ST. BRENDAN THE NAVIGATOR for Feast Day, May 16
Have you ever met someone from Christian history that has captured your imagination and has influenced your life? Like you, I too have had that experience.
About seventeen years ago, while in seminary, I became enamored with the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon saints and the idea of peregrinatio, the desire to travel to the place of one’s resurrection and to experience personal resurrection not only in heaven, but also on earth. This journey would be dependent upon Christ as their companion and guide. During the early days of my pilgrimage into Celtic Christianity, I came across the great Irish saint, Brendan the Navigator, also known as St. Brendan of Clonfert. I was smitten and I just knew I had met a soul mate through that thin veil of the ages.
There are two aspects of this saint that pulled at my heartstrings. First of all, St. Brendan seems to have been possessed with the DNA for wanderlust, like many Celtic saints both past and present. I too seem to have born with the powerful pull of wanderlust. My parents used to joke that my middle name was “go.” St. Brendan and his disciples would construct a coracle, a boat with a basket-like frame of wood, covered with animal hides softened with butter, and covered in pitch. Then these voyagers would fast and pray, clamber into their little handmade boat with St. Brendan saying as they set sail: “Is not the Lord our captain and helmsman? Then leave it to Him to direct us where He wills.”
Secondly, I have a name very similar to his, “Brenda.” I have always been more than a bit ambivalent about my name as it seemed that only 1950’s TV stars with teased and overly sprayed beehive hair had this rather unsophisticated name. Having a name derived from St. Brendan’s has provided a better appreciation for the moniker carefully chosen by my parents.
As I began to read and study more about my namesake, I discovered that Brendan was born about 484 AD to Christian parents, Findlug and Ciara in southwestern Ireland in County Kerry near Tralee. As is typical of early nativity stories about Celtic saints before their birth, his mother had a vision that the child in her womb was filled with the Spirit. On the day of his birth, Bishop Erc, who was baptized by St. Patrick, saw Brendan’s birthplace aglow with an angelic presence surrounding that place and immediately he went there to hold this very special baby. This little one was first named Mobi, but his name was changed to Braenfiend (Brendan) meaning “fair drop or white mist.”
Picture of St. Brendan and his crew celebrating Easter on a whale. Whales: Anonymous after Hendrick Goltzius, Stranded Whale at Zandvoort, 1594. Harvard Art Museum, Light Outerbridge Collection, Richard Norton Memorial Fund; British Library Manuscripts Harley 3244 & 4751.
Bishop Erc at Ardfert baptized Brendan. This Bishop who was known as one of the founders of monasticism in Ireland would later become Brendan’s mentor teaching him both Latin and Hebrew. Yet as a young child, he was given by his parents to Abbess Ita of the convent of Kileedy in County Limerick to be trained and educated for about six years. Like the Druids, St. Ita taught in triads. Brendan is believed to have asked her what three things God loved best and she answered: “Faith in God with a pure heart, a simple life with a religious spirit, and generosity with love.” She also told him the three things God most detested were a scowling face, obstinacy in wrongdoing, and too great a confidence in the power of money.
Brendan had that Celtic need for travel and to explore. His Bishop Erc eventually gave him permission to leave the monastic lands, but Brendan had to promise to return so that the Bishop could ordain him. On that first journey, Brendan travelled to Skellig Michael, Arans, Strathclyde, Cumbria, and maybe even Wales.
Brendan then set up his famous monastery at Clonfert in about 559. It has been said that at one time there were 3,000 monks in residence there. He later founded other monasteries including Ardfert in Kerry, Inishdadroum in Clare, and Annaghdown in Galway where his sister Brig was the Abbess.
With that wanderlust still burning in his soul, Brendan yearned to find the Promised Land of the Saints. On this adventure he and his fellow voyagers encountered all kinds of interesting sea creatures and scary sea monsters. They even celebrated Easter on what they thought was an island, but it was a whale! They later came upon something they had never seen before, an iceberg. These Celts with a great love for God’s magnificent creation were so amazed by this gigantic ice island that they spent a whole day inspecting and measuring this phenomenon. Brendan declared, “let us inspect the wonders of God, our Maker.” It was on this journey that it is thought that Brendan and his crew even travelled to Iceland and North America, discovering them long before the Vikings or Christopher Columbus.
