Gospel Study Proposal
" The Spirit opens the way to missionary conversion "(Acts 13-14)
THE SPIRIT CALLS AND CONVERTS TO BE A SAMARITAN CHURCH
- The Spirit constitutes the Samaritan Church as a community of life and witness.
- Christ pursues his mission in a ministerial community.
- Missionary conversion to a Samaritan Church.
- The patient action of the Spirit in preparation for missionary conversion.
- The Spirit opens the way to missionary conversion (Acts 13-14).
THE SPIRIT OPENS THE WAYS TO MISSIONARY CONVERSION (Acts 13-14)
We know Jesus Christ by what he did and said in his historical life, as the Gospels tell us. We also know him by what he did in the early Church after his resurrection. But we also know him by what he "made the apostles do". This "facet" of Christ's reality is revealed in the book of Acts, particularly in some of its pages. One of these is that of Paul's first missionary journey, which he began by accompanying Barnabas and in which he gradually became the main protagonist.
In this first mission, the challenges of pastoral reality and the responses were not clear at the outset. They didn't know what they were going to have to face. They were walking on unknown ground. That's why the role of the Spirit is all the more obvious.
We are going to get to know Christ who sent two of the "teachers and prophets" of the Antioch community as apostles. And we are going to get to know him in what he makes them do, in what he makes them experience, in their successes as well as their difficulties. Our lives, which are reflected in this missionary journey, are also a source of knowledge of Our Lord Jesus Christ, through what he has "made us do", through what he has made us enjoy or suffer, and through the way he has accompanied us in everything.
The Spirit of Christ prepares the disciples for mission.
In the Gospel, Jesus introduces the disciples, both the 12 and the 72 (Lk 10), to missionary action in order to continue the teaching he had already begun with them. For him, there is no real training that is not confronted with the difficulties of mission. In the same way, in Acts, the Spirit teaches and instructs the early Church on the basis of action, of the nascent realisation of the mission. This happens during the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas. Thus, before the "Council of Jerusalem" (Acts 15), thanks to the teaching of the facts illuminated by the Word, they discovered God's will, which was to proclaim the message to all peoples.
At the end of their journey, Paul and Barnabas told the Church in Antioch what they had done and what they had seen of the Spirit's action: "When they arrived there, they gathered the Church together and told what God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles". (Acts 14:27) The Spirit of Christ makes them participants in the very work of God: "what God had through them".
The Spirit not only teaches, he opens the doors to mission.
The result of this first missionary journey is that the Spirit has opened the doors of the Church to the "Gentiles". They don't just experience it as an unfamiliar teaching, as an idea they hadn't fully understood before and had to learn; for them, what happened on that first journey is an action that creates something new. It was not just a question of teaching, but in their missionary work, the Spirit was acting in a direction they had not chosen: "The Spirit had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles". Previously, because of the concrete conditions of reality and those of the disciples, this door had been closed. The mission does not consist in teaching truths that have already been established, but, through our work, it will have an impact on history and transform it. It does not say: "We have discovered that God wants us to share the faith with the Gentiles", or "We have learned that the door of faith has always been open to the Gentiles". This is not an intellectual question, in which learning is the key element. It is about the transforming action of the Spirit on reality. The Spirit is doing something new, which they have witnessed.
The prospect of the teaching of a truth places us before something great and unfathomable that we will never be able to understand. The perspective of the Spirit's action makes us God's collaborators and companions, discovering through his action in the world what his will is. The first perspective is transformed into an ideology that imposes the truth we know on reality. And even if we are right, it is the Spirit who marks the times and moments when truth must become reality. This is why the perspective of truth tends to frustrate us, because we believe we can impose our voluntarist action on reality; on the contrary, the perspective of the Spirit's action makes us humbly patient, joyfully humble, simple and available.
Mission flows from the Spirit and ministers put it into practice.
Until now, openness to the Gentiles had been based on personal experience and the promptings of the Spirit, through Philip, Peter and the persecuted in Jerusalem. But at this moment, it sprang from a decision of the Spirit on the community of Antioch in the person of its ministers.
"Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon, called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manahen, the foster brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 One day while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them, and I will give them to you.'" (Acts 13:1-2)
The configuration of this team of five prophets and teachers is interesting: one disciple was a collaborator of the apostles from the first hour; two came from the diaspora, a black Nigerian and another from Libya, from what we now call the Maghreb; a fourth came from a family close to the Herodians, in other words from a powerful and wealthy Jewish family; and the fifth had been a fanatical Pharisee, persecutor of Christians and Roman citizen. Barnabas' moral authority must have been remarkable. Christ, true to his historical life, likes to make "brothers" of those who are different. That the most educated and committed group in the community, that fraternally welcomes those who are different from themselves, that seeks a renewed fidelity in faith to Jesus Christ, will be the characteristic features of every missionary conversion of the Church.
The mission is described as "the mission of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 13:4), and the disciples seek ways to be open to this role: "after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them out" (Acts 13:3). Everything that happens in the mission must therefore be interpreted as the work of the Spirit of Christ who renews his Church.
The Holy Spirit unmasks the manipulation of faith.
The first significant event of this missionary conversion journey was Paul and Barnabas' confrontation with Elymas, the magician, who took advantage of the Jewish faith to pass himself off as a prophet and make a living from the religiosity and credulity of the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus.
Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked at him 10 and said to him, "You man of all falsehood and wickedness, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, when will you cease to oppose the upright ways of the Lord? 11 Now look, the hand of the Lord will fall on you and you will be blind and will not see the sun for some time to come. (Acts 13, 9-11)
What do these verses tell us about the Church's missionary conversion?
- The paths of missionary conversion will not emerge from the old formulas that aim to win the favour of the powerful through the superstitions of a miraculous and fantastic religiosity.
- Missionary conversion begins with truth and justice. God's truth, revealed in the dynamic of the Incarnation, and justice towards people.
- Missionary conversion confronts the manipulation of faith and resolutely denounces it.
- Missionary conversion is merciful and invokes the correction of punishment only "for a time".
Although he was not the direct target of Paul and Barnabas, " when the proconsul saw what had happened, he became a believer, for he was struck by the Lord's teaching "(Acts 13:12); and, as a pagan, Sergius Paulus was one of the first converts on his missionary journey.
The concern not to fall back into superstitious interpretations of the faith and to unmask them is of great relevance to our missionary conversion.
A "continuous" announcement welcomed by the pagans
Paul's first speech, which has been handed down to us from this first missionary journey, could be described as continuous: he addresses the Jews in the synagogue to which they have been invited by their leaders (Acts 13:15); he tells them about Abraham, Moses, David, John the Baptist and how the life of Jesus fulfils the prophecies of all these figures; he announces the resurrection and justification through faith in Jesus.
Know this, brethren: through Jesus is proclaimed to you the remission of sins, and of all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses; 39 through him is every one that believeth justified. (Acts 13:38-39)
Faith in Jesus completes the promises of the first covenant. There is nothing new, either in the message or in the means used to convey it. Paul ends his exhortation with an invitation to have faith and not to despise the power of God, even if we may be surprised by his actions.
Take care, therefore, that what the prophets foretold [Hab. 1:5] does not happen to you: 41 Be astonished, you arrogant ones, and hide yourselves, for I will do such a work in your time that you will not believe it if it is told you (Acts 13:40-41).
A simple, direct speech, understandable by all, impeccable; with a reasoning based on Scripture that is difficult to refute, before which any Jew familiar with the Law and the Prophets can only wonder. The most convincing argument is the text of the Psalm: "You will not allow your Messiah to become corrupt" (Ps 16:10). The same was true of Jesus Christ, God's Messiah, when he rose from the dead. The message was gratefully received by the proselytising Jews and Gentiles.
When the synagogue assembly was dispersed, a large number of Jews and proselytes who worshipped God followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them, exhorting them to persevere in faithfulness to the grace of God (Acts 13:43).
