Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle

Lectionary: 580/361

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.

 Reform and revolution are not the same thing, though they're often confused. The Christian movement, so-named after Saint Barnabas arrived in Antioch to help the newly-converted gentiles to learn and walk in the way of Jesus, was neither. Today, many Christians suppose it was either a reform of the Jewish religion, or a revolutionary movement without precedent in human history. Barnabas and his assistant, Paul of Tarsus, knew Jesus had instituted the Church with its sacraments to fulfill the Jewish faith. 

Baptism, Eucharist, the Gospel and writings of the New Testament, with all the sacraments are God's answer to all the prayers of all Abraham's descendants. But it is more for the Gospel fulfills all human aspirations and must gentiles and all creatures. The universe came into being that Jesus might find his place within it, and complete it.

If Jesus was the son of Abraham, as the Gospel of Saint Matthew teaches, he is also the Son of Adam, as Saint Luke insists. (Their genealogies of Jesus complement each other.) It was impossible that the Good News of Mary's son could be limited to the descendants of one man from Ur. Through Baptism and Eucharist the mercy of God must embrace all humankind without the containing limits of any nation's ethnicity. 

And the Earth as well for, like Adam, Jesus was made of dirt, which is the detritus of stars and galaxies. We were created after several billion years when our Creator molded animate and inanimate matter into his own image and likeness. 

Jesus's mission, completed by his passion, death, and resurrection, must enfold the Earth and its creatures as humans take full responsibility for our home planets maintenance, upkeep, beautification, and fulfillment. We now know too much about our frail dependence on this Earth to regard it as stuff to be used, abused, exploited, and wasted. Nor should we plan to inhabit another planet if we fail to care for ours. That migration would be an infestation. 

With their knowledge of Greek and Jewish philosophies, Barnabas and Paul welcomed the gentiles of Antioch; and reassured the elders in Jerusalem that the Antiochene embrace of Jesus was all good. We can supposed they never gave a thought to the Lord's mission to the Earth and all its creatures, but Saint Mark spelled it out in the closing words of his gospel: 

"He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15)

No human can be overlooked; no creature, ignored by God's pleasure.