Christ be with Me: St. Patrick's Story in about 500 Words

As the story goes...

Patrick was born in the year 389 in England.  That's right; Patrick is actually English not Irish.  The son of a Roman official (England was part of the Roman Empire then), he grew up near the coast, and when he was 16 years old he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and sold into slavery in Ireland.  Kind of puts getting a pimple or failing your driver's test in perspective, doesn't it?  The next time your teenager thinks something insignificant is the end of the world, you can say, "It could be worse.  You could have been kidnapped, sold into slavery, and forced to be a solitary shepherd in the wet freezing pastures of ancient Ireland!"  In his own "confession" (spiritual autobiography) Patrick writes about those years, "I was chastened exceedingly and humbled every day in hunger and nakedness."  That is way worse than being put on the JV team rather than varsity.

As often happens, in the midst of immense stress and heartache, Patrick leaned on God in Jesus Christ more than he ever had before.  He became a person of deep prayer (who else was he going to talk to?) and his faith is all that got him through the terrible ordeal.  After six years of being a slave, he escaped and eventually made it back to his family's home in England.  Surely everyone thought that he'd find some sort of vocation that would afford him a comfortable lifestyle living near his family.  But his faith had become so deep that he could think of nothing else but studying for the priesthood.  While he was working toward ordination he started having dreams in which the people of Ireland were begging him to bring the gospel to them.  His superiors said, "Are you crazy!?"  But he didn't hate the Irish for their exploitative and hedonistic ways; he pitied them.  He believed they could change.  As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!"  He felt called to be the one who took the gospel to them.  This reminds me of hearing about prisoners who have profound spiritual experiences while in the penitentiary and when they are released choose to go back in to lead Bible studies.  

In 432, consecrated as the bishop of Ireland (a hopeful move since there weren't really any Christians in Ireland yet), the 43-year-old Patrick set foot on Irish soil for the first time since he'd escaped slavery.  He got to work and according to Robert Ellsberg "within ten years he had established... a network of churches and monasteries throughout the country, all in the hands of a native clergy.  He personally baptized tens of thousands of the faithful and ordained hundreds of priests.  Although he was not all alone in his work of evangelization, his stature as patron of Ireland is well deserved." 

May you have a happy St. Patrick's Day.  Tip a pint of Guinness (just one) in honor of the old saint, and take this lesson from his life: even the people who hurt you are children of God, although they probably don't know it.  Use your energy not to curse them, but to lift them up to God.  This will bless the both of you. 

Vikings!

As the story goes...

the people that we often call "the Vikings" began to become Christians around the year 1000. Before we get started in exploring this, however, we ought to note that we don't really use the word viking correctly. Viking isn't really a person; it was something a person did.  It was a profession.  Viking is a verb that means something to the effect of "raiding." Particular groups of Scandinavian men (Norsemen) would pool their resources and "go out viking."  In other words, they would "band together to man ships for the purpose of sailing along the coasts to raid ill-defended coastal settlements."  You did not want to see a group of ships filled with viking men (and sometimes women) show up on your shores.  You were dead meat.  Anyway, people who went out viking were really just one profession within the larger tribe-based Scandinavian society. All Scandinavians (Norse people), regardless of whether they went out viking or stayed home farming, worshiped the pantheon of Norse gods. Mixed up with all of these gods was a very violent warring and hedonistic mentality.  But something started to shift around 1000, not so much the warring/hedonistic mentality (that stuck around a lot longer) but the religion the Norsemen used to justify that mentality.

It appears that a shift that preceded the conversion of the Norse people was that small chieftains were trying to take over enough of their competitors' lands that they might build themselves a kingdom.  They had ambition.  They didn't want to be chieftains (earls) anymore; they wanted to be kings.  They had come in contact with many large kingdoms in continental Europe with very powerful kings, very strong economies, and massive armies.  "Now that's a real kingdom!  That's what I want to be like!  So I just need to build up a big enough army, get rid of all my challengers, and I'll be a real king like the kings in Europe.  Oh yeah, one more thing: those kings are all Christians, so if I want to be a real king then I'll have to give up my ancestral gods.  Oh well." That's a big price to pay, but in the mind of many chieftains of the time, it was worth it for power, fame, glory, riches, land, and lots and lots of casual sex.  People still give up their faith to gain those things all the time.  Just like the folks who do it now, the Norse kings never noticed that the Christ they would profess was against all of those things. Christianity was just a tool they used to get what they wanted. Eventually there were surely some "true believers," but probably not at first.

