Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter 2025
preached by the Vicar, Fr Christopher Woods
“They strengthened the disciples and encouraged them to remain true to the faith.”
The missional travel adventures of Paul and Barnabas continue in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. On their journey, they return only to churches where the word of God had taken hold. Their reflection on this experience speaks volumes about the early communities of faith.
Upon their return to these communities, the main task of Paul and Barnabas, as they saw it, was to strengthen the spirits of believers. The apostles faced hardship, but understood it to be necessary, for the many adversities made a disciple like Christ and made it possible to enter the kingdom of God. Paul and Barnabas went on to appoint overseers to lead communities of faith in Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. The process of appointment or election, or ordination included “prayer and fasting” for each moment of election (Acts 14:23). Arriving at each new destination, the two apostles gathered the community to share the faith and learn about the work accomplished so far. “Then they spent no little time with the disciples” (a long time with the disciples) (Acts 14:27).
What emerges from this image is nothing less than the fundamental elements of any church community. The work of the apostles to sustain believers included constant encouragement, prayer and fasting during decision making, gathering the community together and sharing the faith, especially the work being done in the name of the Gospel. And so they saw their task as not only travelling and preaching the gospel, but staying awhile, nurturing and caring for these new and fragile and perhaps fearful young Christian communities. Sustaining and ministering was as essential as evangelistic movement and travel.
I wonder how we react to that apostolic model of human community. Today’s society often values and even encourages competition and division. Even church communities that avoid political polarization can find other ways to tear each other down rather than build each other up. Christians are just as tempted to criticise one another, thinking that my Gospel message is truth while yours is distortion in many cases. While we now seem to accept that this kind of attitude is a norm for human society, and of course even in the early Church, fierce division arose, Barnabas and Paul show that there can be another model, another narrative which the Christian community can foster in the world.
We can sense the “encouragement” and the “sharing of the faith” from today’s portion of the Acts of the Apostles. And the two of our own patron saints, Barnabas and Paul, the Son of Encouragement and the Firebrand of Faith respectively can teach us much about being a force for good in the world. Which makes the dispute and parting of ways between Paul and Barnabas later on much more heart-breaking.
In Rome this morning, Pope Leo’s new pontificate is being inaugurated. I imagine his message is about peace, patience and encouragement too. But we shall perhaps hear later when we watch on catch-up.
And here in our own Christian community of St Barnabas, we have our APCM after this Mass. We once again pause to look back with thanksgiving on the gifts and blessings of the past year, and look ahead to all that we will do together in the next year, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, both for each other within the congregation but also for people out there. Our constant call is to find ways of making the walls of this great Basilica more invisible and more appealing to others who do not yet come in. We go forward with joy at the election of new PCC members and commit ourselves afresh to our mission of beauty, encouragement and compassion.
In the vision of Revelation, conflicts among humans and between humanity and God cease to exist in some final period beyond our understanding. “Behold, I make all things new,” said the one who sat on the throne (Rv 21:5). Jesus is the God who sits on the throne in the very centre of this new thing, since there has never been any conflict between the Father and the Son. As we read in today’s Gospel “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (Jn 13:31). All divisions will eventually cease and the source that makes this possible is the unity between Father and Son, reflected in their love.
In this new creation, Christians no longer bicker amongst themselves, political camps are reconciled, and even humanity and God will live together in peace. This is our faith and hope. May it come quickly and may we experience even a small glimpse of this new reality in our present adventure of the faith.
