A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church
March 18, 2007, based on 2 Cor. 5:17-21.
Imagine what it would be like to be a teenager in the bud of youth living happily in the midst of a loving family, comfortably asleep in your bed one night, when all of a sudden, you hear a violent kick to the door of your house and in storm mercenaries who carry you off screaming to a foreign land where you are put to work as a slave, tending sheep and pigs in the middle of nowhere. You have only a ragged set of clothes to wear, no overcoat, very little food, not a soul to talk to, and only stinking bleating sheep to look at! What would you do?
Do you think you would have the faith to pray to God? And if you did pray, would it be a prayer of humble supplication, or one of angry accusation towards God? Can you see yourself praying a hundred times a day, and enduring cold, frost, wind and rain in the open air – but finding such consolation in your prayers that you feel no discomfort from the cold, only energy and inspiration?
Can you imagine how you would feel towards those who took you captive and treated you thus? Can you imagine escaping your captivity and waling some 200 miles to the nearest seaport, finding a birth on a ship traveling to year another country, not your own, only to find that once you arrive in the new country that the land has been desolated by fighting, and the whole countryside is completely denuded of food? Then, after returning to your own country and family, can you imagine having a dream in which you are called to minister to the very people who enslaved you? – and responding positively?
If so, you might be able to catch a glimpse of St. Patrick’s life, and what drove him to go back to the land of his captivity in order to take the Gospel to a people who did not know the True god. Now further imagine if you will, having such a deep love and identification for and with the people that Patrick called himself an Irishman and almost single-handedly inspired the evangelism and transfiguration of an entire (hostile) culture, thus earning himself a permanent place of honor for all ages as witnessed by a hymn composed by fellow missionary Bishop, Secundinus. It reads in part:
“Hear all ye…the holy merits of the Bishop Patrick…How, on account of his good actions, he is likened unto the angels, and fro his perfect life, is counted equal to the Apostles” (from the Hymn of St. Patrick).
St. Patrick’s life illustrates vividly what Paul, in our reading for today, calls the Ministry of Reconciliation. Out of a deep love for the Irish, Patrick studied diligently for many years to become a priest, and later a bishop, in order to be sent out from Britain as a missionary to Ireland.
While we might expect the ministry of reconciliation to be very peaceful, one of the first things Patrick does on the mission field is to have a violent confrontation with the powers that be.
“It seems that [the warrior king] Laoghaire [the son of Niall, the chieftain of the raiders who had abducted Patrick, and who ruled from his castle at Tara] was fascinated by Patrick, aware that [Druid seers had prophecied the coming of an ‘adze-head’ , or Briton, who would convert the Irish to his religion, that] the newly consecrated bishop had powerful gifts of persuasion, and that he was every bit a match for the king’s own miracle worker, Lucat Moel. The challenge to Laoghaire’s supreme authority was quick and direct; immediately upon his arrival in the area on the eve of the Christian feast of Easter, without asking or awaiting permission, Patrick lit a paschal fire on a hillside visible from Tara. This defiance of the king’s and the druids’ authority was a capital crime. The various legends tell that Patrick was brought before the king and an explanation was demanded by the sword-wielding viscount, Lochru. Patrick miraculously lifted the warrior into the air, then let him drop to the earth, disabling (possibly killing) him” (The Wisdom of St. Patrick, by Greg Tobin, pg. 34).
While the king does not convert immediately, his wife and daughters do, and a great mutual respect arises between Laoghaire and Patrick.
So Patrick’s ministry of reconciling the Irish people to God begins with a confrontation of the pagan religion, a conflict in which works of power figure importantly. These power encounters lead the people to convert immediately, and/ or increase the respect for Patrick, grudgingly admitting that he’s on to something with this Christianity bit.
Thus, Patrick is an ‘ambassador of Christ”, through whom God makes his appeal to the Irish. The result is a transformed culture. Within Patrick’s lifetime, the entire country was converted. The slave trade was eliminated, the pagan and druidic system of tribal and shamanic government was replaced by a network of monastic communities in which the Abbot functioned as the tribal chieftain, presiding over monastic ‘cities’ that were to become great repositories of learning as the Roman empire crumbled and scholars fled the barbarians, bringing their books and learning with them to the safety of Ireland. Patrick’s successful ambassadorship eventually enabled the Irish to “Save Civilization” as historian Thomas Cahill (How the Irish Saved Civilzation) puts it.
What a challenge to us today! We live in a culture that is increasingly and self-consciously pagan, where people find themselves turned off by the traditional church and attracted to the earth-centered religious systems of Wicca and paganism, the allure of simple materialism, or captivity to various forms of addiction. What can we learn from Patrick in order to reach our culture the way he reached his?
First and foremost, Patrick was radically committed to Jesus Christ. As a young man, his faith had been tested in the white-hot crucible of adversity and refined into pure gold. Patrick was convinced, on a cellular level, of the Lordship of Christ over his own life, but also over Nature and every unseen spiritual power. He was so lined up with God’s Will that he was willing to lay down his life for the people God had called him to reconcile.
Second, Patrick had pressed through the oppression of his early life, allowing it to became his spiritual basic training, his ascetic preparation for the ministry to come. He had personal holiness and a dynamic prayer life
Finally, he was full of the Divine dunamis, or power. This power in turn enabled him to confront the false gods of the culture to whom he ministered. He went head to head with the idols of his day and he prevailed in his mission. Why? Because he was
Radically Committed,
Personally Holy, and
Powerful in God.
If we are to bring the Gospel to our culture, to be salt and light to people who sit in darkness and are enslaved to the gods of materialism, addiction and towering selfishness, we must be like Patrick and develop Commitment, Holiness and Power in our spiritual lives.
If we are to be instruments of Salvation to the people of our Tri-State region, we must cultivate our knowledge of God through Prayer, ascetic practice, study, and works of compassion.
There are still 75,000 people in Cabell and Wayne counties who need the saving grace of Jesus Christ. (God recently rescued one in our midst from Putnam County – and we didn’t even include his county in our statistics!) God has charged us as his people to take the Gospel to the whole world. Let us pray together that he will grant us the virtues of St. Patrick to be willing and useful vessels in the Ministry of Reconciliation. AMEN.
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