20th Day of Easter, Friday May 1: Acts 11:19-30

Have you got a map handy in a bible? The Jerusalem crowd scattered after Stephen’s stoning, in the persecution that Saul supported. There are folks talking all around the eastern Mediterranean. Some come from Cyrene in north Africa, and from Cyprus, and show up in Antioch, the centre of the Seleucid empire before the Romans governed Syria. Antioch in Syria, and Alexandria in Egypt, will be key centres balanced with Rome in the next century, and in Orthodoxy today.

It’s a big deal to start the church in Antioch – and Acts has to give credit to the Africans and Cypriots for startup, but quickly lays down the theme that the Jerusalem church sends supervision and reinforcement in Barnabas, who picks up Paul along the way. This is the beginning of the Barnabas and Saul team, building up the believers for a year in Antioch – and claiming the new name ‘Christian’. Who starts and builds churches, and who takes and gives the credit? Who builds our communal moral and financial capital - and who spends it and parasites it away?

Agabus and the prophets come from Jerusalem to Antioch, to predict a famine – or more likely, report one - and to ask for relief for the folks back home in Judea. That’s a familiar tale in every church ever since, and in every displaced community or immigrant group in Toronto sending help back home. To whom do we owe relief, and how to we guarantee delivery? Antioch sends Barnabas and Saul.