Dear Parishioner,
Today’s first reading from Acts reminds me of my early days as an RE teacher, getting pupils to draw maps of St Paul’s missionary journeys around the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Looking back I wonder just what the educational value in such an exercise might have been – probably next to nothing if truth be told. The second reading from Apocalypse has a little more substance about it though it remains highly visionary and deeply symbolic and its precise interpretation is somewhat shrouded in mystery. It is only when we come to the gospel reading from John and read the new commandment to love one another as Jesus loved us that we get to the core implication for our own Christian calling. Of course it wasn’t an entirely new commandment but the context for it certainly was.
But let me return to St Paul or rather his companion on this journey, Barnabas, a young Jew from the island of Cyprus, originally called Joseph until he was given the name Barnabas by the apostles. This ‘son of encouragement’ was aptly named as he would in time exercise great influence over Paul, who as Saul was the early church’s grand inquisitor and who had no equal as a persecutor of the church. Even after his conversion and several years in the desert in quiet reflection, Paul was treated with not a little bit of suspicion by Peter and the other apostles. But it was Barnabas who would take Paul under his wing, inviting Paul to assist him in the early Christian church in Antioch, the then capital of Syria. And it was in Antioch that the followers of Christ were first known as Christians. Clearly Barnabas and Paul fulfilled the command of Jesus: “By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
Barnabas and Paul travelled widely together, as the missionary journeys testify: “They put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in faith.” Paul in turn would extend to others the encouragement he received from Barnabas. Barnabas looked beyond the man who was the persecutor and looked into the heart of a man who was struggling to be a disciple. He didn’t do it at a distance or remotely but he did it by staying with him for 1,400 miles of travelling around the Med and preaching. That is a lot of encouragement. Barnabas lived up to his name by helping Paul live up to his new name, as an apostle of Jesus Christ. We can all bless God for the people who invested in us, who never gave up on us and who encouraged us to be who we are. As for my students’ map drawing in the classroom, I guess I never really understood then what I do now so maybe it turned out not to be such a futile exercise after all.
Deacon Alex
