Our season is radically modifying and transforming models and paradigms of the entire cultural system and pushes us towards“transformation recognition” of differences, subversive as well as full of promises. Theories can be found in plenty, but a re-reading within the Word of God is not equally found. 

Uncertain but exploring steps

The events of the young Church are always an inspiring archetype and we know very well that they are not only those narrated by Luke in  the Acts, but that they are implied also in the choice of the Gospel periscopes, in the exhortation of the Pauline Letters and of other apostles, and that they re-appear also in the last Book of the New Testament: the Apocalypse. Therefore, it is the matter of a complex panorama, that here I am going to mention, though it would deserve much more time and an appropriate style. I am going to choose some passages from the Acts of the Apostles.

a. The choice of the seven deacons (Acts:  6, 1-7): we are in an interesting and also convulsive moment. The clash between the witnesses of the Risen Jesus and the responsible heads of the Hebrew religion has become bitter and dangerous, so much as they speak of the intention of putting the witnesses to death (Acts 5, 33), due to the growing and uncontrollable sympathy of the people. The two visions are incompatible: on one side there are the heads who do not want to admit of being wrong in condemning the Rabbi of Nazareth, Jesus, and on the other side the apostles who go on strengthening their success also with “many miracles and prodigies”  (Acts: 5,1), attracting many also from outside Jerusalem.

The external success, though contrasted and rudely opposed, concealed an internal conflict, which was waiting for an occasion to explode. In Jerusalem, among the disciples of Jesus there were two quite different ethnic and cultural groups: the Hebrews who were born and were growing in loco, and the Hellenists, those who had immigrated into the land of Israel, but continued to live and feel things in a different way and had their own synagogues. The Judaic prevalence perhaps crashed them, marginalising them from the cult and organisation. Moreover, the going and coming of the apostles from the prison to the synedrion, made the guidance of thousands of disciples complicated and the concrete exigencies badly managed.

This caused dissatisfaction (gongysmòs), which means murmuring and tension together, irritability and want of reaction. The inequality in the assistance to the widows was probably the immediate pretext, but the problem was more complex than it looked. The response of the responsible persons was wise and loyal: the problem existed truly and its responsibility was attributed to the existing confused management. The solution was not just an exhortation to trust and submission, but the searching together of something towards an eventual integrated co-responsibility.

The crisis helped the heads to understand better their specific function (the Word and the Cult) and to seek advice aiming at entrusting to others the meals and the deaconate.  All the 7 deacons had Greek names, a sign of sharing the responsibilities, the first phase of overcoming the mono-culture. Thus, they invented a ministry (the deaconate): by asking and entrusting they re-dimensioned the pre-dominion of the prevalent culture, opening the way to integration, which, however, very soon will have to face other contexts and challenges. This internal “crisis”, faced with loyalty and imagination, but also with reciprocal trust, aroused a wave of adhesions (Acts: 6, 7). It might have caused a catastrophe, while it was an occasion for growth and diversification, thus freeing repressed energies. In fact the deacons were the first creative witnesses: Stephen was a preacher and martyr, Philip was an itinerant evangeliser (in Samaria, with the eunuch: Acts 8, 5-40).

b. Being re-born in the periphery:  the foundation of Antioch (Acts 11, 119-30). This is about a more complex event, because the story is about a group of fugitives, who escaped from the persecution that broke out after the lapidating of Stephen and reached Antioch.

Antioch is a famous Syrian city (500.000 inhabitants), multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious, tolerant, cultural- crossroad. Let us follow the adventures of these disciples of Jesus in this new context, where they meet one another again by chance, after fleeing and so much fear.

The text clearly says that “they did not preach the Word to nobody except to the Jews” (Acts:  11,19): this means that they went on doing what they were doing in Jerusalem, shut up in their own culture and choosing the addressee according to their origin. It was not a choice by chance: it was a wanted choice, fruit of a mental enclosing supported by the trauma that had uprooted them. However there are among them some with an extra march, some persons having in their blood and in their life the experience of more open cultural encounters: some persons who had learned the way of living and sharing with other cultural worlds and religious values. They were from Cyprus and Cyrenes, according to the text. Thus they tried to speak also to the Greeks. This short expression conceals many things: it was not only an anagraphic or linguistic difference, but also totally different cultural worlds with religious languages to be invented, imagined and co-ordinated in a new way outside the scheme.

It was s real adventure, a risk that could prove fatal, surely also a worry that must have made uneasy the life of the fugitives, who were already traumatised. Yet, they had the courage of risking, of exploring with imagination and freedom, without renouncing, however, the trans-cultural element, namely “preaching the good news of the Lord Jesus”(Acts:  11,20). The risk was rewarded by a dense adhesion of people “who were converted to the Lord”; here also there is a mention of the trans-cultural element. Luke puts together the hand of the Lord who accompanies and rewards the risk and the initiatives and the ears of Jerusalem that receive the news of the growing number of faithful and send the representative Barnaba to Antioch.  This was well known and esteemed in Jerusalem (See. Acts:  4, 36-37; 9, 26-30), where he was known for his generosity, as well as for his justice and capacity to understand the newness, particularly together with the converted Paul.