Adomnan, an historian and early Abbot of Iona wrote that Brendan even visited the famous St. Columba of Iona on the island of Hinba and St. Malo in Brittany. He also travelled to Brittany in France and the Orkney and Shetland Islands off of Scotland.
At the end of Brendan’s life in 577 or 578, he blessed his sister Abbess Brig and his followers, committed his spirit to God, and then died at his church at Clonfert. He is considered to be one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.
Perhaps you too have discovered a saint or a person in Christian history that has touched your life. You may even have a similar name to a saint that you admire. When a saint captures your imagination, pay attention to this little tug at your heart. This may be a calling into a new soulful season of your life’s pilgrimage.
Let us with great faith and a bit of Brendan’s adventuresome spirit clamber into our little coracle and ask the Spirit to blow us to places we never dreamed or imagined!
Rev. Brenda G. Warren is an ordained Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) pastor. She invites us to journey with Celtic and Anglo-Saxon saints at www. saintsbridge.org.
Kitchen Scene With The Supper In Emmaus Diego Velazquez (public Domain)
by Christine Sine
A couple of weeks ago our rector preached about the disciples meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus. He began by talking about Diego Velázquez’s painting The Kitchen Maid. Here the two Emmaus disciples are vaguely seen in the background seated at the table with the Resurrected Christ. In the foreground, is a nameless servant girl, dark complexioned, obviously Middle Eastern, probably of low status, possibly a slave. Velázquez portrays her as the first in the house to recognize the risen Christ whom she is serving. What a moment! what an incredible revelation!
Some of us are quick to say “but it’s not Biblical” and it is true, there is no servant girl in the Biblical narrative but there must have been serving girls and kitchen maids. These were the women not usually noticed by men unless they were being blamed or used.
Yet I think Velázquez has it right. These are the ones to whom Jesus first appeared. There was Mary, the mother of Jesus, a young single pregnant woman who could have been stoned for her seeming indiscretion. There was Mary Magdalene whom we talked about last week, and the woman at the well that Jeannie Kendall reflected on.
The Biblical figure that comes most vividly to mind when I reflect on this painting is Mary the sister of Lazarus. She wanted to sit at Jesus feet and learn from him just as the men were able to learn, but even her sister Martha wanted to relegate her to the role of servant. (Luke 10:38-42) When Jesus says that Mary has chosen the one thing that matters he is really becoming an advocate for bringing women out of the shadows into the place of education. Basically he is saying: Mary wants to learn from me, just as the men do, that is all that really matters for both men and women.
It seems to me that the young kitchen maid represents all the women throughout history that Jesus has liberated from slavery, abuse and inequality. These women are often the first to recognize the risen Christ, yet we so often try to push them back into the places of slavery. The domination of women by men was a consequence of the fall and the brokenness of humankind. (Genesis 3:16). Yet our society and many of our churches seem to want to maintain this brokenness. Men still want to dominate women and we let it happen. From the sex trade to unequal wages, from the refusal to allow women in leadership to the lack of maternity leave, the rules are still against equality for women. Women as sex symbols still sell everything from cars to shampoo. Some even believe that because the Bible has been translated by men over most of its history, discrimination has been perpetuated in our interpretations.
I love the way The Voice translates Adam’s response to the creation of Eve in Genesis 2:23 At last, a suitable companion, a perfect partner. Bone from my bones. Flesh from my flesh. My husband says that not treating me as an equal diminishes him. Not allowing the gifts God has given me to fully develop is like cutting off one of his arms or a leg.
What Is Your Response?
This post is part of a series I felt God prompt me to write on women in the Bible and in the church. Recovering God’s perspective of freedom and equality as it relates to the relationships between men and women has been liberating for me and I know that it is time for me to speak out more strongly. Like most women in the church I am still confronted with inequality at times, but have the privilege of freedom in ways that many women will never have. I still remember the medic in the refugee camps in Thailand who said” You give me hope that one day my daughters will have the same freedom you do.”
Which scriptures come to mind when you think about God’s view of women and their place in the church? How have you been an advocate for equality? Are there ways that God might ask you too to speak out more strongly in support of those who are still pushed into the shadows?
An AHA moment on Mother’s Day [illustration by Dave Baab]
by Lynne Baab
The setting: the worship service on Mother’s Day a couple of decades ago.
The AHA moment: the prayer that gave permission for people to struggle on that day.
