Creekside Church Sermon of March 16, 2003 "Saint Patrick's Breastplate " John 14:18-24	Rev. David Bibbee
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I once heard a gentleman declare, "God won't honor no rote down prayers." According to him, a prayer was only a prayer if it was extemporaneous, or, as he so eloquently put it, "…done right on the spot right from your heart." There is much to be said for spontaneous prayer which is offered for the needs of the moment. But there is a time for every matter under heaven…a time to speak, and a time to be silent; a time for prayer to be said, and a time for prayer to be read. In the hymn, "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy," is a wonderful verse about the breadth of God's love which is also applicable to prayers from the heart turned to ink on a page:

But we make God's love to narrow by false limits of our own;
And we magnify its strictness with a zeal God will not own.

Over the next four weeks we will examine "rote down" prayers which have made an impact on the countless lives of those who prayed them. Some of the prayers are ancient, over fifteen hundred years old. Another came from the 1930's. The treasure each contains is timeless. These prayers originated in Ireland, Russia, Italy, and the United States. They have been a source of instruction, inspiration, direction, protection, and conversion. Each says something about God in ourselves. Hopefully these prayers will become our prayers, and through them be drawn closer to God who draws close to us.

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's Day, so we will begin with an intimate prayer called "Saint Patrick's Breastplate." A portion of it is found on today's bulletin cover. To appreciate the prayer it helps to know something about the man whose name was Patricius.

He was born in Britain, in present-day Wales sometime after the year 400. He came from a family of means. Britain was under Roman rule, but the empire was disintegrating. Barbarian invasions were taking a toll. When Patricius was sixteen, he was captured by invading marauders from Ireland. He was taken and sold into slavery. For six years he tended the flocks of a chieftan named Milchu how was also a druid high priest.

The family of Elizabeth Smart had a prayer answered this week when their fifteen year-old daughter and the couple that abducted her nine months ago were apprehended near Salt Lake City. Thursday morning the CNN news anchors were speculating on how the ordeal affected her life. A psychologist said it would take ten to fifteen years of intensive therapy to undo the nine months she endured. "The experience could ruin her for life," was the anchor's closing quote. Its good there were no psychologists to tell Patricius he was scarred for life. He wouldn't have bothered to learn the Celtic language nor believe he had been chosen by God to convert Ireland to Christianity.

Patricius escaped slavery and returned to Britain where he studied for the priesthood. He had visions and recurring dreams which convinced him he was being called to return to convert the people who had enslaved him. When he and a small band of followers returned to Ireland in 432, it was the first time Christianity had been taken beyond the borders of the Roman Empire.

Saint Patrick was a man of great strength and determination, which was an utter necessity. The challenges before him were enormous. The Druid religion practiced human sacrifice. Contrary to popular opinion, Saint Patrick did not drive the snakes from Ireland. The snake was a symbol of pagan religion, which he finally drove away. The people lived to fight. To them, a day without war was like a day without sunshine. The Irish society was built on the slave trade.

The branch of Christianity that evolved in Ireland was very different from what evolved in Roman civilization. The Greeks and Romans split life in two. The material world was bad, and the spiritual world was good. The flesh was inferior, but humanity's spiritual side was superior. The Irish, however, didn't have such divisions. They saw creation as good and full of holiness and mystery. Since there was no separation between the material and spiritual realms, they believed creation contained messages from God. The shamrock is linked to Saint Patrick because while sharing the faith with a group of Druids, he picked a three-leafed shamrock and said to them, "God is three person…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

For Patrick there was no clear distinction between matter and spirit because Christ was Lord of all realms. This is why he began the prayer:

I bind to myself today to the Trinity…
I bind myself today to the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the coming judgment.

Then Patrick includes God's creation:

I bind to myself today - the power of heaven, the light of the sun, the brightness of the moon, the splendor of fire, the flashing of lightning, the swiftness of wind, the depth of sea, the stability of earth, the compactness of rocks.

So what does this ancient prayer say to us? First, it is a prayer to Christ who is imminent. This is the paradox of our faith. We say God is transcendent…totally beyond us, Wholly Other. Our categories cannot contain God. But God is also imminent. Christ is near. Not enthroned in a heavenly realm far away. When Patrick prayed, "Christ be with me," he wasn't summoning Jesus from beyond time and space. He was praying, "You who are always near, be with me." The choir anthem was about imminence…"Christ, be Near at Either Hand."

