Celtic Spirituality of Mission and Service
I remember one of the first sessions that we had on Celtic Spirituality, one of you asked me if the Celtic Christians lived a fairly quiet Christian life, not “pushing” their faith on the cultures around them.
It was a question that had a definite bias against mission and evangelism. We do have this bias in our society, and in the church as well – when I first came to Runnymede, longtime, committed Christians talked about bristling at the “E” word – not only because of the abuse that they have felt as the “evangelized” but also the feeling of being pressured into joining evangelistic programs that they did not feel comfortable with.
Leap of Faith clip
Now you know why some people cringe and the word evangelism
There are many both inside the church and outside who have great reservations about the modern missions movement. At it’s best, it had a great desire to see people who had never heard the Gospel embrace the good news of Jesus, at it’s worst it was a tool of the European empires that they traveled with. The Prime Minister’s recent apology for the residential school system pointed to the cultural imperialism that often went along with missions in the past.
How do you feel when you hear the word “Evangelism?”
How about “Missionary?”
Even with our bias against evangelism and mission, it is impossible to talk about the Celtic Church without recognizing that it is first a missions movement.
Sales Model of Evangelism – make them realize their need – “you look terrible, you need Jesus.”
This is not the Celtic way – Patrick & the Celts were not salesmen.
The three saints that we’ve concentrated on, Patrick, Columba & Columbanus, were all missionaries. We talked of the pilgrimage that many Irish monks went out on to find Christ – these were seldom only personal spiritual journeys, but they were also missionary journeys – they would push their coracles into the sea without sail, rudder or oar and see where the Spirit would blow them. Where they landed they would live as the faithful among the people and draw folks into relationship with their Creator through Jesus.
In the Early days of the Celtic Church, Bishops were ordained first as Apostles, or “sent ones” to spread the good news. They did not have the administrative and institutional church leadership role that we might think of when we hear the word bishop. In many ways, the abbots of the monasteries had a more prominent leadership role, while the Bishops concentrated on expanding the knowledge of Christ in their region. Finney says “the (Celtic) Bishops performed the sacramental actions peculiar to their order, such as ordination, but above all were the leaders of evangelistic missions into the surrounding countryside and to the local secular leadership.” Finney, Recovering the Past p. 55
Patrick is the apostle of Ireland – credited with most of the population of the island embracing Christ within a generation of Patrick. There are some who would say that he is the first missionary since the apostle Paul: if not, he is surely the first missionary to venture outside of the Roman Empire.
By the time Patrick died at the ripe old age of 115, after 60 years of ministry, the vast majority of Ireland would have adopted this very indigenous, very vibrant Christian faith.
Celtic Evangelism
Good News
The Celts did not have the high value placed on tolerance that we have today, so there would have been no cultural or anthropological angst that we have today about converting people from their traditional religions to Christianity.
In many ways it was best explained as a conversion, not to Christianity, but to Christ. They were not spreading a religion, to have more people under their control, but they were spreading the Good News that the Creator wanted to have a relationship with them through his Son. It was the good news of inviting people to life the life that they were created to live: in the family of the one that you were created in the image of.
It was Good News that pulled people out of fear based, and often oppressive religious systems and beliefs.
Patrick recognized that it was good news as he suffered as a slave on the hills of northern Ireland. He returned to Ireland not to conquer for Christ, but to woo people into his love.
Culturally Inclusive
Patrick was a missionary unlike many others – he already had an understanding of the culture and ways of the Irish, and he felt no need to “civilize” them into Roman ways.
Even the Celtic cross is a sign of the marrying of the culture and Christian faith – The circle was an important symbol to the druids, and instead of destroying it as evil and devilish, Patrick placed the cross over it. This doesn’t mean that he adopted the traditional religion into his Christianity: there was much to be discarded it was a fear-based religion that included human sacrifice and fearsome and arbitrary gods. But the Celtic Christian faith was one that spoke to the same earthy felt-needs of the people, and it adopted much of what was good and pure from the traditional culture.
Patrick didn’t reach the Irish as a “target audience” In his letter to Coroticus he speaks of “we Irish:” by this point he sees himself as one of the Irish.
Relational
1 John 1
1-2From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.
3-4We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!
“Patrick’s entourage would have included a dozen or so people, including priests, seminarians, and two or three women. Upon arrival at a tribal settlement, Patrick would engage the king and other opinion leaders, hoping for conversion, or at least their clearance, to camp near the people and form into a community of faith adjacent to the tribal settlement. The “apostolic” team would meet the people, engage them in conversation and in ministry, and look for people who appeared receptive. They would pray for sick people, and for possessed people, and they would counsel people and mediate conflicts. On at least one occasion, Patrick blessed a river and prayed for the people to catch more fish. They would engage in some open-air speaking, probably employing parable, story, poetry, song, visual symbols, visual arts and, perhaps, drama to engage the Celtic people’s remarkable imaginations. Often, we think, Patrick would receive the people’s questions and then speak to those questions collectively.
