Encouragers Needed

ENCOURAGERS NEEDED

Acts 9:26-31; Jn. 15:1-8

I have often wondered how people in the past got their names.  We were given our first names by our parents and we inherited our last names from our fathers, just as they did from their fathers.  There was a time when most people had only one name.  One name was enough as communities were smaller.  If two people ended up with the same name, then it was necessary to distinguish between them.  John the farmer became John Farmer and John the blacksmith became John Smith.  Thus, family names and last names began to appear.

Of equal fascination is the origin of nicknames.  These are given by family, or friends, or foes to describe some outstanding characteristics of a particular person.  This was a common practice in the Bible.  We read this morning about a man in the early church, who was called Barnabas.  His real name was Joseph, but his friends named him Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement”.  He was that kind of man.  Whenever people faltered or failed, were ignored or rejected, Barnabas would seek them out and encourage them.

He did that for a new convert to the Christian cause, whom we know as Paul.  It seems strange to us now, but Paul had a hard time finding acceptance within the Church.  They were afraid of him, and for good reason.  His original name was Saul.  Among all the enemies of the Christian cause, Saul was probably the most fierce and fanatical.  Eventually he was converted and became a follower of Christ, but his prior reputation was not easy to shake off.  When he came to Jerusalem and tried to join the Christians there, they were not welcoming.  They simply could not believe that this man was truly one of them.  In that critical moment, it was Barnabas who came to the rescue.  He took Paul by the hand and led him into the fellowship of the Church.

Aren’t we glad Barnabas befriended Paul?  Whenever we read one of the many letters that Paul wrote, we should credit Barnabas for this.  I wonder how many Barnabases we have in our Church – people who know how to encourage other people in their Catholic faith.  We need them.  The problem in the Church today is not exactly the same as it was in Paul’s time.  We are not inclined to freeze people out of our fellowship because we fear them.  Our tendency is to lose people from Church, because we forget them.  They simple drop by the wayside.  We miss them for a few weeks.  We wonder about them occasionally, but after a while the saying “out of sight, out of mind” takes over, and the drop-outs are quietly forgotten.  In this way more than any other, people are lost to the cause of Christ and His Church.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus drew an interesting analogy.  He compared Himself and the members in His Church to a grapevine, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.”  We are all tied together, sharing one common source of life.  As long as the branches stay connected to the vine, they grow grapes and produce a harvest.  When some branches somehow get disconnected; they drop to the ground and just lie there.  Their contribution to the over-all purpose of the vine is lost.

How do the branches get disconnected in the first place?  Obviously, a branch doesn’t deliberately decide to break away from the vine.  Here the analogy is incomplete.  Branches can’t do that, but people can.  Very few people just make up their minds one day to turn their backs and walk away from the Church.  The disconnectedness, the disassociation usually takes place by some more subtle process than that.  Some people get lost simply through moving residence.  The previous parish and familiar faces are left behind.  For a while, there is a sense of freedom in that new location.  Community responsibilities and social obligations are reduced to a minimum.  No one from the Church ever calls to say, “We missed you these last few Sundays.”  No one was expecting them.

There can be a kind of comfort in that feeling of privacy.  Anonymity has its advantages.  Within limits, you can be what you want to be and do what you want to do.  But it also has its disadvantages.  We all have a need to belong.  So, one day, driven by perhaps loneliness and a lack of belonging, this displaced person, a disconnected branch goes to another Church.  They go hoping for, if not expecting, the same friendliness that they had known in their old Church, but it’s not there.  The architecture is different.  The preaching is different.  The music is different.  And worst of all the faces and voices are different.  Some of them try to establish new relationships, but after a time getting no response, they give up, drop out, and are lost to the cause of Christ and His Church.  Is there more loneliness and social detachment in our world today than ever before?

Where is Barnabas?  We are aware of the shortage of priests in the Church, but if we had a full staff of priests in every parish, they alone could not do the job of keeping in touch with the strays.  We still need Barnabases, those warm-hearted men and women who will take lonely people by the hand and lead them back into the fellowship of the Church.

There is another kind of disconnected branch that I have seen.  It is the people who fall by the wayside due to lost faith and changed attitudes.  In the past they were fervent Catholics, but not anymore.  The things that have happened to them, or the lives they have lived, have robbed them of their faith.  Such people need and deserve our understanding.  To build a strong faith and hold on to it, through all the changing fortunes of life, is not an easy thing to do.

What, if anything, can the Church do about these kinds of disconnected branches?  How can you get people to believe what they don’t believe?  How do you get them to care about their faith when they don’t care?  One thing is sure – we will never do it by beating them over the head with the Bible.  Not many people are shamed into the faith.  Fewer still are frightened into it.  Most people are drawn into it by someone who truly cares about them and that is where Barnabas enters the scene. 

Holy Spirit, what the Church needs is an army of encouragers.  Help each one of us to be numbered among them. 

Vist my website https://fatherfrancismaple.co.uk/