WHO IS YOUR BARNABAS?
I believe it was Red Skelton who once said, “All men make mistakes, but married men find out about it sooner.” Again, “All men make mistakes, but married men find out about it sooner.” While there may very well be some truth to Red Skelton’s observation, let’s place our focus today on the first part of his statement, which was this: “All men make mistakes.” Or perhaps better put, “All people make mistakes.”
Perhaps we could even say that people make mistakes when it comes to how they look at God. The Rev. Dr. M. Craig Barnes, the senior minister at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, addresses this issue in his latest book entitled, The Pastor as Minor Poet. He believes that people are often mistaken in how they look at God. He goes on to say that one of the tasks of the minister is to help people to see God as God really is. He writes:
Just because people call themselves “Christian” and have a long history in the church, (that does not mean) they have a biblical image of God. To the contrary, the longer they’ve hung around religion, the greater the chance that they’ve acquired some false ideas about God that have a negative impact on their self-image.
In pastoral counseling, the minor poet (Barnes refers to the minister as the minor poet) in pastoral counseling the minor poet is wading through these false images, which are the real blocks to their ability to make changes. We are thus made in the image of a false god, and until the image of God is seen correctly in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ, we never will be able to gain a correct image of ourselves.
When people tell me about their struggles with anger, a little digging reveals they believe God is angry with them. Those who struggle with compulsive work patterns have been worshipping a demanding God who is never satisfied. People who have a hard time trusting their hearts to others don’t really believe in the steadfast love of God. None of them can discover real change in their lives apart from a Christological view of God. So conversations that begin with improvements they want to make in life should end with the pastor demonstrating the changes Christ has already made to their lives.
Rather than use the few reflective listening skills we learned in our Introduction to Pastoral Care classes in seminary, which is only another way of holding up the judgmental mirror, we pastors need to hold up Jesus Christ. “See him?” we say. “That’s who you really are. Everything else about you is just pretending.”
Barnes concludes with these words. “The human self is never more truly itself than when it is living in Christ, the Restorer of the holy image of God in humans.” Like I said, we all make mistakes. Sometimes we even make mistakes in our image of who or what God is. That’s when we need a guide. That’s when we need a mentor. That’s when we need someone to straighten out our misguided notions of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that brings us back to the discipleship question we’ve been wrestling with for the last several weeks. The question was asked, “How can we identify a healthy disciple?” The following criteria were presented:
1. Who is your Lord? In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following? Ideally, of course, the agenda we are following is that of Jesus Christ.
2. Who are you? At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received? We noted a couple of weeks ago that Christ gave his life to secure our significance in the eyes of God. There is nothing left for us to prove.
3. Who is your Barnabas? Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him. Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?
4. Who is your Timothy? Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy. Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?
5. Where is your Antioch? Antioch, to Paul, was a safe haven where the call of God could find him. What small group of friends is your safe haven…that is helping you to discern the will of God in your life?
6. Where is your Macedonia? Macedonia was a field of ministry for Paul. What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life, and hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?
This week our focus is on the third criterion of a healthy disciple: Who is your Barnabas? Who is your Barnabas? Yet before we ask who your Barnabas is, perhaps we should answer the question of who Barnabas was. That only makes sense, don’t you think?
Barnabas makes his first appearance in the pages of Scripture in the fourth chapter of the book of Acts. His real name was Joseph of Cyprus, but the apostles gave him the name Barnabas, which meant literally, “son of prophecy” or “son of encouragement.” What did Barnabas do to warrant such a title? It was in the early days of the church in Jerusalem. The first century church seemed to advocate communal living. Barnabas sold a field that belonged to him and he brought the money – all of the money – to the apostles and laid it at their feet. They kept their money in a community treasury of sorts and shared it with fellow Christians as they had need. No one in the early Christian community would have found themselves in want.
Let me take a moment to explain early Christian communal living. Yes, it appears that the first century Christians did in fact hold everything in common. That does not bode well for our great American philosophy of individualism and capitalism, does it? Yet let me also say this. It is obvious that the communal living of the early church didn’t last for very long. Perhaps we could even say that it did not work. That’s why the practice was discontinued. While that statement does not baptize the greed in many a Christian heart, it does seem to speak against any requirement of communal Christian living. That should make everyone feel at least a little bit better.
