ISAIAH 42:5-12

PSALM 112

ACTS 11:19-30;13:1-3

MATTHEW 10:7-16

Sermon – June 18, 2006

St. Barnabas and Us

So who was this guy Barnabas, for whom our church is named, and how can we benefit by learning from his example?

We actually know quite a bit about him, more than we do about most of the original twelve apostles, more, in fact, than about any people usually listed as apostles other than Peter and Paul.

We know a lot despite the fact that he was not one of the original twelve, so he didn’t hear Jesus’ speech to them quoted in today’s Gospel; in fact, he, like Paul, did not know Jesus before Jesus’ crucifixion at all. Unlike Paul, Barnabas also did not receive a personal visit and call to ministry from the resurrected Christ.

Nevertheless, in Acts 14:14, Luke refers to “the apostles Barnabas and Paul”, listing Barnabas first as the one with (at the time), higher rank. We know a lot about Barnabas also despite the fact that we have absolutely no genuine letters by him, unlike Paul, Peter and some other leaders of the early church.

So how do we know about him? Other people, namely Luke (author of The Acts of the Apostles) and Paul, refer to him a lot. So what was he like?

Well, if he had been a basketball player, he would have led the league in assists, not in points. He was all about making the whole team better, enabling it to work well together, and empowering every member of the team to do that person’s best.

Barnabas’ name is actually a nick-name, given to him by the original apostles; his name means “son of encouragement.” He was the kind of teammate everyone wants to have: skilled, hard-working, willing to sacrifice himself; he brought out the best in others, had lots of “intangibles,” leadership, and was not the one who tried to hog the spotlight or the glory.

His first act recorded in the Bible was an act of generosity: “He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet” (acts 4:34), and he wanted to be a part of that. He was a generous person, and trusted the church’s leadership with his gift, which had no strings attached.

Barnabas was the first person to become a leader of the infant Christian church – we’re talking a very brief time after the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ followers at Pentecost – who was a “second generation” believer. Since he had not known Jesus in his earthly life nor had he witnessed Christ’s resurrection personally, he had to rely totally on faith for his faith – faith in God, faith in Christ, and faith that what he did see in the behavior of Jesus’ followers represented the will of God. He was, therefore, the first leader of the Christian church who was in our situation, the one foreseen by Jesus when he said to Thomas on the Sunday after Easter, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29b). So it is that in today’s passage from Acts, Luke says of Barnabas that “he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.”

Barnabas was also, like us, not Palestinian. He was not only the first leader of the church not to have been an eye witness to Jesus’ ministry, he was the first to have come from a country which Jesus never visited, in his case, Cyprus. Given that Christians today live all over the world and Christian leaders live all over the world, we may forget that this development was not inevitable, but was Spirit-led. Some movements continued to be led by people who were from the same country as or even related to the originator of the movement. In Barnabas the original apostles saw the gifts of the Spirit for leadership as well as faith, and it was he who was commissioned by “the Church in Jerusalem” to go to Antioch and become, essentially, the first “missionary bishop” in Christian history. The original apostles were not, therefore, control freaks, and when they broadened the leadership circle they chose someone who, like them, was full of the Holy Spirit – not full of himself!

Barnabas had the gift of spiritual discernment. His place would be secure in Christian history if all he did was persuade the original apostles that Paul’s “conversion” to be a follower of Jesus was genuine. Luke writes of Paul, who had a long career of persecuting Christians, “When Paul had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.”

Can you imagine the consequences if Paul and the original apostles had never learned to work together? It is said that every child needs two gifts from her or his parents: “roots” and “wings.” We can now see how the infant Christian movement got its “roots” from the original apostles and its “wings” from St. Paul, but it was Barnabas who made that possible by bringing them together.

Barnabas was in many ways a “man in the middle,” mediating between the original apostles and Paul, between more traditional, all-Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and the increasingly cosmopolitan Gentile flocks of believers in the larger world, between the first and second generations of Christians, between “conservatives” and “liberals” on the issue of on what terms Gentiles could be included. Being the “man in the middle” between strong, divergent views can be hard. He pursued this ministry devoutly and with diligence.

Barnabas was a teacher, a preacher, an evangelist, a prophet, a missionary, and a developer of other leaders. Not only did Barnabas convince the original apostles that Paul’s conversion to be a follower of Jesus was genuine, Barnabas recruited him to be his assistant in Antioch. It takes a certain kind of person to recruit someone who is smarter and more eloquent than himself and would prove to have far more “upside potential” than himself to be his assistant, both in Antioch and on their first missionary journey! Some leaders pick assistants who will always make the leader look like the smartest person in the room. The really smart leaders will pick the best people. Barnabas did.

Can we be like Barnabas? Can we have faith and ask the Holy Spirit to fill us, strengthen us and guide us? Can we be generous with our time, our talents, and our treasure? Can we be open to the gifts that others bring to the “team” and work to the glory of God, not of ourselves, that the whole team may serve God and all God’s people to its fullest potential? Can we look to bring people with different positions on critical issues together to a solid shared middle ground and devote ourselves fully to the Gospel? Can we work, as he did, with people from many other countries to “build up the border of Christ” in the world?

Can we encourage others in their commitment to Christ and the love of others?

If we can do even most of these things we will do well. As Episcopalians, we do not pray to our patron saint, rather we give thanks to God for his example, and ask the Holy Spirit to “coach” us to bring out the best in each of us, just as the Spirit brought out the best in Barnabas.

Let us pray.

“Grant, O God, that we may follow the example of your faithful servant Barnabas, who, seeking not his own renown but the well-being of your church, gave generously of his life and substance for the relief of the poor and the spread of the Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.” Amen.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church