About 20 years ago on Mother’s Day, my good friend and colleague was leading the prayer time in the worship service. Over the years, I had sat through many prayers on Mother’s Day that expressed thanks to God for mothers, a good thing to do. This was the first time I heard a prayer that expressed those appropriate thanks to God, but also acknowledged that Mother’s Day is hard for some people. My friend mentioned couples who struggle with infertility or had lost a child, women who were single and wished to be married and have children, and those who had difficult relationships with their own mothers or their children.
It truly was an AHA moment for me. For various reasons I had never liked Mother’s Day very much, and here was someone naming some of my ambivalence and struggle. Her words conveyed such freedom and acceptance to me.
Right now I’m teaching an online class for Hope International University on leading communal spiritual practices. In some of our online discussion we have talked about the fact that all leaders of communal spiritual practices need to lay out the goal and structure of various practices with optimism for the great experience spiritual practices offer. However, at the same time, leaders need to affirm that people come into those practices with diverse feelings, and they will have different experiences as they engage in the practices as well.
As leaders in any setting, we have to make room for people to talk about, pray about, and think about their gratitude for the great blessings they experience, as well as the sadness, sense of loss, and unfulfilled longings they experience. Both are real. Both sets of feelings can and should be brought into God’s presence.
With respect to motherhood, I suspect most mothers have at least some mixed feelings, no matter how much they appreciate the gift of children. In the previous paragraph, I mentioned feelings of great blessing, sadness, sense of loss, and unfulfilled longings. I suspect that most mothers experience all of those at various times. I know I did when my children were still living at home. Sometimes I still do.
Many people have experienced great blessing, sadness, sense of loss, and unfulfilled longings related to their relationship (or lack thereof) with their own mother.
What does it look like in Christian spirituality to praise God for the good gifts we experience and also allow honest expression of the thoughts and emotions we consider to be negative? What does it look like to encourage thankfulness and praise, while also giving people permission to pray and talk about the struggles?
And what does it look like for someone who loves Mother’s Day to make room for those who experience the day as a mixed blessing? And vice versa?
The Psalms provide a powerful model for the movement between thanks, praise, sadness, anger, loss, and lament. I’ve been praying the Psalms for many years, and the variety of emotions in the Psalms has helped me bring my own mixed and complex emotions into God’s presence so many times.
But what about those emotions expressed in the Psalms that we’re not feeling? Someone once told me that whenever we come across an emotion in a psalm that we’re not feeling, we can pray that verse on behalf of the people around the world who are having that experience.
I wonder if we could adopt that strategy on Mother’s Day. In prayer, we can express our own emotions about the day, but we can also enter into the feelings of those who experience the day differently. The Psalms model God’s welcome of everything we feel, as well as God’s compassion for those whose experience is different from ours.
Swans Craig Goodwin http://www.craiggoodwinphoto.com/ Used with permission.
by Emma Morgan
Opening Prayer
God with a mother’s heart,
You gather us as your children.
You comfort and hold us in your warm embrace.
When we hurt your arms enfold us.
When we are afraid your wings protect us.
When we are hungry you feed us with the bread of life.
God with a mother’s heart,
Your love surrounds and supports us,
In good times and in tough,
In the midst of joy and pain,
Always and everywhere.
You will never leave nor abandon us.
God eternal and loving one,
God with a mother’s heart,
We thank you this day,
For being part of your family.
(prayer by Christine Sine)
Communion
Set up: Farmhouse style table setting eg. buttered scones, oat biscuits, a big jug of red juice, a display with eggs, fruit and vegetables in a basket.
Remember when Jesus gathered the children on his knees? (Matt 19:14)
Remember when Jesus said “How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” (Luke 13:34)
Remember when Jesus said ‘Come to me.. and I will give you rest.’ (Matt 11:28)
With Jesus’ spirit close to all those who call on him, we come to Him now.
Let us read together:
Jesus we invite you this table
Stay with us
Be our guest and also our host
May we know you at this table
In the sharing of this meal.
Come and take some food and drink and hold onto it so we can enjoy it together.
Serve food and drink and play relaxing music.
Let us breathe in the goodness of this moment, the rest of Jesus in this moment.
Space for reflection.
The Lord Jesus, on the eve of His death, shared a meal with His followers.
Taking the bread, He gave thanks, broke it, and offered it to them with these words:
This is My body broken for you. Remember Me whenever you eat.
