Acts 13: 1-5, 13-16, 43-52
About two months before the pandemic began, I was on renewal leave.
Honestly, that time was such a gift.
I was able to refill my cup and energize my spirit and I don’t know how I would have made it through the last 18 months if I had been as worn out as I was at the end of 2019.
That time was spent sleeping, traveling with friends, baking bread, and focusing on my spouse… with a little bit of reading thrown in.
In fact, almost every day, I read through a chapter of Cloud and Townsend’s book, “Boundaries” as I tried to re-center my ministry and establish some healthier patterns.
I got to thinking about that book again as I thought about the ministry of Paul and Barnabas.
You see, this section of Acts focuses on some of the differentiation between the Jewish and early Christian communities.
As we talked about last time, this was no longer simply a subset of the Jewish faith.
This new movement in Antioch was a multi-national, diverse, community of Jews and Gentiles.
“Christians” they called themselves.
In order to take on their own identity, you have to set some boundaries.
You have to talk about what you are and what you aren’t.
And that is going to cause some conflict.
In their book, Drs. Cloud and Townsend describe how infants and children develop boundaries and I think it is fascinating to compare how these stages might also describe how this early church community began to think of themselves.
We think of ourselves, after all, as part of the same family tree.
So from the infancy of the Christian movement to the time it established itself as its own unique identity, there are some very interesting dynamics at play that have shaped our scriptures.
Let’s look at them…
An infant’s first task is to bond with their parents and there is “no sense of self apart from Mother.”
Or another way that Cloud and Townsend put it, “Mommy and me are the same.” (p.67)
An infant simply can’t understand their existence without the presence of their parent and often you will notice distress if that person is gone.
As Jesus and the disciples engaged in their ministry, they understood themselves to simply be a part of the Jewish faith. There was no difference and so much of what we find in the gospels describes how this new movement and the Jewish faith are one and the same.
You can’t read through the gospel of Matthew, in particular, without stumbling all over quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures.
Luke’s gospel, however, has a slightly different spin on it.
As the author of Acts, he writes from the perspective of having witnessed the expansion of the good news to a community beyond Israel. So everything he writes comes through that lens.
But he, too, records the preaching of folks like Peter, Stephen, Philip, and Paul and each and every single one of them start their messages with the understanding that they are part of the people of Israel and remind folks of God’s promises to Moses, Abraham, David, and the prophets.
There is no sense of the Christian faith apart from the Jewish faith in these first stages.
Hopefully, an infant will discover that “Mommy and me are not the same,” and claim their own identity. This separation and individuation is a healthy and natural part of development into a unique self.
So as we think about how the Christian faith became its own separate identity, I find it fascinating to think about the three critical phases that Cloud and Townsend discuss in how children create boundaries with their parents.
They note that how the parent and child responds to these phases either creates healthy or unhealthy boundaries and we can see that in the responses of each throughout the book of Acts.
The first of these phases is called hatching.
“During this period,” they write, “babies begin moving out of their passive union with Mother into an active interest in the outside world. They become aware that there’s a big, exciting world out there -and they want a piece of the action!” (p. 69)
So many of the moments that we have touched on in the Book of Acts describe this kind of wide-eyed excitement.
The disciples begin their ministry in Jerusalem, worshipping at the temple every day, but you also see them growing and deepening in the kinds of things they discover about themselves.
New people flock to this movement every day as it tries out new things… like how they fellowship and care for the needy among them.
They start to discover some ways that they are not the same as the Jewish religious establishment and the messages of folks like Peter and John before the council evidence this.
They point to how they embraced the named of Jesus Christ, but those leaders rejected him.
But just as this period of development is incredibly difficult for a parent, who may not be ready to let their little one go off on their own, there is an attempt from the religious leaders of the Jewish community to rein in the leaders of this new movement.
Not only were there warnings, but a wave of persecution beginning with the death of Stephen that were all designed to bring this new movement back into the fold… back into what we would call an enmeshed relationship where there is no difference in belief or identity allowed.
