St. Patrick, radically inclusive and extravagant fellowship, and campus ministry…

[greetings to the new Chair of our diocesan Campus Ministry Council and to our newest diocesan campus peer minister…]

In today’s lectionary readings, in the real story of Patrick (a bishop and missionary of Ireland), and when considering our campus ministries, the Holy Spirit is inviting us to reconsider how we honor God and each other in precious moments amid challenges and changes with an eye toward hope-filled future. 

While we (those of us here gathered) know that this is the fifth and final Sunday in Lent, probably a larger number of people in the mostly secular culture around us is ‘celebrating’ St. Patrick’s Day today.  Some of us are hearing in our lectionary readings ominous foreshadowing that is preparing us for the coming Holy Week.  Others, particularly a number of young-adults in our campus communities, are awash wishes for luck, all things green, and perhaps even considering this weekend as an opportunity for an extravagant kick-off to the revelry that will be their Spring Break. 

Some of them have chosen to do charitable/mission work this week (“alternative Spring Break” options); some feel pressure to work more hours this week to get a little ahead financially; some are soaking up precious time with people they care about (perhaps with ailing family members or with other significant relationships that are being challenged by time and distance away); and others are temporarily checking-out of worrying about the future and diving head-on into the making of timeless memories that it seems only collegiate Spring Break can provide.  In all scenarios, the young-adults around us are living in a hyper-drive sense of time and can benefit from the steady companionship of those who have traveled these various roads before and have lived to tell about it. 

It’s been true for many generations that the ten or so years after high-school are an amazing period development during which each year, if not each season, can bring dazzling and disorienting self-discovery as well as opportunities for new depths of pain, new heights of aspirations, and vast new stretches of growth and maturity.  These days, with the interconnected social media, commercial, political, and educational networks in which our young-adults are immersed, we witness both the compression of time in terms of how quickly they’re being exposed to adult situations and leaping through life lessons… as well as, in many cases, the ironic retarding of the time it takes to make it to ‘adulthood’ by traditional measures (self-confidence and higher functioning personal responsibility, establishment or careers and families, etc.).

On this fifth Sunday in Lent, as we hear in our lectionary about foreshadowing and the call to embrace the future, no matter how challenging the present circumstances might be… and this year we also remember Patrick as an example of having made saintly life choices.  As we prepare for the resurrection of new life with the coming of Easter and the spring, I wonder how we might embrace anew the opportunities for life-affirming fellowship with the young-adults in our community, encouraging them in their faithful discernment and life choices, and willing to be ‘extravagant’ with the offering of our gifts of time and wise counsel to them without expecting anything in particular in return (other than the satisfaction of knowing that we’re influencing their formation and our future with them).

What about this saint, Patrick?  This guy was captured as a teenager and enslaved in Ireland.  In his early twenties he escaped and traveled through the wilderness back to Britain where family and mentors formed him as a Christian.  In his ‘adulthood’ he felt called to return to Ireland to share the good news of Christ far and wide.  Some say Patrick opted out of the conventions of accepting gifts and protections from the powers that be in order that he might remain untethered by the strings that were usually attached to such offerings.  We’re also told that his missionary efforts, even without official sponsorship of those in power, were widely successful as he traveled throughout the land, evangelizing kings as well as commoners.  In his writing Confessions, Patrick says, “What was the source of the gift I was to receive later in my life, the wonderful and rewarding gift of knowing and loving God, even though it meant leaving my homeland and family?  It was the over-powering grace of God at work in me, and no virtue of my own, which enabled these things…. I am in debt to God who has given me an abundance of grace with the result that through me many people have been born again in God…”  Like Paul before him (who we’ve also heard from this morning), Patrick was overtaken by new life afforded to him by the grace of God experienced through Christ and he couldn’t help but share that good news with others, even while being persecuted for doing so against the grain of those who wanted him to conform to the dominant culture or ridiculed by others for his apparent lack ‘proper’ education. 

Aside from shamrocks, stories about snakes, and drinking beer tinted green, we glean wisdom from the stories of St. Patrick’s missionary efforts and his evangelical leadership that can be instructive to young-adults in our midst.  “You know, when St. Patrick was your age, he made his way home and entered seminary where he learned how to be a good Christian.”  Ok, perhaps that’s not the approach we’ll want to use.  How ‘bout, “St. Patrick broke loose of the things that held him captive, grew in knowledge and love of Christ, found miraculous empowerment in God’s grace, and courageously put his skills and charisma to use helping those who were in need of good news.”  Then we might ask our college students, “How do you relate to St. Patrick’s story?  How can we help you on your journey toward your own mission in life?”  Imagine each of our conversations with a young-adult an opportunity to offer them a thought-partner and constructively provocative imaginings about their own future as someone destined to make a difference in this world.

This morning’s reading from Isaiah (43:16-21) is telling a people who have been exile and wandering through the wilderness that God provides a path for them – a dry path through the depths of the waters as well as a thirst-quenching way through the barrenness of the desert.  These people are told not to get hung up on the past (former things of old), but to turn toward the “new thing” that God is about to do for them.  How might it be helpful and transforming if we were as diligent in helping young-adults in our midst avoid getting too caught up in regrets or grief for all that is changing in their lives so rapidly and to focus instead on faithful hope in amazing new ‘futures’ in store for them if, especially when they’re feeling lost in the wilderness, they lean into God’s love and seek to know Christ in themselves and others?

