As a child, I loved visiting Grandma Eileen’s house. Not only because my grandmother was the sweetest, kindest person in the world, but also because her house itself was a place filled with peace and beauty. It had big windows which looked out to a yard filled with trees, plants, and flowers. Crystal prisms hung in those windows, reflecting rainbows into the living room. On the table in front of those windows was a small lamp with a colorful stained glass lampshade, and next to it, a basket filled with rocks that Grandma Eileen had collected, each one labeled as to the type of rock, which I found fascinating.
Grandma Eileen’s ancestors came from Ireland, and elsewhere in the house were small plaques with Irish sayings on them. There was one on the wall in the bathroom that said, “May you arrive in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead.”. And in the back room, hanging on the wall, was the flag of Ireland.
So, St. Patrick’s Day has always been kind of a fun day for me. But even so, I never really knew much about Patrick himself.
Over the years, I learned a little bit, but this year, I wanted to learn a little more. So I checked out an audio book from the Bloomington Public Library, and have been listening to it over the past couple of weeks, to further enhance my knowledge.
Patrick was born in Britain (not Ireland) at the end of Roman rule, in the late 4th century. He was born into nobility; his family was rich, and Patrick was spoiled.
He didn’t care much for religion; he didn’t care much for anything, really. Years later, looking back on his youth, he described himself in those days as idle and immature.
When Patrick was 16, Irish raiders invaded his town, and his home, and Patrick was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave.
In an instant, his life was turned completely upside down. I imagine it felt like a kind of death. The person he was, no longer existed. The Patrick who lived a life of ease, among nobility, never really having to work hard at anything, was gone. That person, the person he was, no longer existed.
In its place was Patrick the slave, who most certainly had to work long and hard, and who had no hope of ever seeing his home or his family again. It’s amazing that Patrick even survived the transition. I don’t know how a person does that.
As a slave, Patrick mostly worked as a shepherd. He would spend hours, sometimes days, in the country, tending his master’s sheep. No soft pillow under his head at night. No one else to do his chores for him.
As the years passed, Patrick experienced a transformation. He learned the Irish language. He also began to grow in faith.
He started reciting prayers; he did this so much that other slaves began calling him “Holy Boy.” He started fasting—and other slaves and his owners thought he had lost his mind.
Through his prayers, he started to realize that God had a plan for him. One night he had a dream, and in that dream, he heard a voice say: “you have done well; soon you will be going home.”
Then, in a second dream, the same voice said: “Behold, your ship is ready.” And the dream told him exactly where to find his ship.
Patrick believed that it was God speaking to him through his dreams. And if God was telling him to escape, then, that’s what he should do.
It took Patrick two weeks to travel nearly 200 miles, on foot, across the boggy, marshy interior of Ireland, to reach his ship. He mostly kept hidden, and didn’t ask for help, for fear that anyone he might meet would recognize him as a slave, and return him to his master. And, he refused to steal any food from the farms he passed, because his faith taught him it was wrong to steal.
When he arrived at Ireland’s east coast, he saw the ship from his dream. He found the ship’s captain, and explained that he had no money, but that he would gladly work his way back home as part of the crew.
The captain said no.
Patrick went off, wondering why his dream would have led him here, to this ship, only to have the captain refuse to allow him to board. But before he got too far, some of the crew ran after him and started yelling, “Wait! Don’t go!”
It seems the captain had changed his mind.
And so, Patrick was on his way home, leaving Ireland, never to return…or so he thought.
He didn’t know it at the time, but Patrick would return to Ireland some years later, this time as a free man, intent on sharing the gospel with the people of the Emerald Isle.
So profound was his impact on the people of Ireland, and so complete was his love for them and for the God who rescued him from slavery, that people in Ireland, and all around the world, still celebrate Patrick today.
So if you ever find yourself in a situation that feels like an end, like a form of death,... remember Patrick. If you ever find your life turned upside down, remember Patrick.
Remember Patrick, and how God led him out of the deepest, darkest time, to a time of new life, new hope, not just for Patrick, but for all those who would eventually be blessed through Patrick’s life and ministry.
In our scripture today, Jesus is contemplating his own upcoming death. This would be a literal death, and, as he says in John’s gospel, his soul was troubled, thinking about it.
