Lewis

So that is why we have done this little series. We design the teaching so that if you come to CL for 4 years you will get teaching on a gospel, a NT book and an OT book, but we also wanted to give you some exposure to the benefit we have gotten from what Malcolm Muggeridge called ‘The Third Testament’ – the continuing story of Jesus making something beautiful out of broken lives and deeply flawed individuals.

Tonight is the final part of this series. But to introduce you to our last character, I first want to tell you a little bit about my family. I have 2 daughters who I adore…but they were impossible to name. Amanda and I had a boy name since well before we had kids but we can’t seem to agree on girls names. So when we found out we were having a third kid, we started working on a third girl’s name. Charis didn’t seem to understand the problem. She thought naming that there was a totally obvious name for our third girl. From day one she has insisted that regardless of the gender the new baby should be named “Christmas Tree.”


But as it turns out, we don’t need another girl name. We are having a boy. We finally get to use that boy name we have had cued up for years. We will probably name him Xavier. And tonight I am going to tell you why. You see, Francis Xavier, like Pascal and Bonheoffer, is a complicated guy. His story is scarred with bad choices, unfortunate alliances, and personal brokenness. He is associated with colonialism, which modern people from the east and west alike see as a period of enormous injustice and a sympathetic biographer once said: “Never were the Cross and the sword more blandly or shamelessly identified than in those days.”

Even the most admirable Christians in an era like this will come away tarnished. And there is a lot about Xavier that I do not wish for my son. But that is the really remarkable thing about Christianity. Christianity is the condition that allows heroism in despite brokenness. Christianity is the absurd hypothesis that a human does not have to be defined by his or her failures. There are dark chapters of his life and embarrassing moments in his story…which makes him like Pascal, Bonheoffer, and you and me. But Jesus was able to utilize him in truly remarkable ways in spite of this. And that is the story I want for my kids…that despite the brokenness and failures they have in front of them, Jesus will still use their lives to tell a beautiful story.


So here we go…Francis Xavier grew up at the beginning of the sixteenth century in a family of quasi-nobility. The Xavier’s had their own castle in north Spain…which I mean, come on, is pretty cool. His youth was pretty unremarkable. He wandered through it but had access to a good education. And in his early 20’s he found himself at the University of Paris, the premier European university at the time. He spent over a decade at college getting a Masters in philosophy and working on a doctorate. He was a descent student but was mainly affable and popular and mostly known for his wit and athletic accomplishments.

I mean, I’m not sure if you can picture this….



His story doesn’t really get interesting until he’s been at school for 9 years. He’s 28 and still in grad school when he got a new roommate. Ignatius of Loyola, moved in with Xavier.
Ignatius was a soldier, also from Spain, and had fought in a battle opposite Xavier’s family. In his final battle, he took a cannon ball to the leg. That’s gonna leave a mark. During his convalescence he did a bunch of reading and praying and had a pretty dramatic conversion experience. After he could walk made a pilgrimage to Israel and then returned to Paris and started college at the age 33, convinced he needed a theological education to prepare for a life dedicated to bringing the message of Jesus to anyone who would listen.

Another friend, who lived with them at this time, later said “Xavier was not at first very much taken with Inigo.” And there was no reason these two should become friends. Xavier was a bright but under-motivated student, essentially a trust fund kid from an affluent background hoping to luck into a professorate so he never had to leave the university. Ignatius was a soldier from a rival family turned religious zealot. He was, so possessed by his new faith and his single minded goal to tell people about Jesus that most people found him abrasive and annoying to be around. But they both spoke the same relatively rare language and ended up living together and, within six months, they were inseparable.


At that point things started to happen fast. Xavier, Ignatius and five others begin to meet regularly and formed a little group that dedicated themselves to purposeful Christian community. They called this little group ‘the society of Jesus’ which would later become the Jesuits, one of the most significant missional movements in the history of Christianity. It all started with two guys that didn’t like each other sharing a sqalid[1] dorm room. They became the perfect partners. Ignatius was a charismatic leader and forward looking visionary, while Xavier was a man of action and limitless energy.

