St. Barnabas

“Here’s one example. There’s a Christian family that lives maybe a ten-minute walk from where we’re sitting: a husband and wife and two daughters, four and six. The husband is a shop keeper and the wife is a seamstress. They are able to afford a two-room, ground-floor flat. The family that lives above them, also four people, are not believers and their two daughters are sometimes too sick to go to school—the polluted water problem. This has happened two times in the past three months and on each occasion the Christian family has insisted on caring for the two daughters so the father and mother can get to their jobs without having to worry about their children.

“As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before the upstairs family asked why their neighbors were so generous of their time and money. And that was all the opening they needed. They immediately began to share Jesus with this family, telling them about His life and his love for all the people, no matter who they were or where they came from. They said there are many Christians in Rome who feel the same way and are doing similar things, helping their neighbors, some of whom they hardly know.

“And I spoke to another family, a husband, wife, his elderly mother-in-law and two teenage children, a boy 14 and his 16 year old sister. That’s a family of five, trying to get by on the incomes of the man and wife. The mother-in-law is in her early eighties and is too crippled to walk without the aid of a wooden staff. The boy goes to school but only when he feels like it; he’s a real problem, very difficult to discipline. The girl—and the family was most reluctant to tell me this—was raped a few days ago and her assailant was never found. When the father reported this to the police, they shrugged it off, saying it happens all the time and without a name or a description of the man, the police can’t—won’t—do anything.

“After hearing this much of their story, the wife asked me to step into another room—they live in a two-room flat, all five of them—and she told me about their upstairs neighbors. She didn’t name them, and I can understand why, but she said she’s learned that they are Christians, a man, his wife, and two nearly-grown children, a boy and a girl. The husband is employed in a wood-working shop; it makes chairs and tables and, yes, walking sticks. When they learned of the elderly woman’s situation, he made a walking stick, just the right length for her to use. And he gave it to her, no charge.

“When they learned about the rape, the girl immediately went to the victim—they already knew each other, but only slightly—and was able to learn how it happened. She wanted to know if a pregnancy might be possible. No, she was certain that wasn’t a problem, but over time the two have become close friends. Now they’re both sharing stories about Jesus and the others in the family are beginning to see how faith does make a difference.

“Those are only two examples, Tertius. I can recite several others, but the story is generally the same. Christians helping neighbors, spreading the gospel message. You can believe that these stories are moving through your city like a raging fire, a fire which cannot be extinguished.”

* * *

Historians tell us that these examples of Christians helping others are the root cause of Christianity’s explosive growth throughout the Western Hemisphere. From a few hundred believers in Rome in the first century, the faith had reached as far north as the British Isles and as far east as the Volga River. In the year 1000, ten centuries after the deaths of Peter, Paul, Jesus and the others, more than one hundred million people had become believers. Today, there are more than two billion of us and, by the grace of God, when the Rapture comes each one of us will be ready.

Amen.