Let me just give you one brief example of how this seemed to work.  Olaf Trygvesson was a Norseman poster boy.  When you think of a Norseman, you think of Olaf.  Olaf loved to go out viking and he was really, really good at it.  He once put together a fleet of 90 ships that burned, slaughtered, raped, and pillaged all over northern Europe.  He became very, very rich and very, very powerful.  Finally, he decided he was ready for the big-time so he headed for what we call England.  That's where the real money was!  Eventually, Ethelred, one of the kings of the several kingdoms that modern day England was broken into, offered Olaf a massive amount of money to go away.  Later on, though, through an interesting story that involves a prophet, a vision, a mutiny, and a baptism, Olaf becomes a Christian (not necessarily in faith, but in practice).  He didn't go forward at church camp to give his life to Jesus.  Nothing like that.  No, he decided that he needed to be baptized so he could move from the "minor leagues" (a pagan chieftain among pagan chieftains) to the majors (a real European king!)  An old issue of Christian History Magazine says, Olaf's "new faith conferred upon him a dignity and stature among kings that he had lacked."  Both being Christians now, Olaf and Ethelred made a pact not to slaughter each other any more.  They'd just slaughter other people now instead.  Really gives you the warm and fuzzies doesn't it?  I'm not sure that's what the writer of "Blest be the Tie that Binds" had in mind.

People have been claiming to be disciples of Jesus for the wrong reasons ever since the beginning.  People still do it--to gain influence, to get elected, because that's what is expected of them, to make money.  Time and time again people come to the church claiming to be Christian brothers or sisters in need of just a little help.  Numerous times it has turned out that they were lying to get money for drugs.  We usually think of using the Lord's name in vain as using God's name as a cuss word.  That is just one way of misusing God's name, however.  A much more sinister way is to use it to manipulate people to get what we want.  The Norse people and the early English were just a few among millions or billions of so-called Christians that have done this.  It is important for us to examine our own hearts to make sure that we call ourselves Christians for one reason: because that is what we are.

How Far Would You Walk for $200?

As the story goes...

Eliza Davis was born in Texas in 1879.  She was an African-American Christian woman whose parents had been slaves.  After hearing a preacher that had just returned from an evangelistic trip to the west African country of Liberia, she determined that she would spend her life as a missionary in Liberia.  In 1914, at the age of thirty-five, she finally stepped foot on Liberian soil. Immediately she went to work founding a school for tribal children in the interior of Liberia.  Just three years later, however, the National Baptist Association replaced her with a married couple. Seeing that in order to get much support from the mission board or from churches back home she was going to need to get married, she accepted a proposal from G. Thompson George in 1918.  The newly married Mr. and Mrs. George stayed in Liberia and founded the Kelton Mission, which cared for hundreds of children.  They also started numerous tribal schools, a maternity clinic, and a seminary to train pastors.  Perhaps no one has ever lived who was as committed and as persistent in their service to God and to others as Eliza Davis George.

Her ministries were constantly in desperate need of financial support, barely scraping by.  One time while her husband was in the United States speaking at one church after another in an attempt to raise funds, Mrs. George did something that showed her commitment, persistence, and her desperation. When she received word that a mail ship had arrived, she and two boys walked the twenty miles to the town where the post office was.  That was not unusual for her. When she got there, there was a letter for her saying that a $200 money order was being held in the city of Monrovia.  They would hold it for thirty days. The letter had been written 28 days earlier.  She had to get to Monrovia and quick!  The problem, however, (and it was a BIG problem) was that Monrovia was 200 miles away!  She and the two boys walked to the beach and started walking in the direction of Monrovia, sleeping only a couple of hours a night.  Six days later, on tattered and bloody feet, they walked into the post office in Monrovia, hoping that the money order was still there.  They really needed that $200.  They were devastated when the postmaster told them that when no one showed up after 30 days, it was sent back to America. And you think you've worked hard with no measurable results!  I would have totally lost it.  Not Mrs. George, though.  She had a good cry and then started the long journey home.  Nothing was going to stop her from spreading the Gospel!  This prayer that she wrote captures the essence of her struggle and determination:

"O heavenly Father, you have taught us to pray for our daily bread.  Lord, you know that I do not have one penny to buy food and pay the workers here at the mission.  Father, send us something to meet our needs as you have promised.  Help me to keep trusting you so that the children will know you are caring for them."

Mrs. George's husband, Charles died in 1939.  Thirty-two years later, she was still at it.  More evidence of her perseverance is given by a missionary doctor who describes his meeting with her in 1971 by saying, "I met 'Mother' George at the Evangelical Negro Industrial Mission deep in the bush.  She was 91. Her ministry was vast.  She was almost blind.  She walked with a walking stick.  She had a large cancer on her leg and she was still pressing the claims of Christ." The next year she returned to the United States, living in Tyler, Texas until her death in 1980 at the age of 100.  Hundreds upon hundreds of Liberian people had Mrs. George to thank for giving them the gospel of Jesus Christ, an education, healthcare, hope, and purpose.  This causes me to ask myself: what am I doing for the gospel and for others today?