Patrick

When I was invited to take part in this service, I suggested I would like to be led by the image that would be created by Studio. Little did I know that this was to be a literal leading – for the image which Tom has provided for us seems almost to be stepping out of the painting – Patrick’s hand outstretched to ours in invitation. 

The store cupboard of God’s armour is behind him. Patrick holds in his outstretched hand a shamrock. Symbol of Ireland and a symbol too of the trinity. Patrick is inviting us into that glorious relationship that is the dance of the Trinity of God.  I wonder if you have noticed how often things come in threes? 

Three little pigs, the three bears, learning your ABC. Small Medium Large,  Buy Two get One free. Past Present Future, Yesterday Today Tomorrow, Hatches Matches and Dispatches, Lies damned lies and statistics, Yabba Dabba Do, The Three Musketeers, Shadrach Meeshack and Abednigo, Three denials of Peter. The cock crows three times and later Three times Jesus asks Peter do you love me. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come in glory: Father Son and Spirit. All make up a good three point sermon – and in true Celtic style, interconnected, woven together. Yet despite all this we often define our world in binary, A and or B with things in opposition to each other at one point or another. Black or white,  left or right, up or down.

Very often this means In or out – A Part or Apart. We identify ourselves in terms of difference yet God’s world is tertiary. When things come in threes there is a space between. Our language of two is often Competitive, Confrontational. From a to b is linear but ADD C and you open out the space for Conversation, Co-operation, Collaboration.  I wonder have you ever poured a pint of GUINNESS with a shamrock?  We no longer have to be located somewhere along a line, we can move, dance and be free not to identify ourselves in terms of an opposite. There is room for variety and difference.

We can learn the beauty of ecumenism that Christians are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny – Christ is the divine YES from God.  John Davies suggests that the underlying message of the name Jesus, Ieshua, or Saviour is the one who gives space. The god who saves is god who is the space maker.  The armour of god is ready for us to wear – should we choose to accept the invitation. The popular hymn version of the BP Prayer Begins: I bind unto my self today – the strong name of the trinity. I’ve been pondering what it means to bind these things to ourselves as if we are putting on the armour.

Here’s an image that might help. In 2005 I was ‘hallowed’ into Iona Community membership. This Hallowing service followed two years of what might be termed in ordinary monastic circles as a noviciate.  Two years learning what it means to follow the rule of the community of prayer and study of work for peace and justice of accounting to each other and to the wider community in its common concerns. Preparing to be one of the ‘Miles Christi’ as the members used to be known. You must re-commit your intention to follow the rule, to be ‘With Us’ year on year. 

Kathy Galloway wrote in the forward to John’s Book on the Breastplate about the Hallowing service. She writes that the one thing many members would defend changing above all others in that service was the singing of the Breastplate prayer as the new members walk through the choir of Iona Abbey flanked on both sides by the current members singing heartily the six verse hymn version – one verse in particular speaks to me:  Christ be with me… I’ve had the honour to make that walk twice – once as I myself was hallowed into membership and the following year as I walked as sponsor beside my friend Tom who was part of our new members year, but unable to be on the island for the hallowing.

This is the invitation to take on the armour of God – not that we have to wear it all at once – as community the task is shared out – together we walk the struggle for justice and peace for the integrity of our creation for the lives of ordinary folk in our communities against the affront to humanity we witness together we embody the breastplate as a community.