Luke 10:1-11, 16-20: 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.'
"Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."
The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 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. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
Jesus has already sent out the Apostles to expand his work. In today’s Gospel, he sends seventy more ahead of him to prepare places in the towns for his arrival. Today, especially today, he would send more than 12, more than 70, he would send each and every one of us. The church is a ministry of laity, deacons, priests, and bishops. Laity first, laity above all. There is a scarcity of clergy in the Diocese of Texas, as we hear regularly at Diocesan Council, for the present, let alone the future. Encouraging more clergy will help, but Jesus’ followers were not clergy at all, they were fishers and farmers and tax collectors and soldiers.
Jesus is convinced that the harvest is greater than the number of workers, that something will be lost if we cannot rally to prepare our world for the Easter message. And God cannot stand to lose any. Jesus wants us to be loss averse, to be preoccupied with larger life. We each have our own litany of the current need for salvation in our time and place—greater depression and medication and anxiety and hopelessness in the most resource abundant country in the history of the world; poverty, abuse, and nihilism; trappings of grief, loss, struggle, and isolation. We each have our own web of broken relationships, hopes, and goals. Yet Jesus is convinced that there is more to the harvest, that there is an abundance of life available.
He bids us pray for more workers; he bids us to be workers. He bids us to harvest the Gospel in our own lives.
Sheep among wolves. Jesus warns us that we will be vulnerable, that caring is counter-cultural enough to be laden with the inertias of shame and fear, that whole-hearted living requires exposure. I don’t think Jesus is asking us to approach total strangers and try to get them to pray a particular prayer so that they will receive a get-out-of-hell-free-card. I’ve done that before. It was more about my agency than preparing for larger life. I don’t think Jesus is asking us to earn and warrant condescension. I think Jesus is asking us to put ourselves out there, to identify ourselves as people of faith, to hope, to trust, to risk caring for others who may not return our love.
He asks us not to carry show-and-tell items or extra baggage, not to wear armor to protect ourselves, but to go as we are.
The injunction to avoid greeting people on the road has to be figurative; what better way to prepare for the harvest than to greet others, make space f or them, listen to their story? Rather, Jesus seems to warn against procrastinating. I don’t think this means that we are to skip getting to know someone in favor of the sinner’s prayer. Quite the opposite. I think Jesus is asking us to get to know others on the way and be open hearted instead of shooting the breeze.
Offer peace. Peace is not the absence of war, but the creation of new Life. It is rarely quiet or still. It is about scarred resurrection more than fleeing the garden of Gethsemane. Offer new life, cracked and all. Open our imagination to the adage that God is more present in us than we are in ourselves and wonder aloud with those on the road.
Eat what is set before us. That could be food, but it could also be empathy, listening until the speaker is done, not until we are. Prove through perseverance that sickness does not necessarily alienate us from one another and never isolates us from God. Show, however messily, that the family of God has come near, that there are second and third and twenty-third chances.
Woe. Bummer. Too bad for those who miss out on the party that God is inviting us to right now. If a more fitting invitation had been issued, Sodom and Gomorrah would have come. If the writing were clearer, Tyre and Sidon would have shown up with favors. God’s party has begun and we get to be the invitations. Be legible. Get out there. Celebrate the grace the party is all about and bring folks along. Alleluia, the Lord is risen and invites us rise, too.