From the Daily Lectionary for Tuesday in the Twentieth Week after Pentecost
Luke 10:1-16
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But at the judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades.
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
The word “Apostles” in the Greek means “sent ones.” Here in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus sends out seventy such apostles to do the work for which he himself was sent. The number seventy is noteworthy. Any derivative of the number seven had exponential implications in Hebrew lore. Every seventh year was a jubilee in which debts were forgiven to enable a community to reconcile and reconstitute. Moses commissions seventy elders to carry out the liberation of Israel in the Sinai desert. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus instructs his disciples to forgive as many as seven times seventy. The seventy to whom Jesus refers represent the many, perhaps the many in succession over generations who have chosen to follow Jesus; the many who have given themselves in faith that to love one’s neighbor is to love God; the many who believe that the human community is less as long as there are those who languish in oppression, as long as there are poor in a world of abundance; as long as there are lives that matter less than the socially acceptable.
I take it as encouraging that this isn’t a solitary enterprise. Jesus sends his disciples out “in pairs,” we are told. To follow Jesus is a collaborative process. Those who marched in the streets during the civil rights era know this to be true. There is exponential power in community. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The power of love is stronger when it is practiced among friends with a common purpose.
We need no special training. We don’t need “stuff.” We don’t need a proper dogmatic system. It doesn’t take money. God only needs our lives, our souls and bodies, and the willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. I think it has become clear in our culture, our public life, what the Gospel issues are… has it not?
And then there’s some good advice: Don’t waste your time with people unwilling to hear the truth. Our allies are many; and so is the opposition. We have work to do, and we don’t have time to make our case to those who have fallen victim to falsehood. There will be willing laborers along the way. Our ministry, good people, is not a polite opinion… there is nothing polite about the movement into which we are baptized. We serve the truth for which the world yearns, that justice will flow like a mighty river; that the poor will be filled with good things; that the powerful will be brought down from their thrones of privilege.
This is not a debate. The opposite of truth, as it applies to our common life, is calamity. Our mission is for the salvation of the world, beginning with those whose lives matter least among us. Time is short, and the truth has waited long enough. Here we are, seventy or so… send us!
A Prayer for the Mission of the Church (BCP p. 257)
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere will seek after you and find you, bring the nations into your fold, pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
