The Salt and Light of St. Barnabas, Memorial of St. Barnabas, June 11, 2019

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Barnabas
June 11, 2019
Acts 11:21-26.12:1-3, Ps 98, Mt 5:13-16

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• It’s very intriguing that Jesus calls his disciples “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” at the beginning of his public ministry as we see here at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount right after the Beatitudes (which we would have heard yesterday if it were not the Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church). At this point the disciples were “barely” his disciples. It points to something, I think, very powerful. That almost by nature we’re called to be salt and light. Human beings are supposed to exhibit the properties of salt and light. Christians, true disciples of Jesus, should live these identities and carry out these missions all the more. Let’s see how.
• In the ancient world, salt had three purposes. The first was as a preservative. There was no refrigeration in ancient Palestine and so to preserve meat or fish from corruption, they covered it with salt. This points to how Christ came into our world in order to prevent our corruption and has sent us out to help others from going bad. The second purpose was as a fire starter. There was no lighter fluid or starter wood for fires in the ancient world. What they’d do is take dung and mix it with salt and light these salted dung pellets on fire. Alone, dung wouldn’t ignite, but the salt would get the whole thing started and once the dung was lit, it could burn hot for a long time. (One of the things I’ve learned from my work at the UN is that in some poorer regions of the world, dung remains used as fuel). In a similar way, Christ has come into the world in order to light a fire on earth and longs for it to be enkindled in us so that he can send us out to light the world on fire. Christians are supposed to be a fire starter. The third function was what we still use salt for today, to give flavor. A little bit of salt can make a big difference between tasty or bland food. In a similar way, Christ came to give meaning to all experiences, no matter how bland or bitter, giving us his life to the full and instilling in us his joy. Christians, marked in this way by Christ’s mercy, are meant to bring this flavor, personality, joy and life to the environments we inhabit.
• The second part of the vocation Jesus gives us today is to be the “light of the world.” There are two fundamental purposes for light. The first is to help people to see. The second is to warm. Christ has done both for us. He has come and mercifully taught us in such a way that we may walk as children of the light and be true children of the light. So the Christian life is supposed to be luminescent, like the lights on a landing strip at an airport on a foggy night that help planes land. In the midst of many walking in valleys of darkness, Christians are called to burn with the light so that others can follow us in following Jesus the Light of the World. Similarly, light gives off warmth, and Christ has come into the world to warm us by his love, to burn away whatever in us is frigid or tepid, so that we in turn may warm others by the fire of divine love. When we approach Jesus and when others approach us, we and they should feel like someone cold approaching a lit fireplace.
• Jesus points out, however, that it’s possible for salt to lose its flavor and light to be hidden. Rather than preventing corruption, starting a fire of faith, adding flavor to all human experiences, illuminating the darkness and warming the chill of isolation, we often don’t live up to our identity and mission. This can impact those who seek intentionally to live the Christian life in a more intense way, too, as an overreaction to the capital sin of pride or the phobia against “singularity.” We can think if we bring too much flavor, or are too noticed for the light we bear, we would stand out and would fail to be humble. For that reason, we can hide our gifts under bushel baskets or keep the salt in the salt shaker. That’s not what Christ is summoning us to do. Today he warns us that our salt is supposed to be good for something and our light is supposed to illumine those in the house.
• There was a true risk that St. Paul’s salt and light were going to remain in the shaker and under the bushel basket were it not for the saint we celebrate today. St. Barnabas is one of the most important figures in the history of the early Church and, I think, among the least appreciated. Early in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us that his real name was Joseph, but the apostles nicknamed him Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.” Why did they give him that moniker? It could have been because he had sold a field he owned and laid the proceeds at the apostles’ feet, an obvious sign of his total commitment to Christ and total trust in the apostles Christ had chosen to lead the early Church. Such a gesture, common among the first disciples, would have certainly inspired the other members of the burgeoning Church courageously to do the same. But the nickname was an excellent summary of his entire personality, for he was someone who gave others courage, who believed in them, who filled them to respond to God with enthusiasm. In today’s first reading, St. Luke tells us that when he arrived in Antioch, “he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart.”