After the meal, taking the cup of wine,
He gave thanks, and offered it to them with these words:
This is My blood poured out for you, Remember Me whenever you drink.
And so, we eat and drink in memory of Jesus and His great love.
And in this simple meal
We acknowledge the living Jesus.
We celebrate the life and rest he gives us, even today.
The meal is enjoyed.
Communion liturgy taken in part from A Communion Liturgy for Palm Sunday
Blessing on all the Women in our community
A basket of chocolates is taken around to all the women and girls of the community.
We have a gift for all the women and girls in this room this mother’s day. We are blessed by all you give to this community and to the communities around you. Enjoy these treats as we pray a blessing on you.
Prayer of Blessing in honor of Women
God of Sarah and Hagar, Naomi and Ruth, Esther and Deborah,
God of Mary and Elizabeth, Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene, Lydia,
and all the unnamed women of scripture,
as you anointed these women with the oil of faith and calling,
so anoint women everywhere.
as you blessed these women with finding the courage and strength, persistence and perseverance within them, so bless women everywhere.
as you transformed the world through the vision and work of these women,
continue to transform the world through the vision and work of good women everywhere.
From Australia to India, from Russia to Uganda, (alteration to original)
May women continue to form and build community in ways that birth justice, love and peace among us.
In gestation and through the laboring, keep them focused, strong, steadfast and unwavering.
God, bless the women who continue to work tirelessly, often unnoticed,
but full of beauty and power, for all manner of good.
Continue to make them vessels of your sustenance; instruments of your peace; an inspiration to all. Amen
(Prayer by Erin Matteson.)
by Lilly Lewin
I have found myself whining a bit more that usual this week… about the stress of politics, the stress of dealing with an old dog on his last leg, about my lack of productivity and the fact that my to do list keeps getting longer rather than shorter. Recently I read somewhere that May is one of the most stressful months of the year. In the states, it’s usually the mad dash of end of school activities before summer begins. And sadly we no longer have the lazy days of summer; instead there are camps, swimming lessons, work, conferences, family trips, and DIY projects that fill up the calendar. Sometimes we just need to stop and rest! We all need to be a little more like Mary and a lot less like Martha. Take some time this weekend to sit with Jesus and just BE. And make the time in the next few weeks to be more Maryesque and less Marthaish
SITTING WITH JESUS
LUKE 10: 38-42 At the Home of Martha and Mary
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Are you too busy to sit with Jesus?
Are you too busy complaining about other people to just BE with Jesus?
SIT DOWN
Consider all the conversations happening in this passage.
Those in the kitchen, those in the living room.
What about the disciples? Are they hanging out with Jesus too?
Or are they looking for snacks in Martha’s kitchen?
Are they getting in her way?
Is Martha whining to herself before she confronts Jesus?
Or is she whining to someone else?
Where are you in this story?
Are you in the Kitchen working hard?
Or are you sitting at the feet of Jesus being present with Him?
Consider how you are living right now.
Are you really being present with Jesus?
Or are you just whining in the kitchen?
Are you complaining that others aren’t helping you?
Do you really just need to STOP and rest in the presence and love of JESUS?
Sit down here with Jesus and BE PRESENT.
Have a conversation.
Take the Time.
Put away your whining and your busyness.
BE WITH JESUS!
REST
BE STILL
SIT with Jesus and Listen to Him
BE WITH JESUS!
This is the REST station from the “At the Table with Jesus” Sacred Space prayer experience. found at freerangeworship.com
By Inspiration takes time I think. Being present to what IS. Seeing, hearing, touching, tasting what is already there as if with new eyes, new ears, new hands, new lips – appreciating with reverence and joy or delight the sacredness of ordinary things. In this way: rocket from a friends garden, dived potatoes and tomatoes, eggs picked up by a housemate who also brings back that first coffee of the day. The meal is symbolic of more than the sum of its parts, overtones of love and life, aromas of sharing and community, flavour and savour more than mere fuel. I wish everyone’s life could be made up of recognising these things that make life worth living… we get busy and we get blind.
I will taste the joy of being awake.
by Shonnie Scott
“The 21st century agents of change—across the world—are women,” Dr. Salim Munayer announced in a slow, deliberate, hear-this-if-you-don’t-hear-anything-else voice at a conference. Dr. Munayer is an Arab Christian who grew up in Israel, a renowned missiologist, and an authority on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and reconciliation. Such an audacious and unforgettably empowering declaration from such an impressive man sent a shiver down to my toes. Not of trepidation; it was rather a jolt of conviction, responsibility, and courage. Boom!