But Jesus does not pray for God to deliver him from his time of trial—not in today’s scripture, anyway—because he trusts and knows that, through him, and through what he is about to endure, the world will be blessed, and the world will find wholeness.
Jesus compares what he is about to experience to what a grain of wheat experiences. The grain falls into the ground and dies, and by all accounts, it seems as if its life is over. But then, from that grain, buried deep in the soil, new life springs forth…
And, strangely, there are a lot of similarities to being buried in a tomb, and planted in the ground. They are very similar, and yet, so very different. Buried… or planted… Jesus was buried in a tomb, but new life sprung forth…
One could say that about Patrick’s life. In so many ways, his life was over. Done. He may have even thought, “Just bury me now!”
And yet, new life was waiting for him; and, through him, new life was waiting for many others.
I wonder how it was that Patrick’s family even recognized him when he returned home. He left a lazy teen who didn’t care about anything, and returned a strong adult man who was willing to work hard and pray hard. He left as someone who didn’t care much about faith, but returned so devout, that he eventually trained to become a priest—and, later, became bishop.
As for Jesus… Well, we’ve learned this Lenten season that he spent a lot of time preparing his followers for his death, but that his frequent predictions of his death were also a way of helping his disciples consider their own deaths, and their own lives—what it was that they were living for, and what it was that they felt was worth dying for.
In today’s scripture from John’s gospel, Jesus says: “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” That’s very similar to what we heard Jesus say a few weeks ago, when our scripture was from the gospel of Mark. In fact, almost every scripture the lectionary has presented us this Lenten season has been a variation on this theme.
And you, perhaps, might think this is all a bit morbid, that enough is enough, that maybe we can just stop talking about death already, thank you very much.
But Jesus just won’t let this topic go.
In college, I actually took a class called “Sociology of Death,” and in that class, we read a book by Carlos Castaneda, called Journey to Ixtlan…
…which, I admit, was kind of a weird book. But one thing that stuck with me was how the book described Death as an advisor.
Here’s a quote from the book: “Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, ‘I haven't touched you yet.’”
I feel like in some ways, Jesus is telling us to let our death be our advisor. Contemplate your death, just as you might contemplate your baptism. See what lessons death has to teach you.
It could be that a person doesn’t really know how to live, until they contemplate their death.
Could that have been true for Patrick? What emotions do you think he was experiencing, when he was kidnapped, taken away to Ireland, forced to work as a slave?
Perhaps, at first, he struggled against his new circumstances, thinking, “this can’t be happening!” But at some point, I suppose, he would have come to accept his new circumstances.
And, in accepting his new circumstances, he had to accept that he was no longer who he was, that the person he was, was dead.
And how long did it take him to realize that, in place of that person he no longer was, a new person was developing—the person he was meant to be all along?
I’m finding it hard to even describe the transformation that must have taken place in Patrick. I’m finding it hard to imagine what it must have been like. The old Patrick, dead; a new Patrick, reborn—in captivity, no less.
And, I don’t know, maybe it’s fair to say that, in some ways, Patrick was freer as a slave than he was as a free youth back home, because as a youth, Patrick was a slave to his own laziness, his own self-centeredness, and that, somehow, when he was made a slave in Ireland, God worked through him somehow to free his mind and his soul.
Last week, I talked about the Israelites, and their struggles on the way to the Promised Land. The Bible says that those who left Egypt died on the way, and that those who entered the Promised Land were a whole new generation. That’s a lot of death, and a lot of new life. That’s a lot of transformation. What could that mean for us?
Most of the time, I feel that I’m pretty much the same person I was when I was a kid. And yet, that doesn’t mean I haven’t changed. As I’ve evolved and grown in faith over the years, I’ve let go of old ideas, and embraced new ideas, and each one was a kind of mini-death and mini-rebirth, because gradually, I let go of who I was, and embraced who I was becoming.
How about you? Do you see yourself in the story of Patrick, in some way? What have you died to over the years, and how has God worked to remake you into something new?
Or, what needs to die in your life? Remember the snakes from last week, how they were chosen as a symbol because the way they shed their skin made people think of rebirth… What in your life needs casting off, like the shed skin of a snake?
Or, to put it another way: what needs to be buried in the ground, where it can die and be reborn, to bring forth new life, in you, and in those around you?
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