• But we see his encouragement especially in his interaction with St. Paul. Today in the section from the Acts of the Apostles we have, the Holy Spirit speaks to the first members of the Church in Antioch and says, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” It was the Holy Spirit’s plans for them to go on the first great missionary journey in the Church, but there was a huge pre-history to that commissioning, one in which Barnabas, inspired by the Holy Spirit’s gift of courage, was able to encourage Paul and the entire Church to recognize Paul’s gifts. Without Barnabas’ intervention, Paul likely would have remained, lived and died a tent-maker in Tarsus. Instead, because of Barnabas’ courageous and encouraging interventions, Paul was able to become the greatest missionary in the history of the Church. It was Barnabas who was the catalyst for bringing Paul out of obscurity, making him his collaborator, vouching for him with the leaders and members of the Church who didn’t trust him because of his murderous past, and launching him on the trajectory that led to his founding so many Churches across the ancient world.
• As we know from the Acts of the Apostles, after his conversion, Paul immediately began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, announcing that he was the Messiah and Son of God. As he began to annihilate the Damascene Jews in debates, several of the vanquished conspired to have him assassinated, watching out for him at the city gates to murder him. Paul and the other disciples heard about the plot, however, and lowered him outside the city walls in a basket to escape. So Paul went to Jerusalem where he tried to join the disciples, live the Christian life and help wherever he could. St. Luke tells us, however, that sadly “they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.” The disciples didn’t want to have anything to do with him. They were all terrified of him because of the way he used to terrorize their community, presiding over the stoning of St. Stephen, ripping the believers out of their homes and bringing them before the religious courts, and even getting an order to go to Damascus and bring back the Christians in chains. They likely thought that his celebrated conversion was a ruse just so that Paul could infiltrate the Christians, get to know them and where they live, and finish the job of wiping them out that he had previously worked so hard to achieve. The members of the Church in Jerusalem, apostles and disciples, didn’t believe yet in the power of God’s amazing grace that could save a sinner like Paul. They didn’t believe that God could convert a murderer of Christians into a maker of Christians. They didn’t believe that God could change someone who used to rip Christians from their homes to one who would help form Christian homes. They couldn’t see how someone who had presided over the stoning of St. Stephen would eventually become someone who himself would be stoned because of his building his life on the stone rejected by the builders who had become the cornerstone of his life.
• That’s the first time Barnabas, the son of encouragement, intervened. He wouldn’t allow the corruption of fear to eat alive the early Church. It’s not hard to imagine how abandoned Paul must have felt after the Jerusalem Church’s rejection: the vast majority of his own people likely looked on him as a traitor, some of his former teammates in the extirpation of Christians were now coming after him, and the Christians, whom he had hoped to fill with joy at the news of his conversion, wanted no part of him. Seeing the situation of Paul the Pariah, Barnabas acted, for Paul and for the Church. He wasn’t going to let what the Lord had done on the road to Damascus go to waste. He wouldn’t allow the light of Christ that had been given to St. Paul at his conversion and afterward to be lost. So he went to find Paul and then, St. Luke tells us, “took him by the hand and brought him to the apostles, declaring to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.” Barnabas told Paul’s conversion story to the other members of the Church of Jerusalem — which shows that obviously he had heard it step-by-step from Paul before. He also passed on how Paul after his conversion was doing more to spread the faith than many of those who were timidly hovering in Jerusalem. Because of Barnabas’ action, encouragement, and personal recommendation, the Church of Jerusalem welcomed him. From that moment, Paul started to do in Jerusalem the same things he had done in Damascus, and “speak out boldly in the name of the Lord.” He debated both Jews and Greeks. Once again, however, the Jewish leaders plotted to kill him for persuading people to Christianity — just as the Sanhedrin had done to Jesus and Saul himself had tried done to Stephen and other members of the early Church. Fearing for Paul’s life, the Church in Jerusalem decided to rush him down to Caesarea by the Sea and send him home to Tarsus. It’s possible that Paul was rashly looking for a quick martyrdom in expiation for all the lives he had taken previously, but the Church, especially Barnabas, didn’t want the one chosen by the Lord to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles to have his mission as a Christian evangelist cut short prematurely. It’s probable that Barnabas accompanied Paul down to the sea to send Paul home and he likely encouraged him to get ready for what would come later.