Let us now follow the action of Barnaba. He is introduced with a praise aiming at understanding the qualities required to discern in similar circumstances. A virtuous, robust and stable experience is required, an opening to the sudden inspiration of the Spirit, a glance of faith capable of recognising the essential and distinguishing it out of the rest. Then we read that he goes there, sees and recognises the grace of the Lord, rejoicing at it.  Evidently he is endowed with a sincere mental openness and faith. He does not judge on hearsay, but verifies, accepting to be at the service of the Lord, feeling enriched by what he meets and what others have realised. He does not advance his role, is not conditioned by what might be in the mind of those who have sent him there, who most probably wanted to control the effervescence n Antioch. Barnaba is involved, feels even gratified by the diversity, finds reasons for rejoicing and serving the growth of that experience. 

For this he gives up his authority putting himself at the service of the new experience and urging them “all to remain faithful to the Lord” (Acts: 11,24). His exhortation is not addressed only to the enterprising persons who had torn the scheme by speaking also to the Greeks. It is an exhortation addressed to all men, Jews or Greeks, to persevere in this exploration and creation of an open and inter-cultural community which is less mono-cultural than that in Jerusalem. Barnaba had the intuition that Antioch had become a laboratory of new universality, of dynamic and promising integration: a thing that would never have succeeded in Jerusalem. He, somehow, finds himself again, his authenticity of a man from Cyprus, unbound from given rigidities and intuitive interpreter of the new paths to God. This position gives enthusiasm and courage to a “considerable crowd” to be aggregated by the Lord, being it clear that the cultural defences and autonomies have disappeared.

c. The new exploring adventure: It might have seemed that the adventure –in itself so much risky and daring as to impress the “ears” of Jerusalem- would stop there, since it had already covered too much a distance. On the contrary, “Barnaba left for Tarsus in search of Saul (Acts: 11,25): it seems that Barnaba had in mind this destination from the very beginning because the text (even in Greek: he went out towards Tarsus) seems to  present the journey as a complement of Barnaba’s project. The chased-escape of Saul from Jerusalem had been a trauma for the converted persecutor, who was still suspected by the believers as not being truly converted and of being rejected by the “Hellenists” themselves (Acts: 9, 26-30). We may think also that Barnaba, who had understood what a resource Saul was and had been his guarantor (Acts: 9, 27), had not forgotten him at all; he was rather waiting for proper circumstances to find and re-integrate him. 

In fact, it was easier for him to recuperate him from Antioch and to let him grow to maturity for the common activity of preaching. However, Saul needed help for the healing of his wounds. This is why Barnaba looked for him, found him, accompanied him to the new community and for one full year they met in assemblies and taught a numerous crowd” (literally in Greek). There is the material recuperation of an isolated brother, by letting him feel sought and desired, but also an entering the common ekklesia, that they may welcome him and he may make himself to be accepted, thus learning to live together and to evangelise for a sufficiently ample time.   

In the procedure of Barnaba we can observe some important exigencies: what matters is not the role and the distinction, but the availability to meet, to recognise one another, to dialogue to heal old times of marginalisation and wounds. This is why Antioch itself, momentarily, stands in the second place, in order to look for a brother and to give him the possibility of feeling sought and loved, desired and listened to. But the brother also must learn how to be welcome, to collaborate for an ample time, appreciating also the custom and life-styles of others in harmony and concord. A new identity is born from this integration, which becomes conviviality of stories and charisma, healing and integration, collaboration and service. The text expresses all this with a title given by the people, which clearly expresses what is within it: “for the first time the disciples were called Christians”   (Acts: 11, 26).

We can stop at the term and fill it with what is in our mind today. But we can also see in it the synthesis of all that had happened: Christians were those who had the courage of getting rid of the traumas that were blocking them, those who spoke to the Greeks, who were comforted and encouraged by the representative of the central institution, who were able to recuperate the wasted resource, namely Saul, who have systematically worked together for a long time instructing the crowd. The term Christian, therefore, is a synthesis of all these things and not only a reference to the name (Christ) which was constantly on their lips.

An authentic and trans-cultural reality was born and developed from the periphery and through the action of people thrown by chance and traumas far away from their own country. It was a reality capable of opening to more addressees in a communicative and efficacious way; a reality capable of integrating the newness without fear, of risking one’s own peripheral originality to recuperate the one who had been excluded and compelled to a humiliating marginalisation.

d. An inter-cultural, consolidated and available community (Acts 13, 1-5). The adventure of Antioch did surely not end there, at the title of “Christian” which was then applied to all believers, including those in Jerusalem. Given the unbearable tensions, which the believers in Jerusalem had to forbear, Peter himself was compelled to leave it and be transferred to another place. (Acts: 12, 17). From chapter 13 of the Acts, the protagonist now passes over to Antioch, from where the first great missionary journey will set off, entrusted to Barnaba and Saul. But I like to stop only at the situation of the community in Antioch, before the departure for the work that the Spirit sends them to (See:  Acts, 13, 2). In particular we shall stop at the first three verses of chapter 13, which clearly describe the consolidated and mature community in its multi-cultural identity, serenely integrated and in its “Christian” identity.

