Barnabas

Barnabas

Acts 9:26-30

So, do you believe that people can change? Let’s put some flesh and bone on this question.  Walk with me…

You go to your high school reunion.  Has it been 25 years? 35 years?  50 years?  You feel the butterflies that are always there when you are about to see people whom you have not seen for a long, long time. Then, as you walk through the door, you see him—the guy who bullied and tormented you years ago and he’s walking toward you with your name on his lips and his hand extended for a shake.  Do you trust the smile on his face?  (Didn’t he used to smile like that just before he said something mean?)  Do you trust the feeling deep in your gut, the one that is screaming, “Run!”  Jeez, it’s not like he was a murderer.  He was just a mean kid.  Does that mean he’s a mean adult?

You know you’ve changed (kind of…) but has he? What you really know is that you haven’t changed that much, not deep down.  What you also know, as a grown up, is that you probably did some hurtful things yourself, things that probably hurt that person way more than you ever dreamed.  What if someone was at the reunion dreading seeing you?

That’s the thing.  It turns out it wasn’t your name on the bully’s lips.  He was introducing himself and asking for your name.  It turns out he is the co-chair of the reunion.  It turns out he had no idea who you are.  Stunningly, when you do introduce yourself, he still has no idea who you are.  He just waves you over to the sign-in table and encourages you to fill out a name tag to help all the other people who won’t remember who you are.

Now, name tag in place, you head into the gym—the place where you wore that terrible uniform that looked good on absolutely no one.  Holy Cow!  The first person you see in there is your old high school sweetheart, the one who not only broke your heart but who then, seemingly, did the “macarana” or the "electric slide” or maybe it was the “hustle" on it all the way down the hall.  Boy, have they aged! (Not you, though, right!)  Still, it stings to see them.  You can’t help but find yourself awash in old feelings.  As you walk toward them and hold out your hand, you see the look in their eyes—the cringe of recognition.  They remember but the question is how have we changed?  It turns out they start the conversation by showing your pictures of their grandchildren.  Okay…maybe they’ve changed after all…

Then comes the most complicated reunion of all.  The person you see isn’t someone you have old feelings for or someone who makes you wonder how they’ve changed over the years.  No, you had a problem with this person last week.  It was at an intersection in the town where you live, a tricky intersection at that.  As you rounded the corner into the intersection, you could swear the other driver, the one who was about to turn left in front of you, was watching you the whole time—and then he pulled right out in front of you anyway.  You slammed on your breaks.  He slammed on his.  You stopped inches from one another.  You screamed.  He screamed.  If looks could kill, there would have been two dead drivers.  Instead, there were two perfectly alive people turning their fear into anger, unloading on one another.  And then…you both drove on.

Honestly, you couldn’t even remember the face of that other driver until the moment you saw it again—in the gym, the guy talking to your spouse.  He recognized you, too.  That was clear.  So, when your spouse excuses themselves, you are left standing and staring at one another.  You eye each other up, each looking and thinking, “That’s the person who almost killed me!”  After a long, icy silence, it’s not you who speaks.  It’s that guy:  “I’m sorry.  I was wrong to pull out like that…” “You know,” you say, “I didn’t help matters by reacting that way.  I’m sorry, too.”  You let bygones be bygones and decide together that in a bad moment when you both were at your worst, you were really very lucky to be no worse for the wear.

Do you believe in change?  Can people take responsibility for the hurt that they caused a long time ago and ask each other for forgiveness?  Perhaps way more challengingly, can we take responsibility for hurts caused more recently—whether you caused them and I made them worse or I caused them and you made them worse—and find a way through?  Can we let go of the past and stand at all sorts of “reunion” moments in life and let go of the past?  Think before you answer this question.  This is way harder than it seems.

Okay…now imagine this.  Imagine that you are one of the relative handful of people in Jerusalem who are followers of the Way, the way of living that Jesus of Nazareth taught.  He lived this amazing life and died a terrible death and then, somehow, some way, rose again.  You didn’t see it for yourself but it turns out that seeing wasn’t necessary for believing after all.  The good news that Jesus lived and preached was enough to crack your heart open.  And it turns out that all the Holy Spirit needs is a crack to find a way in.