At the time, I was in the thick of nurturing a fledgling congregation. Talk about serving as a change agent! Women church planters are still a very, very small group amongst pastors, but there are at least five reasons the world needs more women church planters serving as God’s change agents.
1. Women church planters are a real-time demonstration of God’s original, very-good plan for humans—that at creation, men and women were given an equal responsibility to bear God’s image, have dominion/”rule” over creation, and be fruitful. As a woman pastor, I have never thought of my ministry as a “right” or “equal opportunity,” but rather as a God-given, ordained-at-creation equal responsibility (Gen 1:26-28).
I say “yes!” to whatever assignment God gives me. Period. Women church planters are a living testimony to the world of what it looks like when men and women take equal and full responsibility to become all God intended, and partner alongside each other to fulfill God’s mission—God’s kingdom come and will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!
2. The church may have travelled through a couple millennia accustomed to mostly male leadership, but history is on an irreversible redemptive trajectory, fueled by the incomparably great power of Christ’s resurrection (Eph 1:19). And we are presently living in the “afterward” the prophet Joel spoke about (Joel 2:28, 29), and Luke repeated in Acts 2:17-18: “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy… Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”
Not only will women prophesy, they will exercise all the Spirit’s gifts alongside men. Nowhere does the New Testament mention gender-specific Spirit-gifts.
3. Women are extraordinary models of courage and obedience when they say “yes!” to God. Deborah, Esther, Mary who birthed Jesus, Mary Magdalene, first to return to Jesus’ tomb and witness to his resurrection, just to name a few biblical examples. God’s call on women for extraordinary assignments subverts and surprises a patriarchal world. Humans look at outward appearances (including gender) but God looks at the heart (1 Sam 16:7). Some think that history-making, change-agent women are the rare exceptions, yet over and over in Scripture and history, ordinary and unlikely women are lynchpins in fulfilling God’s mission.
“We have seen it in so many places: When things get rough, when things are at their worst, when everyone else flees or is in hiding, very often it is the women who stand up, offering themselves, becoming completely vulnerable as they submit to the risk of death. That is indeed their strength and their power.” (Jim Wallis, “While the Men Were in Hiding, Women Delivered the Greatest News the World Has Ever Known“).
4. Having been on the receiving end of oppression and discrimination, women are experientially positioned to identify with other marginalized and less-empowered humans, and vice versa. The least, last, and lost often experience women as safer and more credible than men because there is an unspoken understanding: “you have walked in my shoes.” Everywhere we look, past and present, Christ-following women are on the frontlines of the hard, slow, heart-wrenching work of justice ministry. Women church planters are especially primed to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly” (Micah 6:8).
5. Out of necessity or limited options, women often go or are sent and are willing to minister in less popular, more challenging places. For example, in the early 1800s, opportunities for single women to support themselves through full time ministry in the US were almost non-existent. That, combined with significant public opposition, prompted the movement of many single women overseas to the foreign mission field where they were far away from church hierarchy. From the church’s perspective, they were “out of sight, out of mind,” but God was powerfully using these willing laborers! Today, women are disproportionately called or sent to smaller, aging, and/or rural congregations. Women tend to be drawn to difficult and dangerous pioneering work. It’s a good thing because “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few!”(Luke 10:2).
These are just a few reasons the world needs more women church planters, and why women church planters are mission-critical change agents in the kingdom. While women planters may encounter resistance, they must remember this truth spoken of Peter and the apostles by the wise Gamaliel: “Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:38-39). God is calling women church planters to be unstoppable change agents! And when God is for us, who can be against us?
Further recommended reading:
Mary Kate Morse: https://www.faithandleadership.com/marykate-morse-how-women-plant-churches
Karina Kreminski: http://juniaproject.com/why-women-make-excellent-church-planters/
Carolyn Cutsis James: http://www.missioalliance.org/indispensable-women-plant-churches/
Shonnie Scott (MA Fuller ’87, DMin Portland Seminary 2010) most recently spent 6.5 years as a solo lead pastor, launching the first satellite campus of Bethany Community Church in Seattle. Her passion is serving as a pastor, mentor, and spiritual director to women pastors and church planters everywhere!
This article was first published on the CBE blog
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