Lets enforce this idea by singing, "Teresa's Prayer." This prayer by Saint Teresa of Avila was influenced by Saint Patrick. Notice the simplicity of the words that asks the Christ who is already near to draw nearer.

Second, Saint Patrick's Breastplate is a prayer to Christ who is intimate. Saint Patrick's language is reminiscent of Jesus' farewell to the disciples in John 14. "Soon the world won't see me, but you will. Because I live, so will you. I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Those who keep my commandments will love me and God will love them. If you love me you will keep my word, and my Father will love you and we will make our home with you." God, Jesus, and the believer will be inseparable. It is love language. In our love for Christ and his love for us interconnected.

I'm curious. Have any of you kept old lover letters? Preferably ones from your spouse. Reread them sometimes. Language is often syrupy. "My heart isn't large enough to contain my love for you." "Oh, how my heart aches and breaks when you're away just a day." "I long for your embrace. I long to hold you, love you, and never let you go."

Saint Patrick's prayer wasn't a casual request of a deity with whom he was acquainted, but not intimate. "Christ, be with me, Christ, before me, behind me, in me, beneath, above, on my right, on my left. Christ be where I lie, sit, and arise."

Saint Patrick's prayer is imminent, and intimate and third, immediate. We live in a world that teaches us to split ourselves into separate selfs. "Here's my life at home. Here I am at work. Here I am with friends. And here I am with my family. Here I am at church." To Celtic Christians there are no such splits. Esther De Waal says that, "There seems to be no distinctions between time in eternity, heaven and earth, secular and sacred, between the ordinary and extraordinary. Patrick's prayer is not to Christ who is "out there" but is, "right here," not present "sometime in the future," but ,"right now."

If you'll indulge me just a bit more, let me say that this prayer is imminent, intimate, immediate and finally, embodied. Saint Patrick didn't pray it once and go about his business. He lived the prayer as if it already had been fulfilled. We pray with our spirit, but it doesn't stop there. True prayer involves our whole being. We pray with our spirit, but we also pray with our hands and our feet.

The influence of Saint Patrick converted a nation. Slave trading stopped. Human sacrifices stopped. Historians credit Ireland with saving Western Civilization. When the Dark Ages began there were a few isolated places which preserved literature, learning, compassion and care for the sick, and taught the Christian faith. The light shined in the Irish Monasteries founded by the successors of Saint Patrick who changed the course of history. They became what they prayed for.

It is interesting that Saint Patrick didn't see his primary duty as preaching or converting the entirety of Ireland's civilization, at least not in a direct way. His call was to live among the people and witness for Christ with his life. By his manner of living Saint Patrick became visible. He prayed to see Jesus in the people among whom he lived. "Christ in the heart of all who speak of me, in every eye that sees me, and every ear that hears me." The Breastplate was his spiritual tool that opened him to the presence of Christ in his own heart, in others, and in the beauty of the earth.

Kathleen Norris went to see her favorite monk in the Benedictine monastery she often visited. He was very elderly and going blind, but was still feisty and full of gratitude for the many blessing s of a long life. He asked her to go with him to call on another monk who had a bad fall the day before. He was in the nursing unit of the monastery, waiting to be taken to a hospital for a CAT scan. He was sleeping, but a nurse called out, "You have two visitors." He replied in a weak voice, "Ah…it's a sweet life."

His face was horribly bruised, but Kathleen Norris says, "He was beautiful to me. He radiated the love of Christ." The Benedictines make Christian hospitality the cornerstone of their lives. All guests and monks are welcomed as Jesus Christ. By practicing community and hospitality over the years they welcome each other and life itself, as sweet, despite, as she says, "…the savage ups and downs of life."

I was such a simple thing…two people going to visit a frail, injured monk. Such a simple thing - "Nice," we might say, but in our blasted busyness we fail to see moments like this and so many others as the blessings they are. Christ was so immanent, so immediate, and so embodied in those around him, what else could he say but, "Ah, it's a sweet life"?

(Ask congregation to say Saint Patrick's Prayer in unison.)

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