Brief synopsis of the readings: We continue to soldier our way through Acts. Here Paul and Barnabas travel to the city of Antioch to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection. After Sabbath worship Paul and Barnabas encouraged those gathered to “remain faithful to the grace of God.” The next Sabbath they gathered again, only this time they were met with Jews who contradicted their message. In response Paul and Barnabas told them that since they rejected the Word of God, they (Paul and Barnabas) had no choice but to bring their message to the pagans. Paul and Barnabas were then expelled from the city; they shook the dust from their feet and left the city. John’s Gospel gives us Jesus using the imagery of himself as shepherd. Jesus tells those gathered that his sheep follow him. They will never be lost and none will be stolen. “The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone, and no one can steal from the Father.”

I’ve spoken about this before, but it’s clear to me that when John wrote his Gospel he didn’t have a 21st Century audience in mind. In his day (and in his place) people knew a great deal about sheep. Most of us, not so much. And while we don’t need to know everything about herding sheep, we do need to know a few things.

First, and I say this with all due respect, sheep are not the brightest of God’s creations. Their wool gives us excellent sweaters and slacks and they taste delicious, but herding them is hard work. They have a tendency to wander off which is good news for wolves but bad news for the sheep. It’s also bad news for the shepherd who spends all day every day keeping them from wandering off.

That’s what makes John’s Gospel so astounding. Jesus is portrayed as the shepherd, and yes, it means we are the sheep. But Jesus doesn’t lose anyone. Not one. Even the best earthly shepherd loses a few, whether it be to predators, disease, or other shepherds. He is one good shepherd.

I’m puzzled, though, in the first reading from Acts, where Jesus appears to be losing all sorts of people. There is an undercurrent in Acts where the apostles, successful as they were, weren’t as successful as they expected. Coming off the unimaginable high of seeing the resurrected Jesus they were given marching orders: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).

But not everybody got the memo, and it became clear that certain of the Jews refused to believe in Jesus. The earliest apostles expected a clear path forward: We’ve all been waiting our lives for the Messiah. Well, the Messiah was Jesus. As a matter of fact, Matthew wrote his entire Gospel with an eye toward Jews who didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah. We can even read the frustration in Paul and Barnabas: “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 was good news for the pagans, and all of us who did not descend from that community in Israel is grateful for their refusal.

And so there were clearly sheep who wandered off. But how do we justify this with John’s proclamation that Jesus the Shepherd has a perfect record?

Let’s face it: for most of our history as Christians we have gone all in with this reading from Acts and ignored the reading from John. We’ve scorned the Jews who didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and this has informed 2,000 years of anti-Semitism. As a matter of fact, until 50 years ago the Good Friday liturgy spoke of the “perfidious (faithless) Jews.”

So what do we do with this first reading? If we believe what Jesus is telling us, nobody is lost. Nobody has the power to “steal us from God.” The imagery of the reading doesn’t make the sheep smarter or more faithful: it makes the shepherd more competent and inclusive.

I believe these readings tell us that no matter what we do, God loves us. We can see this statement as a cliche, but I ask that we don’t. God’s love is greater than the power of evil, and it’s also greater than our power to wander. Much like the prodigal son, no matter what we do, God welcomes us. He welcomes us home and welcomes us into his Kingdom.

Does this mean that even Jews, and other non Christians are included? I know I’m going against centuries of belief, but I think it does. I see God not so much as the ultimate source of justice as the ultimate source of mercy (though clearly God is both).

Our limited understanding forces us to see justice and mercy as competitors, but while this may be our lot, it’s not God’s. And God calls us not to settle for our understanding but to aspire to his. This week we learned that Pope Francis asks us to look on Catholics in “irregular marriages” as deserving of mercy. Previously those Catholics who “married outside the church” (for whatever reason) did not “qualify” to receive Eucharist. Without changing the rules, Pope Francis instead asks us to look on those (us) not as those who “didn’t do what they (us) were supposed to do” but instead on those who are included in God’s love.

But if this is true, if everyone is included in God’s Kingdom, why be Christian? It’s not as cynical a question as you might think. If everyone is saved, why choose anything? Ultimately I believe that while God is greater than any one faith, we are not. Some of us choose to be Jews, some Christians, some Hindus, some agnostics. If we follow the “better angels of our nature, we all do pretty much the same things: we feed the hungry, we welcome the stranger, and we try to make our world a little better than we found it. Whether we call it “corporal works or mercy” or “karma” or “mitzvah” we’re all doing the same thing.

Does that mean it doesn’t matter what we believe? Quite the opposite. It means everything matters in what we believe. It means that we choose a path to the Kingdom, knowing that any path that begins compassion ends in salvation.

It means we need to live compassion with everyone and love them, even if we choose different paths to the Kingdom.