Today’s Scripture Reading (November
16, 2014): Acts 16
Saint
Patrick was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, his father was a
church official and his grandfather was a priest in the Roman church. But when
Patrick was just sixteen, a group of Irish Raiders came to his home and
kidnapped Patrick. For the next six years, Patrick worked as a slave in
Ireland. Patrick had not been a strong believer in God, despite his upbringing,
when he was taken from his home. But over the next few years, the young man
would spend a lot of his time alone out in the field with the sheep. The
experience led him to revaluate his faith and renew his relationship with his
God.
After
spending six years in captivity, Patrick had a dream. In the dream he was told
that if he would go to the coast he would find a ship that could take him home.
The next day, Patrick left for the coast and found a British ship passing by
the place where he was. He was able to get the attention of the captain and to
negotiate his way on board. Finally, Patrick was heading for home.
When Patrick
arrived home, he began to prepare to follow in the steps of his grandfather and
he entered the priesthood. But then Patrick had another dream. Patrick records
the vision this way.
I saw a man coming, as it were
from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave
me one of them. I read the heading: "The Voice of the Irish". As I
began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very
people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and
they cried out, as with one voice: "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to
come and walk among us.
Later Patrick would call this moment his Macedonian call
moment.
Paul’s Macedonian call, this moment where he saw this man
from Macedonia who came to him in a dream and begging the Apostle to come to
Macedonia, has been a powerful image in the history of Christianity. Patrick’s
vision of a man from Ireland is heavily influence by Paul’s Macedonian Call.
Martin Luther King, Jr. also believed that his civil rights activity was also
his Macedonian Call. In his letter from Birmingham Jail, King tells his fellow
clergyman why it is that he must continue to press for civil rights for all
people – and why even his imprisonment cannot be allowed to stop him.
I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the
eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the
Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle
Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the
far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of
freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the
Macedonian call for aid.
And I have
personally known ministers and church leaders who have experienced a very
similar call on their lives. One friend tells the story of sitting in a hotel
room with another church leader waiting for him as the two had planned on going
out for supper together. But in the hotel room my friend said that he found
that he just couldn’t move as he experienced his own Macedonian Call.
And some
would argue that the image of the Macedonian Call is powerful precisely because
so many Christian leaders seem to have experienced it. A call to go and
minister that is clear and unmistakable – and one that the person cannot
ignore. The only response that seems appropriate to a Macedonian Call is to
simply say “yes, Lord, I will go.”
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading:
Galatians 1
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