The following Sabbath, seeing their success, the Jews, out of jealousy, opposed them and blasphemed Paul's words. The Gentile proselytes, on the other hand, joined them. Barnabas and Paul drew the following conclusion:
Then Paul and Barnabas said confidently, "We were to preach the word of God to you first; but since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, know this: we are turning to the Gentiles" (Acts 13:46).
And they took on this radical change from a theological point of view, not just for pastoral convenience, but on the basis of the teaching of the prophets: "I have appointed you to be a light to the nations, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth" (Acts 13:47; Is 49:6). In this way, they began to apply to the Christian community, through its apostles, the function of the true Servant of Yahweh to gather together the New People of the Covenant. The "ends of the earth", in the person of the proselytes, had already heard the word of salvation and welcomed it with joy. With a joy that was the fruit of the Spirit because it stood the test of contradiction:
When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and praised the word of the Lord; and those who were destined for eternal life became believers (...) The [Gentiles who became] disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 13:48).
People who accept the Gospel with simplicity in a context of opposition and persecution become a sign of God's will.
Applying this text to our current pastoral reality can be confusing. It is true that in our situation, acceptance or non-acceptance of our message can have different considerations due to the complexity of the variables. Our personal experience of the Church or the anti-clerical or anti-Christian environment in which we were brought up can influence us. Even the ideological connotations by which people identify Christianity with a conservative ideology can bring some people closer or drive them away. But we cannot ignore the fact that welcoming the Gospel into a hostile environment is interpreted by Paul and Barnabas as a sign of the Spirit.
Three signs to the contrary: the departure of John Mark, persecution by the pagans and the crude idolatrous mentality.
Shortly after the Barjesus episode, John Mark left the apostolic team (Acts 13:13). There is no commentary on the event, but when Barnabas again wanted to count on Mark for the mission, there was a strong confrontation between Paul and Barnabas, which led to their separation (Acts 15:39). The departure of the young John Mark must have been a great disappointment at the beginning of this first mission.
A second sign was the participation of the pagans in the persecution of the apostles. At Antioch in Pisidia, the Gentiles had welcomed the message with joy, but at Iconium, Jews and Gentiles alike welcomed the proclamation, only to turn against the apostles with violence, ill-treatment and stoning.
The inhabitants of the town were divided into factions, some in favour of the Jews, others in favour of the apostles. 5 Attempts were made by the Gentiles and the Jews, with their authorities, to abuse them and stone them. (Acts 13:4-5)
The hostile environment did not discourage Barnabas and Paul, who "stayed there a long time" (Acts 14:3), and it was only when they were threatened with death that they went elsewhere.
A third sign appears after a cure. The same events are appreciated differently in different cultures. In Jewish culture, the healing of the sick had been for Jesus and the apostles a ratification and proof of the credibility of their message (Acts 5:15). The sign of healing referred to the power and goodness of God: "They praised the Lord who gives men power to do such signs" (Mt 9:8), and to the power of the one sent by the Father: "It was the name of Jesus that strengthened this man whom you see and know" (Acts 3:16). But in the pagan environment of Lystra, the sign of the healing of a cripple implied, for the crowd educated in Greek polytheism, that Barnabas and Paul were incarnations of Zeus and Hermes. When the apostles realised that sacrifices were to be offered to them, they "tore their clothes" (Acts 14:14). This gesture expresses the deep, visceral rejection they felt towards this event.
This event enabled them to understand the complexity of the process of inculturating the message of faith. Paul saw in the man the faith necessary for his healing. He asked the Lord for it, and the Lord gave it to him, which brought joy to the cripple and taught the apostles a lesson in inculturation. After recovering from his initial shock, Paul tried to link the sign of healing to the action of the one living God, creator of the whole universe, whose sun, moon, stars and all natural phenomena are not gods but created things. He explained this in language that the people could understand: "We bring you this good news: you must turn away from vain idols and turn to the living God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them" (Acts 14:15). But the result was meagre, for "they scarcely dissuaded the crowd from offering them a sacrifice". (Acts 14:18).
