Barnabas, Saul, and Forgiveness

February 23, 2009

Today's Reading: Leviticus 18-19 and Acts 11

In reading the book of Acts, you hear Barnabas and Paul being mentioned together a lot. I suppose that you could interpret them as Batman and Robin, but that wouldn’t be an accurate metaphor.

As I recall, Batman took in Robin, who was just an innocent young lad whose parents had just been killed. It wasn’t like Robin had killed some of Batman’s friends, which is surely what was the case with Paul in relation to Barnabas.

I suppose if you want a superhero metaphor for Barnabas and Paul, it would probably be Batman and the Joker. I wonder what Barnabas had to do in order to cope with the fact that his new partner was once the greatest enemy of Christianity.

Some of you might remember yesterday when I mentioned how it is difficult to deal with things when God does something new. Have you read all the violations in the book of Leviticus about sexuality, and then a repetition of the Ten Commandments?

I’m sure that Barnabas had times working with Saul/Paul, and was thinking: “Oh, man, this is so wrong. He could be faking this conversion. Then he’s going to find out where we all are hanging, and then he is so going to call in all of his friends and kill us all.”

Well, history reveals that Paul became a saint and not a sinner. I can’t help but wonder at what point did Barnabas drop all of his suspicions and completely trust Paul. I would imagine it would have been a tiny moment when he saw Paul ministering to the people, and saw that he had truly repented.

Whatever the case, there was a lot of forgiveness that probably had to happen. A process that is always so slow. Anyone who has ever been badly hurt by someone knows the what it means to let go of the anguish and hatred and let God chart a new course.

Yeah, I know how it is. Sometimes I wonder if I have truly forgiven. Sometimes the old monster of regret or aught against someone resurfaces. I wish I could say that it gets rebuked right away, instead of festering.

The truth is forgiveness moves at a snails pace. However, a gastropod has all the time in the world. In other words, what isn’t important is not when a snail will get there, but the fact that it is pointed in the right direction.