The truth was that nothing had been easy from that point on. Your family was divided between those who believed and those who didn’t.  You found yourself pooling your resources with fellow believers who previously would have been known as “the people who annoy me” or “the people I don’t trust.”  Now, they are your brothers and sisters because you forgave each other and because you do believe in change after all.  All that was challenging enough.  Then, some of those brothers and sisters were dragged away by the authorities.  It was a power thing, not a religious thing.  You knew that.  You knew at the same time that those brothers and sisters were suffering behind bars, simply because the authorities were threatened.  Your newfound faith insisted that you not hate.  “God forgive me,” you prayed, “How can I not hate people who do things like that?”

As is so often the case, a person emerged as the face of those authorities and their terrible persecution.  The man’s name was Saul.  He was from Tarsus.  Saul earned his reputation.  He dragged people, old and young, from their homes with the vengeance of someone who was eradicating a disease.  He was ruthless.  If you listened to him, he’d tell you that he was only doing what the law required.  If you looked in his eye, though, you could tell—this man loves this.  You pray, “God forgive me!  How can I not hate Saul?”

That’s the problem in a nutshell.  Pretty much everyone who was a follower of Christ in Jerusalem had lost someone to Saul’s purge—a friend, a brother, a sister, a mom or a dad.  Try forgiving someone who harms people like that in your life.  The only good news that had been received in a long time for those followers of Christ in Jerusalem was that Saul had left town.  He was headed to Damascus to hunt down Christians.  You pray, “God forgive me!  Please protect my brothers and sisters there!”

In the midst of that moment of finally being able to breathe, just a little bit easier, word began to filter back to Jerusalem.  Something had happened to Saul on the road, something crazy.  Rumors spread about a voice from on high.  Word was that Saul was now blind.  “God, forgive me,” you pray, “but way to go, God! I thought the rule was to love our enemies but, way to go!”

That prayer was short lived.  One day, you were with the disciples for the daily meeting and worship.  You heard a rustling at the door.  You panic, just a little bit, wondering if the authorities have found you.  It turns out, though, that the authorities have not found you, not a group of them, anyway.  No, the authority has found you—Saul.  He tries to speak but everyone is terrified.  For a second, you see something different about him.  However, in a flash  he turns and heads out the door.  He doesn’t even try to arrest anyone.  He just leaves.  

Then, he comes back.  This time, he is accompanied by someone whom you all trust, Barnabas.  He was known as “the encourager” even then.  When everyone else was down, Barnabas pulled everyone back up.  The help he had offered every person in that room was like money in the bank, credit that Barnabas was now about to cash in on Saul’s behalf.

The Barnabas’s of this life are so important.  There are the Saul’s who have the “wake up” moment.  There are the Ananias’s who stand ready to go where they don’t want to go and do what they don’t want to do.  Then, there are the Barnabas’s who look us in the eye and say, “You can do this!” and who look a whole group of people in their eyes and say, “You all are better than that! Take another look!  Think again!”  This particular Barnabas would play this role for Saul for the rest of Saul’s life.  

Who is your Barnabas?  I remember Bud Beattie for years would put a little cash in a Christmas card to me.  He always signed it, “Barnabas.”  He knew that we had both read the book!  In the last year, while preaching into the void, the slightest word of encouragement has meant so much.  Thank you, each and every one of you “Barnabas” like members of this church!  Who encourages you?  Who lifts you up when you’re down?  Who looks you in the eye and says, “You’ve got this?”

Here’s an even better question:  who depends on you to be their Barnabas?  Are you willing to see just how sacred of a role it can be to be an encourager in this life?  At the same time, when was the last time you rose and challenged a whole group of people to take another look at someone and give them another chance?  Sometimes, a whole host of good things that might happen depend on someone being willing to take a stand and make sure that someone who has taken a good turn in their life gets a chance to do the good that is their’s to do.

Whether you are a frequent Barnabas or not—someone who promotes a changed person who is ready to make more change—we have all been in the crowd of people for whom the central question is:  do we believe in change at all.  Can a bully turn into a fellow alum?  Can an old significant other who broke my heart be someone with whom I share the delight of grandparenting?  Can the guy who almost hit me last week become the guy with whom I discover a better way of being in this world?  Can Saul really turn into Paul?

Barnabas rises and makes his case.  “Did you hear what happened to Saul on the road, that man was a sinner, right?  Did you hear about Ananias’s response to God’s calling? That man’s a saint, right?  Here’s the deal:  God loved them both and called them both to do what they needed to do, as a matter of faith.  Here’s what we need to do:  we need to trust what God can do and do the next impossible thing; we need to learn to love and trust Saul.”

We don’t know exactly what Barnabas said but we know exactly what the disciples did:  they welcomed their new brother, Paul, into their shared life as disciples of Christ.