So at Iconium and Lystra we find a number of ambiguities: the sign of welcome from the pagans is nuanced; the pagans interpret life experiences such as healing in a very different way, which shows them that abandoning polytheistic beliefs can be very complicated for many people, even those of good will.
The courage of Paul and Barnabas: the testimonial proclamation of the Kerygma.
The Jews from Antioch of Pisidia and Iconium went to Lystra, where they had persuaded the people to stone Paul, who left him for dead (Acts 14:19). But far from being discouraged, after preaching in Perga, they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch (Acts 14:21) without fear of persecution, where they would see those who had remained faithful. They went to "encourage the disciples and exhort them to persevere in the faith, telling them that it is necessary to endure many tribulations in order to enter the kingdom of God". (Acts 14:22)
This gesture of returning to the towns where they had suffered persecution shows two very important things for the minister in pastoral conversion:
1. The strength that the Lord gives to those he chooses. A proclamation of the kerygma that is not just verbal, like a message, but a life experience: they receive death and continue to give life. Paul begins to understand that the weakness of the Cross is stronger than the wickedness of men (1Cor 1).
2. The apostle lived the commandment of love of God and neighbour in a radical way in his mission (Lk 10). His unconditional love for Jesus Christ: he bore witness in his life that Jesus Christ is more important than his own life. Their pastoral charity for new converts to the Christian faith: for their sake, they once again exposed themselves to danger and persecution.
The establishment of the first communities as an essential fruit of the Church's pastoral conversion
"In every church they appointed elders, prayed and fasted, and commended them to the Lord, in whom they had believed" (Acts 14:23). The book of Acts thus shows the culmination of the missionary task following the pastoral conversion of the Church. The fact that after a few weeks of preaching in each village, there remained a small group who maintained their faith in Jesus Christ in the face of a hostile environment. This was an important fruit, almost unsuspected; it was the action of the Spirit.
It was then necessary to establish the Church where there was faith in Christ, and to do this they appointed elders with gestures that showed openness to the action of the Spirit: prayer and fasting. A new ecclesial ministry was born out of the action of missionary conversion, out of the simple need to strengthen the small group of believers in each village. This fact is so important that it overshadows all the problems and difficulties they had to face.
They ended their journey in Antioch, from where they had left, "where they had been entrusted to the grace of God for the mission they had just accomplished" (Acts 14:26). The mission no longer belonged to the Church of Antioch, but to God; it was there that they had been entrusted to God's grace. The results surpassed any ideas they might have had at the outset.
When they arrived, they gathered the Church together and told what God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 14,27).
Taking on such an important pastoral and ecclesial change requires time to assert itself and to be understood. This is why "they stayed with the disciples for a long time" (Acts 14:28).
SUMMARY
The action of the Spirit comes in its own time. Paul had been in Cyprus for years, leading an obscure life, as if in "Nazareth". And it was when Barnabas found him for a missionary project that his theological reflection would find its evangelising focus. Our times are not God's times.
The action of the Spirit that transforms the Church comes as a surprise. It was certainly prepared for in the universalism of prophetic preaching and in the experiences of Peter and those who fled persecution in Jerusalem. But it manifests itself as an unexpected fruit.
Pastoral action will have signs and counter-signs, but the faith of a group of people asserting itself in a hostile and contrary environment becomes the definitive sign.
The sine qua non for the apostles was to value each person as a child of God, above all other considerations. So Paul saw the cripple of Lystra as a disabled person equal in dignity and capacity for faith to the sick of the Jewish people whom Jesus had healed. The only condition for worshippers of the Lord is to worship in spirit and in truth (Jn 4). The cripple who has faith, even if he is a polytheist, is a person at the side of the road (Lk 10) whose suffering has opened him up to God's action (Jn 5).
Make me, Lord, a collaborator in the action of your Spirit to open the doors to evangelisation.
José Joaquim CASTELLÓN MARTÍN (Prado d'Espagne) - September 2024