The second phase of this separation, Cloud and Townsend call practicing.
They note, “the difference between hatching and practicing is radical. While the hatching baby is overwhelmed by this new world and still leans a great deal on Mother, the practicing child is trying to leave her behind!” (p. 70).
And you see this as a child takes their first steps and learns to walk… and then run… often away from said parent towards something new. “They want to try everything, including walking down steep stairs, putting forks into electric sockets, and chasing cats’ tails.”
In many ways, this phase is defined by exploring the limits and in a healthy relationship, an infant is able to dive in head first, because the parent is there to provide safety and encouragement when needed.
What I find fascinating in the development of the Christian faith, however, is that this particular phase initially comes not through the excitement of discovery, but as the church is scattered to the four winds because of persecution.
The movement goes to places like Samaria and Damascus and Antioch, initially because they ran out of fear.
And yet, the power of God through the Holy Spirit is what provides the encouragement to explore and expand and discover new things about themselves.
Philip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch.
The apostles discover that one of their greatest enemies could become one of their greatest allies.
Peter learns that God shows no partiality.
Barnabas encounters a new multi-national diverse community.
But what happens in the midst of this exploration when you bump back into the parent?
Cloud and Townsend writes that in this phase, “children learn that aggressiveness and taking initiative are good.”
And we see the healthy development of these attitudes in the church as Barnabas and Saul… who starts going by his Roman name, Paul… are sent out as missionaries by the church in Antioch.
Their first missionary journey leads them to many different cities and communities and they always head first to the Jewish synagogue to talk directly to their fellow Israelites.
But as we saw in our scripture today, they have their eyes also on the Gentiles in the community.
In some cases, that initiative and message is welcomed and the people embrace what they have to say. But not everyone does.
In city after city, there are Jewish leaders who are upset and jealous of what Paul and Barnabas accomplish.
And these missionaries, in turn, push back with their own harsh words.
Chapters 12, 13, and 14 are filled with a growing tension and violence even spills out onto the streets in some of these places.
The third phase of this healthy separation is called rapprochement.
Cloud and Townsend describe this phase as “a return to connection with Mother, but this time it’s different. This time the child brings a more separate self into the relationship. There are two people now, with differing thoughts and feelings.” (p. 72)
While it might sound like this is a much more harmonious way of relating to each other, this phase of development in children is also known as the “terrible twos.”
A toddler might express anger as they realize they and other people are having different experiences.
Words like “me” and “mine” are incredibly common in their vocabulary because they are claiming their own self.
And, they learn how to say, “no.” They discover the power to make their own choices.
Our journey through the Book of Acts will only begin to touch on this particular phase of separation between the Jewish and Christian communities.
But I think it is important to have these ideas in the back of our minds as we look at how the church develops and its relationship with the Jewish community.
The reality is, we did not always do so in a healthy way.
There were seasons of anger and persecution that went both ways.
There were hard feelings that you can still see on the pages of scripture as these first Christian communities tried to claim what was theirs – by pushing away and blaming their Jewish siblings.
Sometimes when we read the words of Paul or the gospels, we can feel that animosity.
When I think about it as simply being a part of this process of separation and forming their unique identity, we start to understand where that anger or distance or blaming comes from.
Where we go wrong is when we read these passages at face value and continue to be hostile towards one another.
For centuries… millenia even… we carried that spirit with us and it grew into a deep seated anti-Semitism and even supercessionism that took millions of lives.
Just as sometimes these phases of development in infants create long lasting trauma and injury, the development of a unique Christian identity was fraught with problems.
But there can be healing.
We can establish new patterns and boundaries.
Just as the goal of a healthy separation or creation of a unique sense of self in a child is to form the ability for a parent and child to be in relationship as individuals… we can celebrate the many ways we have been able to have a much healthier relationship with our Jewish siblings.
We are not entirely the same.
But we are also not entirely different.
We come from the same family.
And we are blessed if we can find ways to repent and repair and rebuild our relationships.