St Barnabas, a good man full of Holy Spirit and of faith

IN two days’ time it will be the feast day of St Barnabas. His feast day is always kept by the Christian Church worldwide on June 11.

St Barnabas’s feast day is always in my mind as I was a curate of Rotherham Parish Church in 1957, six miles from what was then a heavy steel industry part of Sheffield.

In my day, the town of Rotherham was at the extreme edge of the six miles of heavy steel production but now the vast steelworks no longer exists and the whole area is now a vast retail project.

After some long time as a curate, my vicar made me priest-in-charge of the dual purpose church and community centre on the new Broom Valley estate. Clearly it would be a real missionary task and rightly.

That dual purpose church was given the dedication of St Barnabas who did a lot of missonary work during his ministry.

But, very importantly, I wonder what you all know about the life and work of St Barnabas.

A few weeks ago I read this in a national paper: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain. It’s not the tough moments, it’s how you respond to those tough moments that really counts.”

Yes, I am reminded that there were tough moments on that new housing estate and being responsible for that dual purpose church, it was going to be a missionary job!

The expert historians suggest that St Barnabas was a first century apostle and that he dates from the year 417 . His name means “son of consolation”.

St Barnabas was an early Christian Disciple but not amongst the 12 great apostles. Perhaps what is important for all of us today, is to try to remember the Collect for his feast day.

The Collect puts in front of us three vital and serious matters:

1 It is more blessed to give.

2. To be generous in our judgements.

3. To be unselfish in our service.

But what do we know about the ministry of St Barnabas and what he did during his lifetime?

Well, he introduced St Paul to the other disciples and Paul and Barnabas were later sent to Antioch and undertook the first missionary journey, which began in Cyprus.

We are told that he attended the Council of Jerusalem and supported the Gentile Christians.

Later, Barnabas and Paul quarrelled and went their own ways. Barnabas returned to Cyprus and we learn that he evangelised the island.

St Paul, in his letters to Galatia and Corinth, seemed to suggest that Barnabas might have had a much wider missionary task and historians suggest that he might have been Milan’s first Bishop.

In the UK there were 13 ancient churches dedicated to his name and there are certainly a few modern ones too, including my former church in Rotherham.

But St Barnabas’s true fame is the very prominent missionary part he took in the development of the infant Christian church.

So, on Sunday, as we keep the feast day of St Barnabas, what should you remember about him?

Well, no better than what is written in the Acts of the Apostles [ II. V 24] that St Barnabas “was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith”.

That’s what we can remember as we all get on with living in the 21st century and in the days when we have a new godly King and give great thanks for the duty of our late wonderful Christian Queen, whose life over 70 years was lived fully in the same Christian faith as St Barnabas.