I used to visit Mt. St. Joseph Motherhouse in Cincinnati regularly. All the lounges in their retreat areas had multiple jigsaw puzzles. Curious, I asked why. The nuns replied that, besides being interesting and fun, jigsaw puzzles are good training tools to discern God’s voice. If you’ve worked jigsaw puzzles you know that part of the challenge is finding where the pieces go that only make sense once they are in place: you just can’t tell their importance until you see them joined to other pieces to make the picture.
Today’s reading from Acts is one of those very important, but nondescript looking, pieces of the puzzle of the spread of Christianity. Looking at it carefully can provide both understanding of the bigger picture of this part of Acts and some help to discern how God may be working today in my life and yours.
Let’s start with some background information. Last Tuesday we looked at Stephen’s martyrdom. Historians put the timing of that at 36 CE. Broader persecution of Christians in Jerusalem then pushed most of the Christian community into the surrounding countryside: Samaria and Judea—the areas in which Jesus had walked, talked, and healed. We have heard then in this past week of this first wave of spread of “the Way”: Philip’s conversion of the Ethiopian on the road to Gaza, Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, Peter’s work in Lydda, his raising up Dorcas, and yesterday the story of his vision that initiated the spread of Christianity to the Gentiles. This was a time of solid growth of the church within the boundaries Jesus himself had set. Christians did what Jesus did: they healed; they cast out demons; they taught; they lived in community.
Saturday’s scripture told us, “The Church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace.”
Meanwhile, between 36 CE and 41 CE, the time generally covered in today’s scripture, God was working needed other events to move Christianity beyond the land of Jesus. In 36 CE Caiaphas was replaced as high priest in Jerusalem, and Pontius Pilate was recalled to Rome for the way he handled some problems in Samaria. In 37 CE Tiberius was replaced as Emperor of Rome by Caligula—who was replaced by Claudius in 41 CE. Herod Agrippa, antagonistic to both Christians and Jews, was put in charge of the area where Christianity was growing. A severe famine caused by several years of drought also came upon these regions.
Meanwhile, God was ever so gradually introducing the concept of Christianity as a new religion, something beyond Judaism. There was Peter and Cornelius. The Jerusalem Christians questioned that, but then they accepted Peter’s testimony: the Holy Spirit was given to these Gentile Christians, therefore this action must be of God. But their conclusion was that Gentiles could be accepted into Judaism so they could then become Christians. Yesterday’s reading ended with “God has granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles, too.”
Enter our scripture from Acts today. Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire at this time. It and the island Cyprus were beyond the borders of where Jesus had walked. The Cypriots and Cyrenians in today’s reading were probably Hellenist Jews—that is, Jews who had always lived away from Jerusalem. Because they had lived in other areas, doubtless they were friends and neighbors with many Gentiles—Greeks or other nationalities. In goes a nondescript piece of the puzzle of how God was going to spread Christianity. “Those who had been scattered by the persecution that arose because of Stephen went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but Jews. There were some Cypriots and Cyrenians among them, however, who came to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks as well, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.”
Ordinary people witnessed to their friends. Their friends were converted. This was not the action of a leader, something momentous. It was the ordinary witness of ordinary people whose ordinary lives were made powerful, new, and joyful by their understanding of God that came through the person of Jesus Christ and their expression through the Holy Spirit of the meaning Jesus gave to their everyday existence.
This “movement of the people” was checked out by leadership—as popular movements in the Church have always been. Barnabas was sent to Antioch. “When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart, for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” Barnabas, representing the center church in Jerusalem and the leadership of the apostles, blessed this new development. But he also saw that people were practicing Christianity with limited knowledge. This city had never had Jesus walk its streets. These people did not have the Torah or history of personal relationship with God the Jews had had. They did not have apostles among them. So Barnabas brought Paul to them. Paul knew all things Jewish well and had had a powerful conversion experience. The two of them then stayed with the church in Antioch for a year.
Then comes the momentous sentence: “And it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.” No longer were they considered Jews who followed “the Way.” They were a new group, Christians.
As I consider all this, several thoughts come to my mind and heart: God was working in the background beyond the events that ordinary people could see. That work God was doing would doubtless have appeared as “bad news” to ordinary people of the time. Leadership that was at least not awful was replaced by leadership that was awful. Doubtless, if there had been news channels on TV in those days, there would have been numerous predictions of doom and gloom. That doom and gloom happened. Yet those events worked for the big picture of spreading Christianity because it pushed ordinary Christians to new places and new witness. It was bad news that was good news. What bad news today might, for the purposes of God, be working toward expanding God’s goodness in the world?
God also was using ordinary people combined with church leadership to create a new capacity of the church to reach beyond what had been known. How is God using me today to do that? How is God using the Church leadership?
Is the breakdown of the traditional family, for example, really working to help the cause of God? Is Pope Francis giving us new standards and models for living as family, for working with families, for matching Christianity to the needs and issues of the contemporary world, for witnessing as families?
The Gospel today from John includes Sunday’s Gospel. “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” What is Jesus’ voice saying to us today?
Hmm. It is something for me to pray seriously about as I live within my family, as I read “The Joy of Love,” and as I do the family work I do at my job. Is God speaking to me, to families, and to the Church to combine that which is well known and solid in Catholic teaching on the family with perspectives which are new, born of the persecution of the family in the 20th century, and challenging? Is God creating a puzzle piece so we as ordinary Christians might find a way to “add to the Lord” not only our lost children, but many others?
Prayer:
Lord, today I pray for the gifts of Barnabas. Barnabas was such a builder of bridges between people. He could go to Antioch with both an open mind and solid understanding of what following Jesus meant. He was well formed in the known, the Jewish way to do Christianity, and he was open to something new–Gentiles. He was prudent. He did not just endorse something new; he saw the need for these new Christians to have solid foundations for their beliefs and practice. Make me like Barnabas as I live Christianity today. Give me gifts of the Holy Spirit as I work with troubled families, as I work with the elderly who often have no children still connected to the Church, as I continue to learn what it means to be Christian through prayer and Church. What does a Christian look like today in Frankfort, Kentucky, USA? Help me to be that person and so live my faith that others may be “added to the Lord” because of how I practice and teach the Way, Your way.
Link to today’s readings: Acts 11:19-26, from Psalm 8, John 22-30.
