The Mission of the Seventy - Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20

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.’ 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.”

Commentary

When I sat down to write todays message, I was up to page 3 and I still hadn't really gotten to the point. I decided there is just too much in this reading to cover in one afternoon. So I am concentrating on a very narrow piece of the passage. In am concentrating on the following abridged version.

Jesus appointed 70 men and sent then two by two before him as his emissaries. He told them: “Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. Go not from house to house, but remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.”

“And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.”

So the question is, is this message for us? Are we really supposed to emulate these actions?

We live in a much different society than the one described here for us. At the time of Christ, people traveled on foot, there where no Holiday Inns, and the people had no money to speak of anyway. It was the cultural duty to take in and care for the stranger. And if that stranger was going to cure the sick, of whom I am sure there was always a good supply, then a hearty welcome makes total sense. Today, by contrast, if I were to knock on a random door in the evening and ask for a meal and a bed for the night, I would most likely have a visit with the local police who would either give me a cell for the night, or escort me to the city limits with a strong admonition not to be seen in town again. So it would be easy for us to say, “Well things just aren't the same today.”

True enough, but does that let us off the hook completely? We have probably all seen the itinerant preacher. Standing on some street corner with his mortar board and his bible, reading at the top of his lungs, and being treated as if he were invisible. Is that what “announcing that the kingdom of God has come nigh” looks like for us in 2022 Reno? For the 70, announcing the kingdom, was done one family at a time, and success looked like the one family inviting in their neighbors to hear the word. That doesn't work for us, and the street corner preacher, as sincere as he or she might be is clearly not reaching the audience.

So are we supposed to heal the sick and announce the kingdom, or is this just a nice story?

Clearly, Jesus is not here in person to appoint us to such a ministry. But if we fall back on that excuse, we are basically declaring our religion to be dead. I think we can do better than that. So I want to cautiously explore how we would attempt to approach the mission given to the 70.

Let's start with announcing the kingdom. That's probably the must approachable for most of us. Now what I have to say here is really more relevant to myself than to residents of Park Place. Still, if you agree with the ideas, maybe you will share them with your children.

The first thing we need to recognize is that the kingdom of heaven was intended for a people who lived in community, and by and large, we don't.

The house that was visited by one of the pairs from the 70, was in a village. There may have been more than a dozen houses within shouting distance. Everyone knew everyone and no one had any wealth worth hiding. More importantly perhaps, no one had a pressing social calendar. If a visiting stranger had something wonderful to say or do, all you had to do was open your door, stick your head out and give a shout. For many of us, if we give a shout out our door there isn't anyone close enough to even hear us. We all have our landscaped yards and live inside our weather proof houses. Neighbors? If someone does hear us, they are not likely to recognize our voice nor to think we might have anything to say to them. In our affluent 21st century society, we are very likely to have lost our community.

So in terms of announcing the kingdom, living in a manner that can support a community is a prerequisite. It is a prerequisite we can all achieve. What if our goal was to have a community of friends who were so close to us that we would feel comfortable calling them up on the spur of the moment and asking them to come over to visit with an itinerant stranger? Someone who just happened to drop by on his journey of announcing the kingdom, and you have asked him in, and you are now calling them, and you think there is a good chance they will say yes, and if they do you are prepared to serve them something to eat? Sounds unlikely? Perhaps. But the point is we can all do it! Even as a resident at Park Place, there is nothing to prevent you from calling up someone you know, whether they live here or not and asking them to join us some Monday afternoon. We provide the cookies.

Now I want to do a reality check here. The goal is to do something that meets the call to heal the sick and announce the kingdom of God. We haven't gotten to the healing yet, but in terms af announcing the kingdom I think this is a real step. We could claim that announcing the kingdom is the church's job, but the original call to the 70 was not to speak in the synagogues, it was to go into the houses. Jesus knows that community occurs in the home. He asks us to have community in the home. Because he knows that that IS the kingdom of God. We can do this!

Now what about the healing?

I happen to believe that we all have healing hands. I haven't figured out how to make that happen yet, so I am certainly not going to ask you to. But we have to walk before we run, and our society has gotten a long way off the path of touch at all. But touch is part of the kingdom. We can give comfort, and care, and encouragement, all with a touch. In today's society we can not assume others will appreciate a touch. So we have to move slowly with this. We have to slowly build relationships where we know touch is appreciated. But we can all do that. And we all know that if we do, touch is healing.

So, those are my thoughts for today.