(065) St Patrick Engages Ireland
St. Paddy Engages Ireland
Acts 17:22-34
March 15, 2009
Prep:
· SP: CT, Confessions, skim anthology (including Durant).
· Skim printed old sermons.
· Acts 17:16-34
Opening SCRIPTURE: Acts 17:16-17, 22-34
Intro
This Tuesday is St. Patrick’s day, so I did some research and it turns out that he is not the patron saint of binge drinking and green food coloring.
· We think of him as an Irish, Catholic saint who chased the snakes of Ireland, but none of those are true!
We are a little more than half way through our series on community we are going to take a break to look at another part of our mission statement: “engaging our culture.”
I have said before that there is a constant tension between “community” and “engaging Culture.” As we grow in community, there will be a constant temptation to stay there.
· This is how the Christian subculture is created – we want to be with those who are like us.
This morning, we first going to learn more about the life of St. Patrick, because he was a remarkable man who engaged Ireland and changed it forever, and then from his life we will learn some lessons about “engaging our community.”
The Life of Saint Patrick
· Born around 415 AD, less than 400 years after Chris, a century after Christianity became legal.
· Was a Roman-Briton: Lived on the edge of civilization.
· His father was a deacon and town council member, but he was not a Christian.
· At 16, he was captured by Irish raiders and sold into slavery.
· Ireland was the uncivilized world, thoroughly dark and pagan, practiced child sacrifices, ruled by chieftains.
· He was bought by a chieftain, and was a shepherd for 6 years.
· In this time, be became a Christian and was thankful to God for his sufferings because brought him to Jesus.
· After 6 years, he heard a voice saying that his ship was ready, so he walked 200 miles and found a ship.
· After returning to his family, he had a vision of an Irish man to come back to them to share the Gospel.
· He first received training, became a priest and bishop.
· In Ireland, quickly founded a small church, then went to his old master.
· He was greatly helped by knowing the language, traditions, and about the druids.
· He would focus his efforts on the kings, knowing the people would follow, and had “power encounters” with the druids.
· Patrick died in his late 70’s, traditionally on March 17th.
· He converted and baptized 1000’s, ordained priests, founded churches, and changed the nation.
· He was one of the most successful missionaries ever to live, and his work inspired countless missionaries after him.
· After reading his story, Grace said that we are Christians because of him, and she may be right.
Lessons from St. Paddy
There is no doubt that Patrick was one of the great fathers of our faith. I personally loved learning more about him. In his story I found several lessons that help us engage our culture:
1. He never forgot his mission.
Patrick spent about thirty years in Ireland. In fact, he never went home. He never forgot that the reason he was there was to bring light to a dark place.
It’s a little harder for us to remember that we are on a mission field, because the natives seem so tame. But it is vital for us to remember that to be a Christian means to be a citizen of another world. We should never feel completely at home here.
1 Peter 2:11-12 11 ¶ Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
It can easy to just go along with all that is happening, forgetting that we are in the midst of a war zone, where sin wars against us and every one we love, seeking to destroy them.
So Peter calls us to remember and be committed to the mission of bringing people to the life and salvation that are in God:
12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
We still live in a pagan world, sacrificing themselves and their families to the gods of money and status.
· Too often we just join in, rather than showing the better way.
Our goal is to be “in the world but not of it.” In other words:
1. Not living in Samaria: INdistinguishable from the world.
2. Not living in Jerusalem: So disconnected as to be useless.
3. Living in Babylon: Making a difference in the world.
BTW: This week in CNN, it said that there are less Christians in America. I believe we’ll probably watch the percentage people calling themselves Christians continue to drop.
· This just might be a good thing.
The most difficult people to reach with the Gospel are those who think they know God. But things will also get harder for us.
2. He engaged them by speaking their language, understanding their culture, and finding points of contact.
Saint Patrick bore many similarities to Paul. He was a great missionary and apostle to the unreached. He refused pay for his service and even his dream was similar to Paul’s.
· He was also very effective at engaging the culture and using it to preach the Gospel.
It is said that he used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, which is how the shamrock became the symbol of Ireland. This may or may not have happened, but it is true to his method.
· For instance, converting the kings was very astute in his situation, but wouldn’t work in ours.
Rather than rejecting the culture (which has much evil in it), he worked with it. This was the example he got from Paul:
Acts 17:16-17, 22-23 NIV While Paul was waiting for [Silas and Timothy] in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
Paul was distressed, but his response was not to tell them they are all going to hell, boycott, or wave-signs, but to respectfully reason with them in hopes of winning to truth.
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
· He goes on to quote from their poets, and speak to them in from their own culture.
Likewise, we are to be like missionaries to our culture – learning their language and habits so that we can share God’s love to them.
As a church, we believe that we are not called to isolate ourselves from this world, but engage it and translated the truths of the Gospel into an idiom they understand.
3. He confronted the vital differences.
Catholic missionaries have understood importance of engaging the culture and relating the Gospel in relatable terms (EG Easter and Christmas), and Christianity has been trans-cultural.
· Yet, they have sometimes gone too far, to where the substance of the Gospel has been lost (cf. Cora Indians).
While Patrick understood and respected the Irish culture, he also knew that they were bound by fear and superstition and sought free them.
Power encounters
Patrick was as fully convinced that the power of the druids was real, but he brought news of a stronger power, and he sought to demonstrate God’s power.
· This frequently involved boldly confronting the druids, one great example being his first Easter in Ireland.
Patrick also sought to confront both the spiritual powers and the immorality. For instance, he spoke out strongly against slavery, the first Christian to do so.
Likewise, remember that Paul was distressed by the sinfulness of Athens. But he doesn’t respond by ignoring it, nor being frightened, rather in manner fitting to the situation.
· Paul used both reason and “power encounters” as appropriate.
As similarly for us, there are many things in our culture that we know to false, misleading, and dangerous to body and soul, and we shouldn’t ignore those things, but we have to respond in manner fitting within our context.
· It’s vital to keep the Gospel first – if a person has no relationship with God, don’t expect them to act like they do.
4. His character and love were his greatest assets.
A frequent point in the stories is that his love and humility were his greatest assets, not the miracles God did through him.
He approached the Irish as an equal, rather than as savages. In fact he wrote that he “sold this nobility of [his],” so that he may completely equal.
We live in a very different situation than Patrick – the vast majority of the people that we meet already know about Christianity, and have probably formed opinions about it.
· This makes the importance of love and character even greater.
· The Gospel should be seen before it is heard.
This is what we want them to see:
Galatians 5:22-23 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.
Matthew 5:16 ...let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Putting it all tighter: reaching out
While the Bible says that some of us have been gifted to be evangelists, all of us are still called to be evangelistic, engaging our culture and sharing the Gospel.
1. We have to live a life that brings glory to God and makes the Gospel attractive (Titus 2:10).
· “We may be the only Bible some people read.”
2. We must be able to respectfully and rationally disagree when appropriate; not pretending it’s all the same.
3. We need to look for point of contact and ways that we can share the Gospel where people are at.
4. We must remember our mission, looking for opportunities to share.
· Most importantly, pray for them and opportunities.
· Answer questions when asked.
· Invite people to church or church events (ladies brunch, upcoming hiking ministry, or paintballing).
· Include them in your life – this is evangelism in community, sharing life and faith.
Q & A