There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

This passage (verse 28) from the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians reminds me of the saying, “Everybody is Irish on St. Paddy’s Day.”

It couldn’t have been more true concerning my mother, Emma. She was born over a German bakery in Jersey City, New Jersey. But around this time of year something special happened.

Her birthday was on St. Paddy’s Day, so the whole house went green. She became the biggest German Leprechaun you ever saw!

In his letter to the church at Galatia, Paul reminds us that all who are baptized into Christ Jesus, become part of his family. Looking at the life of St. Patrick, I see a prime example. A lot of folk don’t know that he was not Irish. He was born in England. However, as a young man he was brought to the Emerald Isle as a slave. Upon his escape he would study for the priesthood and chose to voluntarily return to the place of his enslavement. Can you imagine Sen. John McCain, who spent time as a P.O.W. in the Hanoi Hilton wanting to return to Vietnam?

My mother was raised by Germans. With family names like Fausak and Wittlieb you don’t get more Deutsch. An amputee, she walked with a cane. At times if she wanted me to understand something, she would put up that cane. “Versteh’?” (fer shtay?) she would bark. Let me tell you, when I saw that cane, I “verstood” real fast. “Ja Mutter, Ich weiss!”

But for Saint Patty’s day the whole house went green, because it was her birthday.

I’d like to think in the promise of our baptism, cultural, sexual, racial and religious lines fall away. Each is reborn a child of God in baptism. Around my neck I wear a souvenir of my trip to the holy land. It is a picture of Jesus, with a little capsule containing what I call “holy land from the holy land” It bears the red earth indicative of the area. I’ll never forget learning that every child, if it is healthy, starts out the same color, red. “Adamah,” from which we get out word “Adam” literally means, “taken from the red earth” It would be nice if we all realized our blood is the same color, wouldn’t it?

St. Patrick would use the three bladed shamrock as an illustration of the Trinity. Three people joined in the unity of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

One of my joys of pastoring was working in an ecumenical setting helping to organizing joint worship, food pantries, clothing drives, educational opportunities. and disaster relief. Like the leaves of the shamrock we worked together as one body. I’ll never forget how one Lent I and my protestant colleagues were asked to speak at the local St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church as part of a Lenten series. It was the first time that had happened in anybody’s memory.

Like St. Pat returning to the land in which he was a P.O.W., like my German Mom going green each St. Pat’s, may we see each day as a rebirth.

It has been said that holding on to anger and unforgiveness is like drinking poison, thinking it will kill the other person. May each day be truly a rebirth for us in Christ. I still remember my Mom singing the old hymn, “In the Garden.”

But I fear today too many want to sing it, “And he walks with me and he talks with me and to hell with everyone else.”

How may we live our lives so that others may see a power greater than ourselves at work in us?

This time of year I’ve seen sunglasses with lens shaped like shamrocks. I pray that each day we return to promise of our baptisms and look through shamrock shaped lens. That the three in oneness of God be our focus. May the Triune God who creates, forgives, strengthens, encourage us (place courage with in us) to be creative, forgiving, and strengthening to all, regardless of back ground or gender.

What lenses will you put on this morning? How you celebrate your rebirth in name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Together, like leaves of the same stem, let us create, forgive and strengthen, versteh?