Despite their passion to serve Jesus in the world, they all stayed in school for two more years to finish their education. And over the course of the next two years, they spent time praying together and separately about what God would have them do. Here is how one biographer described the little group:

“They ate in one another's rooms, compared their college notes, and discussed plans for the future. Once a week they confessed and communicated. It was during those months that Francis Xavier cemented the strongest and tenderest friendships of his life. The expression of this great affection for the fellow-members of his company, and above all, for Ignatius, runs like a thread of gold through his letters from the East.” Edith Anne Stewart

I just want to pause here and note, that this is how the vast majority of major world changing Christian movements begin…with a small group of Christains living together in non-trivial Christian community purposefully praying together. These years will set a trajectory for your life. If you are living at the margins of Christian community, dive in. And if you are surrounded by Christians but not sharing experiences like prayer and confession and discussing your studies together…you are not getting everything you can out of your time here. The people who I prayed with in college are scattered around the globe serving Jesus in a variety of ways today…and these are some of the most influential people in my world.

After they graduated, they decided that the way they could optimize their usefulness was to go Rome, showed up at the Pope’s flat and offered to do whatever he wanted done. This seems weird because we are moderns and mostly Protestants…but their reasoning was pretty convincing. They thought: “This dude has the best vantage point of all the needs and is most likely to put us to work at the most needed tasks.”

As they put it: “To do anything which will help Jesus Christ, that is our business.”

The Pope is cautious at first, but as they prove to be theologically orthodox and willing to do literally anything, he starts sending them on some of his craziest missions. They become a sort of ‘special forces’ unit for Jesus. Now about this time, a priest who had spent time in South Asia hears about these guys and convinces the King of Portugal to make a direct request some of the society to go to the Portuguese colonies in India. The Pope hesitated. He said that he could not command anyone (even these fearless young meant) to take such a dangerous journey, but that they were free to go.

Francis immediately wanted to go, but Loyola who was running the growing operation from Rome, felt like he needed Francis’ near him…but the other guy got sick, so 24 hours before the boat left he called Francis and assigned him to South Asia. Xavier replied:

““Well, then, forward! Here I am!””


At that time less that 60% of the people who made the trip from Europe to India made it. Xavier’s journey was difficult; it took a year, twice as long as the standard trip. But he gave away his quarters and spent his days caring for the sick and dying and his nights sleeping in the anchor rope.

They finally landed in Goa, the principle Portugese community in South Asia. Xavier was horrified by what he found. There was no justice or accountability for the Portugeese. There was a shared harem of indigenous women and rampant theft from each other and the South Asian people. It was a place of excess among the wealthy and suffering among the poor. He immersed himself in the lives of the suffering. He wrote to Ignatius in his first letter home,

“Here in Goa I have lodged in the hospital.”

Which meant, that he spent his nights sleeping on the floor next to the dying so he was available to be of comfort to them if they woke in the middle of the night. He cared for the sick in the hospital and tried to raise some money from the wealthy Portuguese to care for the leper communities and the slums. He visited the prisoners and preached in the streets. And in the churches, he taught Sunday school and had over 300 people began to show up. Before he left he had convinced the governors to set up a seminary and it already had 60 Indian students by the time he left. This seminary would become part of his work for the next decade…as each new place he went and set up churches, he would bring back promising young Christians to train at the Goa seminary and replace him. But Xavier was always looking for the next big risk he could take for Jesus.

He heard that 20,000 Indians had become Christians on the Fishery coast but that had been mostly abandoned. And so he went to the South Indian coast worked in these communities for years, teaching the gospel and serving the poor, training people to replace him. But before he felt like he could move on, he needed to find some money to support the people who would replace him. So he wrote a letter to the Queen of Portugal suggesting that she send annually the $ that she spends on shoes for the care and instruction of the children of the fishery coast, writing:

She sent the money, and sent it again every year after that even after Xavier’s death. Brought several of the most promising young men to the school in Goa to replace himself.

Next he went to Malaysia and did the same. He served and taught in several communities that had aligned themselves with the Christian faith…with the same effect. Churches grew and started to become self sustaining and, once more, sent promising young Malaysian leaders to Goa, to prepare them to lead and care for these churches. But in Malaysia, he had mostly reached the end of the Christian world. And Xavier had found that despite his love for the Church he was not principally a pastor to Christians – he thrived surrounded by those who did not believe.

