from ireland to iraq

This week the focus of First Born Son is both Holy Week and the 5 Year Anniversary of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.

During my final semester of college as an English major, a combination of my best friend Kelly and one of my professors introduced me to what are still my three favorite Irish exports:

But of course, today is the day that most Americans (including me) count themselves Irish: St. Patrick's Day. One of my St. Pat’s day traditions - besides drinking a little extra Guinness - is to pull Thomas Cahill’s book How the Irish Saved Civilization off the shelf and read the chapter on the first missionary to Ireland: Saint Patrick.

His is the story of a man, who as a teenager living in England, was kidnapped and taken to be a slave in Ireland. Long story short, after six years of slaving away as a shepherd, he makes his way back home to England. After his return home, God calls him back to Ireland to be the first missionary of the Gospel to the Emerald Isle.

The man actually went back to share the love of Christ with the very people who sinned against him.

Two moments in Cahill's book always strike me. The first comes when he describes Saint Patrick as trying to show the Irish that "... the sword was not the only instrument for structuring a society." The second, is pointing out that the British Christians refused to see their Irish brothers as equals because they were not Roman citizens.

To break it down in simply, Saint Patrick shows us that it does not take (nor ever took) bombs and bullets to deal with Iraq, and that one does not need to be a certain nationality or citizenship to be treated as one created in the image of God.

Today is typically the day for most of us to wear green shirts, drink green beer, and don "kiss me I'm Irish" buttons (all of which real Irish detest by the way). But really it is a day to consider Ireland and the patron saint she gave the Body of Christ.

Ireland is a land that has known occupation, sectarian divide and terrorism. But I believe that the patron saint of the Emerald Isle can still teach us something about how to deal with the land of the wilted desert rose... Iraq.

Saint Patrick understood what “forgive your enemies” looked like. He also knew that the “less than human barbarians” of another country were actually those created in the image of God, and so instead of using a sword he came with the Gospel of peace.

That we in the United States would learn more from Saint Patrick about foreign policy than we do about green clothes and beer.

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.