In this morning’s reading from Paul (Philippians 3:4-14), we hear him saying to believers in Philippi that his new relationship with God through Christ has so transformed his perspective on the meaning and purpose of his life that everything he thought he understood or knew can be thrown out like garbage.  Perhaps this message is a bit challenging to young-adults and/or their parents who are investing heavily in higher education.  Does a new life through Christ mean all your learning and that degree should be thrown away?  No, of course not.  Paul is challenging his listeners (and us) to realize that religious credentials, educational credentials, are tribal rituals/conventions are not the source of righteousness before God – growing in knowledge, love, and service of Christ’s kingdom is.  Paul says to them that he is “forgetting what lies behind” and is instead “straining forward to what lies ahead” – a promise of resurrected, kingdom living despite any present suffering and struggle.  As young women and men are becoming more informed and skilled through these years of higher education, how are we helping them hone their gifts and cultivate a sense of godly purpose for offering them benevolently in our shared world?  How are we helping them let go of practices and concerns that keep them tethered to dying conventions or under the Quixotic spell of ‘achieving’ independence or proving themselves worthy through material gain at the expense of social responsibility and commonwealth?

And, of course, we have this morning’s version of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany as told by the writer of the Gospel according to John (12:1-8) which is a wonderful scene in itself and also a lead up to the final Passover meal he will share with some of these same people later in the week.  Jesus has brought a dead friend back to life, an act of such provocative love that has so challenged the establishment leaders that they are now conspiring toward his arrest and execution. Amid the danger that is looming and the confrontations that are brewing, Jesus chooses fellowship with his friends for his final meals…. and we can imagine what a menagerie of friends are gathered with him – there are saints and sinners alike.    Among them is a doubter; a person focused on service; devotees who anoint his head (as told in Matthew and Mark) and/or (as told in John) wash/anoint his feet with their own hair and precious oil worth a year of wages; some who are uncomfortable with such lavish, extravagant, we might even say ‘prodigal’ offerings (note: in the divine economy of God’s grace, an extravagant gift toward one we love, particularly at a seminal moment in their life, is neither wasted not does it exhaust God’s resources); a couple of self-righteous and self-serving hypocrites who talk of charity but plot to betray Jesus and/or later deny having known him; one who Jesus loved so much that he brought him back from the dead even when others said that he was already rotting; and at least one who we will later call a doubter. 

There is room for everyone at the table with Jesus.  This is good news that should be shared again and again with adults, younger and older alike.  God’s love incarnate seeks to draw everyone together in a common feast... not expecting that they they’re on the same page yet; knowing that they won’t all react to abundance, generosity and radically inclusive love the same way initially; yet nonetheless serving each of them with divine humility and instructing them all to do the same for others… and sharing with all of them the extravagant gift of this enduring Spirit.

What if our fellowship gatherings were even more intentionally like these final meals Jesus shared with his friends?  What if in our missional service to young-adults in the campus community we were even more bold in reaching out to invite those who doubt, those who might criticize our ways, and those who might deny or betray us along with those who are faithful, humble, and willing to give and serve generously?  When gathering all of them for meals together – saints and sinners, devotees and doubters, critics and faithful servants alike -  how then will we pour out our lavish, loving support for them in ways that some might say is wasteful?  What if we approached each and every conversation with a young-adult at our common table as a precious and fleeting moment in which we have only this one chance to listen deeply to their concerns and offer them the best of what we have before they head off into the next critical transition in their life and we might never see them again?

It’s the fifth and final Sunday in Lent.  While we are with Mary at the feet of our Lord, anointing him with precious oil in anticipation of his death and burial while perhaps anticipating our own mortal struggles ahead… we are also with Isaiah, the Psalmist, and Paul, leaning toward a hope-filled future that is promised and experienced through the new life with the resurrected Christ. This particular year, this also happens to be a day we remember a saint named Patrick who broke free of slavery and choose a challenging life devoted to mission and evangelism.

For our college students, this is also their Spring Break.  While some are taking this week to grapple with important relationships or thoughts about their future, others are indulging in a little escape from impending responsibilities and big decisions. In all cases they are aware of how rapidly, but might not appreciate how wonderfully, their lives are changing.  We can help them realize that they’re evolving toward a new and hope-filled future despite the challenges of their current circumstances. 

May we leave here this morning considering how our own time-tested faith and hope can be poured out extravagantly on the young-adults in our communities through our campus ministries in ways that sanctify the precious moments we share with them, give them courage to grapple with the challenges imminently in front of them, and help them lean confidently toward what lies ahead, equipping them with practical and immediately-applicable trust in the truth of resurrection and promise of new life through Christ.

Let’s close with a prayer from the BCP (p. 829): God our Father, you see children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world: Show them that your ways give more life than the ways of the world, and that following you is better than chasing after selfish goals.  Help them to take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for a new start.  Give them strength to hold their faith in you, and to keep alive their joy in your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  AMEN.