The Apostolic band would welcome responsive people into their group fellowship to worship with them, pray with them, minister to them, converse with them, and break bread together. One band member or another would probably join with each responsive person to reach out to relatives and friends. The mission team typically spent weeks, or even months, as a ministering community of faith within the tribe. The church that emerged within the tribe would have been astonishingly indigenous.”
Eastern Orthodox Story – p 57 in Generous Orthodoxy
Can you see the similarities in Patrick’s method?
How do we do this in a world where people are still trying to sell Jesus?
N.T. Wright, the challenge of Jesus – p 142-143
Supernatural – Patrick never pooh-poohed the Irish’s belief in fairies, the evil eye, the demonic & other gods – he only pointed out the Creator was the High King of the gods – we say God of gods, Lord of lords. His breastplate asks for protection against all the supernatureal forces around them – including witchesm fairies, druids & blacksmiths.
Blessing of rivers, healings, exorcisms were common.
P 115 in How the Irish saved Civilization
Passive Aggressive (In a good way!)
Lighting the Paschal Fire,
P. 17 in Way
Encounter with Finn McCool - Jeff
Societal Change
What the Celtic Missionaries hoped for whereever they went was not just individual conversion, but societal change as well. So although they adopted much that was good in the local culture, they spoke out strongly against that which was wrong.
Cahill says that “Patrick is the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery. Nor would any voice as strong as his be heard again till the seventeenth century” By Patrick’s death, Slavery was completely abolished as a practice in Ireland – way better than driving out the snakes!
We have two writings from Patrick that have survived into our time. One is his confession, which is a brief autobiography, the other is a letter to Coroticus.
What had happened as the Romans pulled out of Briton, the Romanized Britons had very little ways to support themselves so some of them took to piracy, rading the neighbouring counties for booty and slaves.
You can imagine how horrified Patrick was to hear of the tables turning and British Christian raiders coming to make slaves of the Irish. One of the raiders was named Coroticus. Patrick describes how he had just baptized and confirmed a large group of young men and women, when on the very next day, the chrism “still gleaming upon their foreheads, they were cruelly cut down and killed.” Those that resisted faced instant death; the remainder were taken prisoner – the men into slavery, the women to endure a lifetime of sexual abuse at the hands of the pagan Picts.
Patrick writes a hasty letter and sends a delegation of priests after Coroticus and his men to call them back from their wicked ways and return their Christian brothers and sisters to their homes. The priests are rebuffed and laughed at. So Patrick writes a second open letter; a great rebuke, calling Coroticus and his men to repentance and if they do not, call all other Christians to excommunicate them and have nothing to do with their company or their wicked ways. In the letter he derides Coroticus and his men as, “dogs and sorcerers and murderers, and liars and false swearers… who distribute baptized girls for a price, and that for the sake of a miserable temporal kingdom which truly passes away in a moment like a cloud or smoke that is scattered by the wind.”
My own heritage of evangelicalism has it’s beginning in revivals that also had a strong social change message. Most Evangelicals will trace their roots back to Wesley and Wittfield, as well as people like Charles Finney of the Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Wesley spoke out boldly against Slavery – causing riots in slave-trading ports in Briton. He taught his clergy to fast every Friday for the end of the slave trade. William Wilberforce who came to Christ under this ministry worked tirelessly in and out of Parliament and saw the end of the British slave trade 200 years ago. In America, the revivalist Charles Finney preached against slavery as well as preaching salvation.
“Finney, who believed strongly that salvation came through grace alone by faith, saw “works”—the way people act in the world, including, in his case, adamant opposition to the abomination of slavery—as evidence of faith. He wrote, “When I first went to New York, I had made up my mind on the question of slavery, and was exceedingly anxious to arouse public attention to the subject. ... in my prayers and preaching, I so often alluded to slavery, and denounced it, that a considerable excitement came to exist among the people.”
He later commented that acceptance of slavery in the South seemed to block the religious awakening that was happening elsewhere. “A divine influence seemed to pervade the whole land,” Finney wrote. “Slavery seemed to shut it out from the South. The people there were in such a state of irritation, of vexation, and of committal to their peculiar institution, which had come to be assailed on every side, that the Spirit of God seemed to be grieved away from them. There seemed to be no place found for him in the hearts of the Southern people at that time.” - The Roots of Justice Revival. by Jim Rice. Sojourners Magazine, April 2008 (Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 28-31). Features.
The split between the evangelicals and the modernists in the early 20th century – lead to a dualism of evangelism and social change that didn’t exist before. There is a new “great Awakening” happening that is bringing the two back together
Slavery today – more slaves than during the height of the African slave trade – be like Patrick & fight against it! – Not For Sale Campaign
Columbanus: Missionary to a “post-Christian” world, in conflict with the institutional church
Columbanus as a model – evangelist to a post Christian Europe Wherever they went, the people were struck by their modesty, patience and humility. France at that period was in sore need of such a band of monks and preachers. Owing partly to the incursions of barbarians, and partly due to the remissness of the clergy, vice and impiety were prevalent.
The Pope on Columbanus:"With his spiritual strength, with his faith, with his love of God and neighbour, he became one of the Fathers of Europe, showing us today the way to those roots from which our continent may be reborn,"
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