Let us meanwhile notice that the responsible persons of the community now are five, each with his own peculiar characteristic, deserving to be considered, though they are all catalogued as “prophets and doctors”. Each name evokes a specific and different scenario: we know already Barnaba from Cyprus, a Levite, migrated to Jerusalem and sent to Antioch. He was the most mature and authoritative in the group.  Simeon, named “black”, from a completely different ethnic community, therefore with a history of difficult acceptance, for being of a different race. Lucio di Cirene, (a well-known city because of its enterprising inhabitants)who comes from another far off land (Lybia), with different traditions and customs;  Manaèn, who was educated together with Herod the tetrarch, therefore endowed with a noble education and important friends. Saul, whose prestigious formation as a rabbi we already know, together with Tarsus, his city of birth, his phase of life as persecutor, followed by a time of marginalisation and isolation. These are five personalities completely different whose life cannot be superimposed, yet here they are introduced as a group,dedicates habitually and regularly, (the verbs are in the imperfect tense to indicate that habitual and prolonged praxis), that takes back the voice of the Spirit even afterwards. This shows that the “Chrisian” identity is truly moulding them and guiding them towards reciprocal trust, in the activity of “doctors and prophets”, as well as in the discernment of the spiritual newness.

This is the context in which the “subversive” call of the Spirit can resound, “Reserved for me, Barnaba and Saul for the work I have called them to fulfil” (Acts: 13,2)  it is the matter of a double process: On one side to recognise, after discerning in a climate of prayer and sobriety, the sense and challenge of the new destination. This also because it is the matter of letting Barnaba go, the great and authoritative responsible person, as well as Saul, the last one to arrive, with a non-transparent past. On the other side the community has to look for a new balance in responsibility, probably by associating other persons not mentioned here, to the end of being stable in their evangelisation even with the new protagonists, continuing to trust in the activity of those who have gone for an adventure with numberless unknown happenings. Concentrating in prayer and in discernment  again, and then saying farewell with “the imposition of hands” (Acts: 13,3), indicate a process –not just an isolated passage- of co-responsibility, of sharing and availability to acknowledge a common fruit in whatever may happen. This will clearly be manifested in what they describe at their coming back, “On their arrival they assembled the church and gave an account of all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. They stayed there with the disciples for some time” (Acts: 14, 27-28).

Going on with the same method
and dynamic faithfulness

Always pushed “beyond” by happenings and circumstances, an experience of Christian community has gone on taking shape from what we have seen happening in the primitive community, through several passages, not always easy and serene, yet always courageous and creative. This has gone on by overcoming the barriers of habits, tearing off the securities acquired with fatigue, inventing again new balances, as well as religious and cultural syntheses of inter-personal relations and entwined diversities. We could go on discovering that these successive events, that bring to focus the identity without freezing it in a fixed scheme, rather discovering new chances and new evangelising adventures, go on being produced and multiplied. However, at a certain point, they generate also a radical conflict, for whose solution Jerusalem with its heads will be called to participate (Acts 15, 6-29), as well as the entire ekklesia of believers (See: Acts, 15,3; 16,4). We do not have a season of exploration and open elaboration, followed by serene fruition and diligent up-keeping of all that has been acquired, established and synthesized. Always new yards are opened  with their risks, adventures and resistances, petty ambiguities and innovations guided by the “hand of the Lord”.

The same thing is valid also for the work of educators and formators; it is not so much the matter of making a decent and acceptable synthesis of diversities in the group of novices or juniors, or of the communities. It is the matter of something ampler and more radical: making them learn the art of starting again, of putting the diversity in a fruitful and dialoguing tension, of entwining cultures and sensitivity in such a way as to provoke an entwined fecundation, aiming at producing and promoting new cultural expressions and new charismatic dynamisms, tearing off the stereotyped and sacred things often bound to hegemonic cultures.

It is not simple to pick up the trans-cultural elements of any charism and of its charismatic identity, I know it well. However, often we identify as “trans-cultural” many things that are actually natural or regional particularities; they are the product of a devotional religious layer, not at all purified by a healthy theology of the Church, of liturgy, of Christian life, of a radical Gospel testimony. “Our religious life is full of obsolete mummified things. Only with a di-structuring of the sacred idol, in which everything seems to be untouchable, it will be possible to understand and to respond to the Spirit that calls us “to do great things with you” (VC 110).

I would say that the trans-cultural values and impulses that give reason to life and substance to religious consecration are to be transmitted to the young and less young religious. However, they are to be taught also the art standing up in constantly agitated and moving situations, as if we were on tapis roulant. In other words, they are to be taught how to recognise in the constant entwining and mixing –with ever more amplitude and improvisation- of cultures and lived experiences, personal characters and evangelical options, spiritual vision and sense horizons, a call to evaluate and see the grace of the Lord, to rejoice at the opportunity of living not simply of repetition, but every day with wonder and creativity, re-inventing synthesis and communion, research and possession, liberation and healing.