Now, for some of you, this is an uncomfortable idea. We have been intellectually bullied so often and for so long that we many of us have come to believe that any attempt to offer someone an alternate world view is an act cultural imperialism…We might be tempted to project our modern standards to look back across the centuries and judge Xavier as being an inexcusable imperialist. But this is one way in which Xavier speaks to our generation by simply living out something we have forgotten. At the heart of Christianity is the idea that if Jesus is worth crossing an ocean for, he is worth telling people about. There is a temptation to admire Xavier’s acts of justice…as he stood up to colonial powers on behalf of the local people and his acts of service as he wore himself out serving the sick and poor…but to look at this preaching the gospel as a quaint cultural artifact. But these things cannot be separated. The only reason Xavier served and fought for justice was because Jesus is fantastic…and if Jesus is that fantastic, it would be absurd not to share him with anyone who will listen. And so he started to go to places where people might not have heard.

He had heard that in Indonesia there were some Christian communities, but the crass wickedness of the Portuguese traders and politicians had caused most to reject the new faith and in one place in particular del Mor – they had actually poisoned all the missionaries. So, of course, this was, precisely where he wanted to go next.

The land of Moro is very dangerous, because its people…put poison in food and drink. So the people who should have looked after them…stopped going there. I hope within a month to go to an island where those killed in war are eaten.

In Indonesia he saw things that he had never seen –active volcanoes, tropical rain forests – his letters home captured the European imaginations.

He was able to reestablish the church in del Moro and quipped that it would be better to call them “The Islands of Hope in God" Ten years later, del Moro, most established Christian community in the region.

While he was Indonesia, he met a young Japanese man. This young man was interminable curious and eventually became a Christian. Xavier was extremely impressed with him and set his sights on making it to Japan. Plus, he was tiring of having to overcome the example of the Portuguese colonists with the message of Jesus. He was finding that the islanders were having trouble accepting any world view that the Portuguese professed. So Japan made a lot of sense to him, as the Portuguese had not really made it there yet.

“I am almost fleeing to Japan,” he said, “not to waste any more time."

So it was back to Goa with young men from the islands to train at Goa and then he set out for Japan. However, the very thing that made Japan attractive to him, made it difficult to get there. There were no ships going that way. So we get to one of my favorite details in his story. At this point, to make it to Japan, Xavier and his little team, catch a ride with Pirates. Now, I want you to imagine this scene. Xavier is sitting on the deck reading his little book of scriptures and praying, watching the sun go down and enjoying the quiet presence of God which fueled him…except this was going on. (Enter Pirates).

Francis Xavier's letters from Japan were the earliest first-hand reports of that country to come to Europe. Japan was really difficult at first. Initially he was welcomed in an eastern province, but as soon as a few people became Christians the governor made becoming a Christian punishable by death. So Xavier made a 3 month journey to the capitol by foot, through the mountains, with little food or shelter, through snow and several war zones. He would later write to Ignatius that in the future, those selected to serve in Japan should come from Scandinavia and Germany because they would be accustomed to the cold. But when he got to the capitol he found it in ruins from war and the emperor refused to see him. He expected a “Paris of the East” but found the capitol so war torn that he estimated that nearly half of the residences had been destroyed. And they turned around and walked back. The emperor never met with him and he was told that it didn’t matter, because there was the political landscape was so fractured that his permission would not carry far. And they turned around and walked back. Most of Xavier’s biographers consider this the most discouraging moment of his story, but his companions said that he was singing a psalm as they walked out of town.
Things turned around in the Southern Coastal towns. They were able to plant churches in several towns and in one in particular, Yamaguchi, 500 people became Christians. One of these converts was a blind, poor street performer. He talked often with Xavier and had a lot of questions. But Xavier noticed in these conversations that he was startlingly intelegent and had a disarming wit. He became the first Japanese member of “the society of Jesus” and grew the church by over 1000 people after Xavier left.

Once the young churches were stable, Xavier again traveled back with young leaders to train at Goa, this group included two young samurais. But while he was in Japan he found that many of them held the philosophy and religion of China in high regard. One question he repeatedly got was, “If this is true, why did the Chinese not know about it?” So he decided to go to China.
Now China was not just unvisited by the Portuguese, it was hostile to them (and, honestly, rightly so). The only Portuguese in China were rotting in their dungeons for their attempts to land in Chinese ports. So he hatched a plan to meet a Chinese trader who would smuggle him into China (so no Chinese people would be implicated in his entrance)…then he would show up at the door of the Palace and ask to see the emperor. He waited on an island just outside of Canton for the merchant to show up. The agreed upon date came and went. He waited. Then one day, he got sick…and within a week he died…waiting to knock on one more door to offer Jesus to one more people.

