I have a fancy calendar. It lists the feast days of obscure ancient Christians, like Fabian (today), Agnes of Rome (tomorrow), and Vincent of Saragossa (Thursday. By the way, I think that is the Saragossa in Spain, not the one in Walker County, Alabama, but who knows? Are you reading this, Vinnie?)
Who even knew these people existed, let alone that the Episcopal Church sets aside days each year to commemorate their lives? But that’s not all the fancy stuff that’s in my calendar. It includes Bible readings for every day, civic holidays, even important days in other world religions. All it lacks is the SEC. football schedule, but I’m sure someone around here is working on fixing that.
My calendar tells me that yesterday was the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I have to admit I have never heard a mention of this annual event in my 22 years in the United States (although they do make a big thing of it in the UK.) Pity. The US needs some Christian unity, and if we don’t pray for it then we can’t expect it to happen.
On Sunday at the Annual Meeting I mentioned a rather shocking Bible event. It is in Acts 15. The Christian superheroes Paul and Barnabas (whose superpowers included converting people to Christ and courageously withstanding persecution for his sake) have a fight and split up. Right. They have a fight. Luke, the writer of Acts, says it was ‘a sharp disagreement’. So sharp was it, that they felt they could no longer work together.
Can you imagine the distress and anger that this caused the early church? The two great evangelists who had partnered to spread the Gospel and plant churches are now in such deep conflict that they have to go their separate ways? Shocking. But comforting too. It’s one of those moments when we realize that the early church was not the perfect place we often think. They had serious conflicts and sometimes they just couldn’t resolve them.
It is helpful to remember that these days. Sometimes good people, with the best will in the world, can’t make it work and need to part company. It’s sad, tragic even, but look at the outcome. After their split Barnabas (and Mark) go to Cyprus while Paul (with Silas) leaves for Syria and Cilicia. So, what appeared to be a disaster of disunity actually became the way God took the Gospel to more places – Syria, Cilicia, AND Cyprus.
Of course, this doesn’t make up for the pain of conflict and the scandal of disunity, but it does remind us that even when church leaders reach the conclusion that they can’t work together, God still has glorious plans.