Brief synopsis of the readings: We continue with Acts of the Apostles, but now the focus is on Paul and Barnabas, not Peter. They led a meeting where everyone identified as disciples of Jesus but some were Jews and some were Gentiles. The next Sabbath the Jews protested the attendance of Gentiles, believing themselves to be in a higher class. Paul and Barnabas both reacted with anger. “We had to proclaim the word of God to you first, but since you have rejected it, since you do not think yourselves worthy of eternal life, we must turn to the pagans.” This delighted the Gentiles but enraged the Jews who turned away from Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their territory. Paul and Barnabas then left, shaking the dust from their sandals. John’s Gospel describes Jesus’ teaching on sheep and shepherds. He casts himself as a shepherd who knows and loves his sheep. “I give them eternal life; they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me.

For years I’ve preached on these readings and have concentrated nearly exclusively on the Gospel at the expense of the first reading. It’s easy to do: the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd and us as sheep just barely smart enough to follow isn’t all that hard to follow.

And taking nothing away from that interpretation, let’s look in a different direction. As I’ve said before the Acts of the Apostles gives us glimpses of the first years of what we now call the Christian Church. Paul (then called Saul) started out as a Pharisee who persecuted the followers of Jesus but had an experience where he encountered the resurrected Jesus and became and Apostle.

We can’t talk about shepherds and sheep, about leadership, without talking about the two pillars of Peter and Paul.

We know that Paul was an observant Jew and a Pharisee. Given that we could expect he would concentrate his ministry and evangelization on fellow Jews. But with many things pertaining to God, we find ourselves going in a different direction when we find the first of many existential crises in the church. Should the understanding of a resurrected Jesus become a subset of Judaism or something different, something greater?

Even a cursory look at Paul shows us his temper but this temper tantrum must have been epic. He spent his life taking for granted that everyone around him would listen and obey. But here, when he and Barnabas wish to include Gentiles in following Jesus, they grow irate. They thought themselves better than “those people.” But so much of Paul’s teaching and writing centered on the greatness of Christ and the relative weakness of himself.

And history tells us that Paul was, indeed, a Good Shepherd. He cared for his flock and was not above correcting those sheep whose ambition or status led them astray. We often speak about having to go to “Plan B” because “Plan A” didn’t work. I think that’s what we see here in the reading from Acts.

Authors of Scripture almost never give us insight into a person’s thoughts or feelings and frankly those words wouldn’t have made much sense to them. But I think we can safely say that Paul’s rebuke of the Jews led him to a crisis: Does he continue to reach out to the Jews, knowing that their numbers would decrease? Or does he then reach out to Gentiles who appear to be open to his preaching?

From our perspective it looks like an easy decision but it wasn’t. Reaching out to the Gentiles meant leaving behind many of the rituals and beliefs that Paul had counted on: circumcision, honoring the Sabbath, dietary restrictions, etc.

I love this reading because it speaks to us even to this day. Catholics of my generation and earlier were explicitly told that in matters of faith nothing will ever change. Mass will always be celebrated in Latin. Only priests can touch the host (ie, he could only place it on your tongue). Only boys can serve at the altar. All these changed.

Not only that but we continue to struggle with change. Catholic teaching still forbids artificial birth control. Marriage equality is still forbidden. Only celibate men can be ordained.

So where do we go from here? The last several decades have taught us that we can no longer find safety in being one of the sheep with no leadership responsibilities.

We are parents, role models, religious educators and members of a faith that demands that we teach others. When we lead, when we take on the role of being a shepherd we take on the responsibility of recognizing that when Plan A doesn’t work we need to figure out Plan B. I’ve spoken about this before but I have nothing but sympathy for those who attempted to teach religion as a child.

When I was in 6th grade Mr. Tarsia believed incorrectly that Catholic teaching prohibited a belief in evolution and attempted to convince us that evolution wasn’t accepted science. God bless him but my classmates and me eventually convinced him his view was unsustainable. Given what we were telling him he went to Plan B.

Much like the earliest days of what would become the Christian Church, we need to continue to look to those events and realities that cause us to look in a new direction. We go to Plan B only when Plan A no longer works.

Had Paul insisted in continuing with Plan A, if he had believed that Jesus’ call to salvation only included people like him, well, it’s hard to imagine where we would be. We would certainly not be the worldwide faith we now see. Perhaps 2000 years later there would be a small group who continued to look back and await Jesus’ coming. Perhaps they would have died within a few decades or centuries. There’s no way to know.

But Paul’s insistence to go to Plan B, his insistence to be the Good Shepherd to a larger flock, has given nearly all of us the ability to know God and Jesus.

Thanks Paul.