We Need More Big Mouths

June 11 2025   Acts 11:21-26, 13:1-3

Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle

“So, Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.”  Acts 11:25​

The first persecution of the Church broke out because of a loudmouth named Stephen.

It all started with a dispute over food that the Church was sharing. Some Greek-speaking members of the Church thought that the Hebrew-speaking members were getting more than their fair share. The Apostles were too busy with their teaching to supervise quarrels of this sort, so they created a new office in the Church – Deacons – who would work it out, and the first Deacons were all Greek-speakers. Their leader was Stephen, who was probably one of the people who started the row in the first place (cf. Acts 6:1-6).

No sooner had Stephen been ordained a Deacon than he began picking fights with Greek-speaking Jews from all over about how Jesus was the Messiah. Stephen, it turned out, was a very articulate and well-informed loudmouth, so none of those he picked a fight with could withstand his arguments. So, they reported Stephen to the authorities, and he was hauled before the Sanhedrin (6:8-15) to explain himself. He outdid himself before the Sanhedrin, but because he was a loudmouth, he couldn’t resist calling the High Priest and his council “stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart and ears,” murderers of the prophets, murderers of the Messiah and violators 0f the law. This was too much for the chief priest and elders of the people, and they lynched him (7:1-60). The Church then scattered.

An equally brash loudmouth among the Greek-speaking Jews, named Saul,volunteered to travel to Syria and track down the apostate Jews who had run off but were still proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah. Along the way Saul ran into Jesus himself, was converted on the spot, and chose the trade name Paul. He was a loudmouth even more talented than Stephen was, and before long the Jews of Damascus wanted to kill him like the Jews of Jerusalem wanted to kill Stephen. The believers had to hustle him out of town (9:1-25).

Paul went to Jerusalem to meet the Apostles and the Church there. They had all heard about him – everybody knows the loudmouths. Almost nobody trusted him. Then Paul started to pick fights with the same people Stephen picked fights with, and they wanted to kill Paul, too. Paul was hustled out of town again before another persecution started. This time he headed to his hometown of Tarsus (9:26-31), and the Jerusalem Church heaved a sigh of relief.

Some of the believers who had fled Jerusalem after the death of Stephen wound up in Syria. Their leaders told them to keep their mouths shut, to talk only to fellow Jews who had been checked out first. Of course they didn’t, because there were bigmouths in that group, too. They talked about Jesus to some pagan Greeks who liked what they heard, and wanted to hear more. Jerusalem got word and sent Barnabas to see what was going on. Barnabas found their faith to be sincere, but they needed a leader who could speak their language and answer their questions. Then Barnabas made a decision that quite literally changed the course of history: “Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul” (11:21-26). Thus began the gentile mission, and the Church spread all over the Roman world. It out thought and out fought, out prayed and outstayed, out lived and out died the ancient world. It spread all over the world and changed the way everyone thought about right and wrong, truth and falsehood, time and eternity.

And it is growing again. It is estimated that by 2050 there will be more Catholics in Africa than there are people in the United States. And all of that largely because of Paul and his big mouth.

There were bigmouths in the Church from the start, people who dared to talk about Jesus out loud, very loud, louder than the people who were uncomfortable, louder than the people who hated them, louder than the people who killed them, loud enough to be heard by the people who finally recognized them as the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Maybe all we need now is someone with a big mouth to get us started.