Let’s get back to Barnabas. He laid the proceeds from the sale of a field at the feet of the apostles in Jerusalem. His next appearance in Scripture is in the passage we read a moment ago. Saul of Tarsus – later known as the Apostle Paul – was a fierce opponent of Christianity everywhere. He would literally take Christians in chains to the Jewish authorities. He stood and watched and approved of the stoning of a Christian named Stephen. Saul of Tarsus was feared by Christians far and wide. Yet on a lonely road to Damascus, Jesus Christ had appeared to him and he had been transformed. When Saul came to Jerusalem as a new Christian convert, everyone was afraid of him. It was Barnabas who went to Saul and brought him to the apostles. In other words, if it weren’t for Barnabas, there would have been no Paul. And if it weren’t for Paul, Christianity might not have ever reached the hearts of those who were not Jewish. Paul brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, yet he did so after being mentored by Barnabas.
The Apostle Paul needed a mentor, and God provided him one in the person of Barnabas.
Glenn McDonald describes how important this whole “mentoring” thing is in his book, The Disciple Making Church. It’s the very same quote that is printed in the Silent Reflection portion
of your bulletins. He writes:
In his book The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard points out that all of us learn how to live – for better or for worse – from those who teach us. Each of us is somebody’s disciple. “There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live.” Most of us have been discipled, consciously or unconsciously, by a diverse collection of “somebodies” over the years.
Think about it. How did you learn right from wrong? Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you? How did you learn how to drive? Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you? How did you light upon your present career path? Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you? Glenn McDonald is right. “Most of us have been discipled, consciously or unconsciously, by a diverse collection of ‘somebodies’ over the years.”
We could look at that conversely as well, I suppose. I heard a story not long ago about a first grade teacher at a school in our community. She asked the kids in her class a very simple question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She was absolutely appalled when many of the kids replied, “When I grow up, I want to lay on the couch and watch T.V. all day like my dad.” She said to one, “Where do you get your money to live on?” The child replied, “We go to this place and they give him a check.”
Here’s what that teacher did. She brought meat and cheese and crackers to school with her one day. Then she asked the kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” If a child replied, “I want to be a doctor,” she gave them a piece of meat, a piece of cheese and a cracker. If a child replied, “I want to be a teacher,” again she gave them a piece of meat, a piece of cheese and a cracker. But if they replied, “When I grow up, I want to lay on the couch and watch T.V. all day like my dad,” she only gave them a cracker. When the child cried out, “I want a piece of meat and a piece of cheese, too!” she said, “You have to work for that.”
Now there’s a brilliant teacher who brought a brilliant lesson home to a group of first-graders. But it ignores the larger problem. Where are these kids getting the idea that it’s all right to lay on the couch all day and watch T.V.? They’re getting it from their Barnabas. They’re getting it from their mentor. They’re getting it from a person they love who is modeling how to live for them. And therein lies the problem. Everyone needs a Barnabas. Everyone needs a mentor. Everyone need someone to show them how to live, and how to live well.
Perhaps we could raise the very same issue when it comes to our own faith. How did you learn how to be a Christian? Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you? Or, perhaps even better put, how did you learn how to live as a Christian? Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody model that for you?
Relationships that entail mentoring are not intended to be the exception to the rule. Discipling is just the way God does things. Jesus Christ himself gave himself fully to a dozen interested men. He loved them, he lived with them, he told them stories, and he stretched their imaginations. He scolded them when their hearts were calloused and he nurtured them when they were confused. He invited them to walk with him into situations that ranged from the ambiguous to the controversial to the outright dangerous. Sometimes he was formal, sometimes he was rhetorical. Frequently he engineered opportunities for his disciples to place their trust in God. Yet on every occasion, Jesus was communicating one important thing. He was saying to them in essence, “Let me show you how to live.”
George Mason has been the senior minister at the Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas for more than 20 years. In a recent address, he said:
For those of us who grew up on T.V., the quirky “Gilligan’s Island” is part of our culture. You know it must be because now that we are middle-aged and have some buying power, commercials are using the theme song and bringing back characters to plug their products. But what was its appeal? Endearing characters, people we could identify with, certainly. The blow-hard skipper, the brainy professor, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the plain-Jane girl, and a bumbling first mate. Sounds a lot like society in general. But the story is the thing. Shipwrecked on an island, they don’t always get along, they are none of them alike, but they all need each other. They have to work together to survive and build the best life possible because they are all in the same boat, literally.
Along those same lines, G.K. Chesterton once said of humanity: “We are all in a small boat on a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.” Life is not easy for anyone. Everyone is a disciple, and everyone needs a mentor. Everyone needs someone to model the Christian life for them. So I ask you again, “Who is your Barnabas?” If you can’t answer that question now, perhaps you should begin to look into how you can. Amen.
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