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. 2 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. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 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. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 “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.’
16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” 17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” 18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
This is the word of the lord
Thanks be to God.
As you might be able to tell from my recovering sunburn, I spent the past week at scout camp in the mountains of Pennsylvania with my daughter. If you have been to camp, you know how it goes. If not, a quick summary: you pack up enough gear and clothing to outfit your self and a small army and drive off to someplace – usually in the middle of the woods – and live out of a platform tent for a full week. As a new troop scouts, We opted for patrol cooking. This meant that instead of having to go to the dining hall with all the other scouts for meals, we got food from the quartermaster and cooked in our sites.
If you haven’t done it, I recommend it. As an adult, I spent my morning taking paddlecraft and boating safety classes and in the afternoons, I worked with scouts, and sometimes tried to work a bit. It’s not a bad working vacation. I might have taken at least one scoutmaster nap.
So Hannah and I were away from home for a full week. We left early Sunday and returned yesterday after living in community for a week on the edge of a lake. It was fantastic, but it does mean that we had to be away from all the conveniences we normally have and expect. So to do this, We spent the week prior to camp pulling together all of our equipment and clothing and generally getting ready to go spend a week in the woods and trying to remember how to prepare for every contingency.
Thankfully the camp takes some of the burden off of us by providing cooking stoves and gear, and a full menu, but there are always questions.
Questions like – Do we have enough clean clothing, have extra sunscreen, have we done enough pre-work to make sure we have learned to work together as a group? The usual challenges of taking a group of scouts to the woods for a week notwithstanding, it always feels like there is something I’m forgetting, it’s not just do we have enough clothing, but will there be enough food for everyone and all the allergies; what if it pours down rain for the week? do we have all the materials and gear to keep everyone safe and reasonably comfortable?
Thankfully, we did. Yes, it rained and yes, there was mud everywhere and in everything, but there was also good food and company and lots of excited scouts to work with. We all pulled together to get through the week and even as I dropped off the last of my scouts today, they were still talking excitedly about what they want to do next.
When sitting down to write for you this week, our gospel text from Luke made me think of all the packing and equipment that I took with us to live at a scout camp for just a week. I knew where we were headed and I knew we had equipment and there would be food and I was still stressed out about it. But there was no real urgency in my stress, just the anxiety that comes from being responsible for other people’s children.
In our passage today, Jesus’ command to those being sent out to not to take a bag, purse, or sandals and not to greet anyone on the way suggests urgency, and limited time to accomplish the task at hand. The absence of even the minimal necessities for travel tells us that the intent was for the seventy to totally rely on God and the hospitality of others. There was to be no distraction from the main intent of their visit.
In light of this anxiety that comes from caring for other people and wanting equipment to be comfortable and to be able to make my own way, I find it challenging to read Jesus’ commands to the seventy to not to take a bag, purse, or sandals and not to greet anyone on the way. Where will we stay? How will we eat? Not even a bag to carry some food, or a rain coat to protect us from the weather?
Just reading the passage is tense.
Eugene Peterson’s the message helps convey the urgency of commands
What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands.
Now quick! Be On your way! But be careful—this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack.
“So Travel light. Comb and toothbrush and no extra luggage.
Quickly now – Don’t loiter and make small talk with everyone you meet along the way.
5 Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 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. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 “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.’
In short – the job of those being sent was to offer peace, cure the sick, and share the news that the kin-dom of God was near.
Simple work, right?
I want to pause here and loop back to the beginning of our passage today; in Luke 10:1 it reads “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.” It is interesting to me that Jesus chooses to send out the Seventy, given that just prior to this in Luke 9, he had sent out the 12 disciples. In Luke 9 it reads
“Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kin-dom of God and to heal. 3 He said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic. 4 Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there. 5 Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”
Those words might sound familiar to us as we just heard something quite similar in our reading today. So Jesus sent the Twelve out in mission in chapter 9, now he sends seventy. In my readings for this week, I found that Bible scholar Elaine Heath argues that there is significance in the choice of ether number 70. She argues that the number seventy implies all of humanity, as in Genesis 10 a list of all the nations of the worlds provided, and that lists numbers seventy. She draws a parallel to the seventy that Jesus sends out in mission to all the places he indeed to visit and to the list of seventy nations from genesis 10. She argues that Luke’s message of salvation for everyone is repeated: salvation is for all of humanity, for every nation of the earth. I believe that this message of salvation for everyone lies behind the the urgency in Jesus’ sending out and his command to the 12 disciples and the seventy to proclaim the good news.
Salvation is for all the earth, salvation is for every person and nation. The kin-dom of God is near. Don’t stop proclaiming the kin-dom because salvation is for every person and nation.
This is the good news. Salvation is for every person in every nation.
The coming of the kin-dom demands a change in our perspective. Whether that means living in the presence of Christ today or living with him in the hereafter, we must begin to see the challenges of life through a lens that is provided by God, rather than our own human perspectives built by human endeavors. As messengers of the kin-dom of God, we have a powerful calling. The Lord has commissioned us to go out and gather the harvest and to pray for additional laborers to help with the harvest. We are not given the responsibility of preparing the harvest – that responsibility is God’s alone.
Instead we are promised that the harvest is already abundant. Our job as the hands and feet of the body is to go and do the work of gathering the harvest. God is responsible for the growth of our communities. We are called to be open to this growth; to plan, organize, and work in a way that anticipates, rather than impedes, such growth; and to pray for and invite others to join us in gathering the harvest God has prepared.
What might that look like? Supporting at risk children through after-school programs. Working shifts at the local senior center. Welcoming in the new family that just moved in. Helping your neighbor clear their driveway after a storm. Anything we can do to spread God’s Shalom builds the kin-dom and draws us closer to each other and to God.
I want to take a moment and talk about Shalom. In my experience, we hear it a lot in church, but we don’t often define it. Shalom means peace – but even more than just peace in means completeness. My Hebrew dictionary defines Shalom as “peace, safety, prosperity, well-being; intactness, wholeness; peace can have a focus of security, safety which can bring feelings of satisfaction, well-being, and contentment. → completeness; health; peace; prosperity; safety; well-being.”
That is the kind of peace we are talking about when Jesus says “peace to this house!” He is talking about nothing less that the restoration of every broken relationship, every hurt cared for, for every one in that house to be at peace, to be complete, and to be whole.
Finally as we end our exploration of the word together, I invite you to incorporate these two proclamations of Jesus into your everyday lives for a week. How might you restate Jesus’ proclamation “The kingdom of God has come near? How might we share the Peace of God? We might say “I can see God’s love in your life right now” or “God is at work in all of this”
When offering peace to this house, we might offer a simple God loves you to each other. I hope for healing in your life. As we share the proclamations and think of new ways to charge them, I invite you to return to the community, how you have shared and how it has made you feel.
This is the good news: God had promised an abundant harvest. Now we have work to do.
Brothers and sisters in christ, what do we believe?
We believe that in life and in death, we belong to God.
Matthew Messenger 