• Later came rather soon. After the Church in Jerusalem had heard of how many converts were entering the Church in Antioch, they sent Barnabas to encourage them “to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart” and guide them into a deeper grasp of the Gospel. St. Luke tells us today that his preaching and exhortation only served to make more converts. They all regarded him as a “good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” Barnabas did not have the time to guide them all and needed other expert help. Rather than assuming the arduous task of training others to be teachers or going back to Jerusalem to find help, he traveled to Tarsus to find Paul and bring him back to Antioch. Barnabas knew Paul was ready. And so he encouraged him to leave his tent-making behind and come with him to make temples of the Holy Spirit. Paul agreed. And they headed to Antioch where “for a whole year they met with the Church and taught a large number of people,” forming them in the love of the Lord in such a way that it the disciples for the first time were called “little Christs,” or “Christians.” It was after that year’s worth of hard work tilling the soil of souls in Syria that the Holy Spirit spoke while the Church was worshipping the Lord and fasting and asked for Barnabas and Saul to be set apart for the work to which he was calling them. And that’s when the two of them began the first of the great missionary journeys in Church history, implanting the Gospel across Asia Minor. The rest is, in a sense, history.
• Little did Barnabas know that when he put his own reputation on the line for Paul before the Apostles in Jerusalem, when he went to Tarsus to ask for help, what the Holy Spirit would later do. All he did was encourage and invite. The Lord did the rest. There’s a great lesson for all of here. Are we men and women of similar encouragement, enthusiastically trying to inspire others to grow in faith, to come more deeply into their friendship with Christ, inviting them and facilitating for them to use the gifts God has given them to share in the work of spreading the faith? Do we live our faith with a boldness that inspires others to live their faith with courage? The Church today needs many more Barnabases, men and women who aren’t afraid to encourage others to share their work, to stick up for others when others don’t think they’re capable or qualified, to invite them to collaborate in the joyful duty of passing on the Good News to others. In an age of so much depression and sadness, we need Barnabases who can inspire with Christian hope. In an age in which people are haunted by the mistakes and sins of the past, we need Barnabases who can point out that they’ve changed and that we should not waste out of fear the talents God has given. At a time when so many have wandered away from the Church, we need Barnabases who can encourage them to come home and to use the gifts God has given them for the building up of his kingdom. Just as in ancient Antioch, so today, there aren’t enough laborers in the Lord’s vineyard to attend to the ripe fruit on the vine. There are so many sheep in the Lord’s fold who need good shepherds to care for them, not to mention so many sheep who have wandered from the fold who need those acting in the person of the Good Shepherd to leave the 99 behind and go out in search for them. It’s something that the Pope and Bishops, priests and religious, catechists and youth ministers  can’t do all by themselves. It’s something for which we’re all needed. Today Barnabas, that “good man filled with the Holy Spirit and with faith,” on behalf of God comes to us as he did to Saul in Tarsus to encourage us to get involved.
• As we celebrate Saint Barnabas as a man who lived up to his vocation to be salt and light, preserving, igniting, flavoring, illuminating and warming, we ask the Lord to give us a double portion of his spirit, so that we, too, might encourage others with the same encouragement that he never ceases to give us. And through his intercession and example,  we pray that we might live up to our own vocation to be salt and light and perpetual encouragement so that we might catalyze the vocations of many others and come with them to share St. Barnabas’ friendship forever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: