Easter Week 4 Tuesday

Readings: Acts 11:19-26; Psalm 87; John 10:22-30 

While the first reading is taking us forward, on into the developing life of the Church, the gospel reading seems to take us backwards, to a moment before the death and resurrection of Jesus, when he was still arguing with 'the Jews' about who he was.

Barnabas is the key figure in the development of the Church at Antioch. He is trusted by the community at Jerusalem to go to Antioch and to see how the integration of 'the Greeks' is going there. It seems that some of the first preachers restricted their preaching to Jews while others were open to Gentiles also. Such openness seems to have been the strength of the community at Antioch. Barnabas sees for himself that God is giving grace there. 

More than that, he is moved by what he now sees at Antioch to go looking for Saul, who some time before had retreated to Tarsus, his home town. Saul seems to have lived a quiet life there for a number of years. His biographers propose that he spent the time in prayer and study: Tarsus was an important academic centre.

In the meantime, according to Acts 9-11, Peter and the Jerusalem community were learning important lessons about the universal mission of the Church: that God shows no partiality, that the Gentiles also were receiving the word of God, that the gift of the Holy Spirit was being poured out even on the Gentiles. The apostles were seeing these things, interpreting and discerning them under the guidance of the same Spirit.

At Antioch Barnabas puts the pieces together: the time is ripe to bring Saul back into the story. You will remember that Saul's preaching at Damascus and Jerusalem had provoked anger and opposition in both places, with Jews in one and Hellenists in the other. So he went to Tarsus and things calmed down.

But Barnabas, a good man filled with the Holy Spirit and faith, and also, it seems, a man of exceptional intuition and prudence, recognised Saul's gift, was even perhaps given an insight into the mission he was to have as 'Saint Paul'. He brought Saul back and they worked together in Antioch for a year before undertaking a missionary journey across Asia Minor. Together they built up the community of people who were now, for the first time, called Christians. It is one reason why some regard Saul/Paul as the founder of the religion that came to be known as 'Christianity'.

The gospel reading today is sombre by contrast. 'You do not believe because you are no sheep of mine', Jesus says to the Jews who are questioning him. His words and the signs he has worked in the Father's name should have been enough to convince them. 'Tell us plainly', they say. 'I have told you', he says, 'and my works confirm it'. It seems they do not believe because they do not belong to Jesus' flock. We might have wished it the other way round: you do not belong to my flock because you do not believe. So believe and belong. But as Jesus expresses it, it seems more like his choice than theirs: if you belonged to my flock you would believe. But you do not belong and so you do not believe.

Is their situation irreversible?  So much of the gospel and the rest of the New Testament tells us that it cannot be so. So how do we come to belong to Jesus' flock so that we might believe his words and his works? We must listen to his voice and follow him: this is the message of Jesus in the gospel reading. This is how to belong to him and come to believe. We must pray for God's grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit, listen to his voice in that way: this is the message of the first reading. It is the Holy Spirit, working through the words and works of preachers and witnesses, who builds up the Church in every generation, forming good men and women to belong to the Lord's flock, whose faith will entitle them to be called 'Christians'.