JOURNEYS TO THE EDGE
Celtic Worship - March 16, 2003

TEXT:
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Mark 8:31-38

Today is the day we celebrate the influence of the Celtic tradition on our own Reformed theology and faith. We have been doing this for about ten years and I hope that by now you have come to realize the important contribution that the Celtic church has made to Christianity, and in particular to us who are the spiritual descendants of Martin Luther and John Calvin. After all, it was the Celts who taught the Pennsylvania Germans to consult the groundhog about future weather patterns, and the date of February 2 was Candlemas Day in Europe which originated with the Celtic festival of Imbolc. Incidentally, the groundhog has an accuracy rate of only 39%.

The Palatinate Germans who came to the New World settled on the frontier of civilization. It was a journey of faith to the edge of the world as they knew it. All they had with them in addition to their meager possessions was their memory, their heritage, their traditions, and their faith. It was a journey like many other journeys into unknown territory and an unknown future.

Our Old Testament lesson is about a promise made to Abraham, the common ancestor of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and his journey to a new land of hope. “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous . . . . And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien . . . for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”

And, as the letter to the Hebrews says, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

Spirituality is always tied to a particular place and embedded in that spirituality are the hopes and aspirations of attaining that Promised Land, whether it was the Land of Milk and Honey where one could begin anew free of the burdens and baggage of the old life, or a New World which our Pennsylvania German forebears saw as the earthly expression of the New Jerusalem, the fulfillment of the apocalyptic dream of the “peaceable kingdom.” Spirituality always led the person to a place beyond himself, and ultimately to the Realm of God in the final journey beyond this life.

Remembering the journey of Abraham to a new land, let us look at three Celtic saints and their voyages to the edge.

Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was really a Roman resident of Britain before he was captured at the age of 16 by Irish marauders who made him a slave of one of their chieftains. After six years of tending pigs and suffering cold and deprivation, during which he prayed continually, Patrick escaped, and went to France where he spent a period in training. He returned to his family in Britain. It was here that he received a vision of a man named Victoricius who appealed to him to return to Ireland. Patrick returned and began his work of persuading the Irish kings and their advisors, the druids, to accept Christianity.

There was a custom among the Celts that the king must light the fire to signify the beginning of the new year, but if anyone would light a fire before the king, that person would be put to death. The night of the year was the Easter vigil and the king and his court gather on the sacred hill of Tara to light the great fire. However, many miles in the distance they could see the glow of another fire on the hill of Slane where Patrick had lit the paschal fire before the king. Twenty-seven chariots were sent to capture Patrick, but they all met with disaster. Even the chief druid was killed and the king was forced to concede that Christianity was indeed mightier than his own religion. Patrick continued his missionary work, writing, and establishing monasteries through the land. He died on March 17, 493.

Because of Patrick who inspired them, hundreds of Celtic monks left Ireland to spread the gospel to Scotland, England, France, and Germany.

One of these monks was Columba. His original name was Crimthann, which meant “fox,” but after he became a priest, he changed it to Columba which mean’s “dove.” He was also called Columcille, or “dove of the church.” Columba sailed from northern Ireland to the Scottish island of Iona where he established a monastery and began the training of priests. There is a tradition that believes an illuminated manuscript, a translation of the gospels, was started here. When Viking raiders invaded Iona, Columba escaped and went to Kells where the manuscript was later found the cathedral. The beautiful Book of Kells can be seen in the Irish National Museum in Dublin.

Columba is responsible for the conversion of northern Scotland to Christianity and the creation of a monastic community at Iona that today is the center for advocates of world peace and social justice.
Brendan of Clonfert, also known as Brendan the Navigator, perhaps best epitomizes the Celtic path of peregrinatio or pilgrimage. Legend has it that Brendan and 125 monks set sail in search of the Promised Land and eventually ended up in Newfoundland, thus discovering the New World almost a millennium before Columbus. There were many mythical stories associated with Brendan, such as his saying Mass on the back of a whale, but the important thing about St. Brendan is that he represents the Celtic thought that we are all on a pilgrimage, a journey to the edge and then back to the center. It is always a circular journey of wandering through life, learning and growing, coming back to the center of our being to integrate and make sense of our experiences, and then embarking on new journeys of discovery until we arrive at our ultimate destination in the Kingdom of God.
T. S. Eliot said, “The end of all our explorations will be to come back to where we began and discover the place for the first time.” In every age we journey to the brink of our world’s annihilation. In Columba’s day, the fury of the Norsemen represented the destructive forces of the world and the Day of Judgment. Our German ancestors who survived the Thirty Year’s War had seen the four horsemen of the Apocalypse—war, famine, pestilence and death—lay waste to their lands. For them it was “lilienzeit,” the end of the world and God’s new time. Today, we once again march to the edge ready to unleash the dogs of war and usher in a new age that is yet to be named.
Life seems to be an endless game between hope and despair, understanding and doubt, crisis and resolution. “Evermore,” Emerson said of it, “beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats.” Sisyphus nears the mountaintop, and the rock rolls down again. We lose courage, and suddenly there is a light.

There is always light at the end of the journey, but it seems we have to struggle through the darkness in each generation in order to rediscover our beginning in the grace of God. St. Patrick’s fire on the hill of Slane burned through the darkness as a resurrection light summoning the Celtic tribes to a new life in Christ. And so must we journey through this world’s darkness to the edges of endurance in order to be called back to the place of our beginning.

Our opening hymn, “Be Thou My Vision,” is based on an eighth century prayer of protection known as a lorica. It was used as an incantation in the face of physical or spiritual danger, but expressed a faith that when this life is over we will be secure in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the brightness of the Son. As we make our journeys to the edges of life, to the brink of despair, and the frontiers of faith, let us always remember that we are centered in Christ and to Christ we return, now and forever.

Dr. Harry L. Serio