His last words: “In you O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded.” Ps 71:1

So what is it about this story that has captured my imagination so much, that I would want to name my son Xavier? What is there in this story that I hope for my son? Well let me wrap up briefly with 3 things I see in Xavier, that I hope for my children…and for myself…and for all of you:

1. He lived a Life of Abandon for Jesus

We are living in a time that values safety and comfort above almost anything else. Xavier’s story shakes us free of that myopia. Like his brother Dietrich Bonheoffer, Jesus had domesticated death for Xavier and somehow made suffering a friend. Xavier believed that Jesus was worth it. And I want that for my kids, and for myself, and for you.

2. He had a Global Worldview

He realized that if a world view is going to be valid, it has to be global. He took Jesus seriously when Jesus told us to tell ‘all nations’ about him.

“Many times I am seized with the thought of going to the schools in your land and crying out there, like a madman…telling those…who have a greater desire for learning (and ecclesiastical position) than desire to prepare themselves to produce fruit with it…(to give up their small ambitions and come east to preach the gospel of Christ).”

The lesson here, don’t just assume that God is calling you to life in the American church. Really seek him out to see if he has some global task for you. Many, even most, will be called to stay. Each one of you needs to ask Jesus, very seriously, if he has something for you outside of the safe and comfortable confines of North America. In a couple of weeks, Jerrod and Laeya are going to present overseas Missions opportunities that will be available to you this summer. Don’t just assume that that is the kind of thing someone else does. Ask Jesus.

3. He Spoke Truth to Power

Finally, Xavier was not intimidated by power. He utilized the Portuguese infrastructure for his service of Jesus, but they never owned him. He repeatedly wrote scathing letters to the King of Portugal about the evil and injustice he saw at the hands of the Portuguese colonialists. He saw:

To the King of Portugal: “Those who have been added to the Church (have been) wrenched from it…because they have been offended and terrified by the many wrongs and grievous injuries they have endured, especially from your Highness’ servants…(do) not continue to delay and procrastinate any longer, for no matter how swiftly you act, your diligence in this regard will always be late."

“…help them in their needs by speaking to them who have power and authority…”

I think one of the lessons we can learn from Xavier’s courageous stand against the colonial powers as well as from some of his emberresing associations with their policies is that we cannot let Jesus be co-opted in someone else’s quest for power. Both political parties would like to use Jesus to give them power…they want to co-opt the church. We need to not only resist aligning too closely with structures of power and …but we need to stand against injustice and the marginalization of people.

Now I want to finish with one final quote from Xavier. Because lets face it, Xavier was a high capacity person. None of us are going to have a life like this. And it can be exhausting to hear about a life like this while you are all working really hard at your studies and many of you, in addition to carrying substantial ministry loads. Xavier got that. Listen to what he says:

I fear that the enemy is disturbing some of you by suggesting that you would be performing great and arduous tasks in the service of God if you were in some other place than where you now are. The demon contrives all this in order to make you sad and troubled because you are not reaping fruit within your own souls or in those of your neighbors in those regions where you presently are, making you think you are wasting your time. This is a clear, common, and manifest temptation for many who are eager to serve God…resist it…Each one of you should therefore diligently labor where you are…being convinced with regard to yourself that nowhere can you serve God so well as where you have been placed by obedience. 302-3

Faithfully serve those who have needs and articulate the gospel to those who show interest as you go through this great opportunity of a UC Davis education, and remain proactively open to things God might have for you after college.

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[1] And Erasmus writes of it :
the beds were so hard, the food so meagre, the labours so exacting that many youths of splendid promise, after the first years of their sojourn in this college, became mad or blind or leprous, if
they did not die. Some of the bedrooms, because they were close to the lavatories, were so dirty and infected that none of those who lodged there came away alive, or without the germ of some grave disease . . . Oh, how many rotten eggs I ate there, and how much mouldy wine I drank ! http://www.archive.org/stream/lifeofstfrancisx00stewrich/lifeofstfrancisx00stewrich_djvu.txt