What is Jesus’ view of mission in Luke 10?
This week Sunday lectionary reading for Trinity 3 Twelvemonth C is Luke 10.1–11, 16–20 which records Jesus sending out the 70-(two) on 'mission' and their render. It is passage that is rich with material for reflection on issues of ministry and pastoral theology.
1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and identify where he was about to go.
There is some textual incertitude nigh whether the number is seventy or 72, which I doubtable is due to the sense of parallel with the lxx elders appointed by Moses in Numbers 11.16–25. This suggests Jesus is not doing something new, but repeating a pattern of God's dealings with his people in the past—or, perhaps, better, that this radically new thing is the same radically new matter that God has e'er been doing.
He sends them out 'two past two'; mission is never undertaken by individuals, but only in teams. That is why Paul never works lone—except in Athens in Acts 17.sixteen–34, the only place where he fails to found a congregation. This is a constant challenge to our persistent individualism. (I wonder if in that location is also a connection with the biblical accent on plurality of witness, in line with Deut 17.half dozen.)
They were sent to the places 'Jesus was about to go' though in fact he does not announced to take gone there subsequently in Luke's narrative. So the 72 actually role equally Jesus' presence in those places, which is confirmed by his later argument. The 'kingdom of God' is present in the ministry of Jesus, but at present it becomes present in the ministry building of the 72. Contrary to the electric current vogue proverb 'Mission is finding out what God is already doing and joining in', this is much more than like 'Mission is finding out what God wants to practise merely cannot until we go in that location for him.'
2 He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, merely the workers are few. Enquire the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
In the West, it feels to me as though our conceptualisation of the missionary chore is that we are more than than ready, only information technology is jolly difficult piece of work and people are only not interested. In other works, the workers are willing but the harvest does not appear to exist ready. Jesus here says exactly the opposite; the harvest is in that location, and set up, and all that is needed is for workers to get out and reap information technology! This in turn raises questions virtually what we are willing to do, and whether, despite our all-time efforts, we are actually engaging in the kind of mission that Jesus has in mind.
3–four Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do non accept a purse or bag or sandals; and exercise not greet anyone on the road.
It is worth noting here that mission is seen as inherently risky; if there is a power relationship, and so those sent are the ones without power, which seems to be the reverse of nearly recent history of mission. There is a sure recklessness in the chore, since those sent practice not program for their ain provision. In a discussion at a conference I was at a few years agone, which included people with feel from Africa and the Middle Due east, the command 'not to greet anyone' was baffling and very difficult to make sense of in cultures where greeting was important. But it exactly reflects the sort of determined focus on the chore that has marked Jesus' journeying since Luke nine.51.
5–vii When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this firm.' If the head of the house loves peace, your peace volition rest on that business firm; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they requite you, for workers deserve their wages. Do not move effectually from house to business firm.
I was struck hither past the sense ofreality that this section assumes. Those whom Jesus sends make a tangible difference; if they bless people, those people are truly blest. Possibly the most fascinating aspect of this reality is that the good news of the kingdom is almost a commodity, in the sense that people who receive it will be willing to support y'all because they appreciate the value of what you bring. The thought that we should receive from and even depend on the people to whom we are preaching is quite shocking; I think most of the states assume that we need to do good to them in other ways equally a recompense for the fact that we are asking for the privilege of preaching, or that the skilful nosotros do is buying the right to be heard. Jesus here assumes that the good news is in itself enough of a blessing—and that those who hear it will exist so grateful for it that they will exist more than happy to recompense us. Paul makes the same signal in ane Tim 5.eighteen, citing the Old Testament proverb from Deut 25.4—only on face up value likewise appears to know this phrase from Luke and includes it in the 'scriptures' that he cites!
Staying in ane place has, I think, been made much of by Mike Breen who has talked extensively of the 'person of peace', the sympathetic recipient of the gospel we might find in the places that we go. Nosotros are to focus not on the crowds but on significant individuals in the communities to whom nosotros are sent who respond positively.
eight–ix When you lot enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is gear up before you. Heal the ill who are in that location and tell them, 'The kingdom of God has come well-nigh to you.'
To 'consume what is prepare before you' would be a shocking thing for Jews who wants to observe the food laws and who visits those who are less kosher than they are, but is completely in line with Jesus' other teaching which prioritises relationship over the niceties of legal conformity. In many parts of the world, being willing to receive hospitality is essential in establishing relationships; I wonder if Christians in the West need to larn more humility in receiving…?
Ane of the things I left backside when leaving the Roman Catholic church was the idea that the institution of the church is coterminous with those who are saved—in other words, that the kingdom of God and the institutional church should be identified. Whilst I would go along to refuse such identification, information technology is challenging hither to come across that the kingdom is understood as being nowadays in the embodied ministry of Jesus' followers. This comes very shut to Paul'southward idea of the Christian customs equally 'the body of Christ', only because Paul'south language relates to the gathered customs, we frequently forget that here Jesus applies the idea to the scattered community also. We are Christ'due south presence not just when we meet, but wherever nosotros are. This idea is as well powerfully present in the parable of the sheep and the goats; those who accept welcomed, fed and clothed the states (every bit we come to them on mission?) will inherit the kingdom. (The same thought is found in the saying about 'whoever gives you a loving cup of cold water' in Matt 10.42 and Mark 9.41.)
ten–12 But when you lot enter a town and are non welcomed, go into its streets and say, 'Fifty-fifty the dust of your boondocks we wipe from our anxiety equally a warning to y'all. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, information technology volition exist more endurable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
If the earlier verses hold challenges for evangelical or pietistic understandings of mission, so these closing verses of Jesus' committee contain a stark challenge to 'liberal' ideas of mission. Once again, the lectionary excises the uncomfortable verse, in this case poetry 12—but in that location is no incertitude that this poetry is integral to the passage. (To be fair, the lectionary does include the hard v 16.) The reality of the kingdom of God in the presence and ministry of the people of God ways the departure of the kingdom on the rejection of the message. The command is simply to 'wipe the dust off'; the thought that this is a 'alert' is an interpretive expansion in the NIV, perchance based on the parallel in Luke nine.v 'equally testimony against them.' The phrase besides occurs in Acts 13.51, with a similar interpretive expansion in the NIV. The symbolism of the act arises from the Old Attestation agreement of the Land of Israel as the identify of God'due south blessing; when God'south people render to the state from Gentile territory, they shake the dust off their anxiety so that the land of blessing volition not be contaminated. The human activity thus becomes a sign of Jewish rejection of Gentile values and lifestyle, and signals a clear sense of separation between the two groups. And so, 'inclusive' Jesus, who ate with 'tax collectors and sinners', is clear that rejection of the bulletin of the kingdom volition lead to symbolic and bodily separation—to 'lostness' if y'all will.
xvi Whoever listens to you lot listens to me; whoever rejects you lot rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.
The saying appears to office as a summary of the judgement pericope in the previous three verses, which have been omitted by the lectionary selection. Information technology continues the theme of the judgement maxim at the stop of the instructions to the seventy-2, that wherever those sent by Jesus go and proclaim the kingdom, Jesus himself is in some sense present, and he is at work in the ministry of those he has sent. It is hitting, though, that the identification goes even further, so that rejection both those whom Jesus has sent and Jesus himself is also to decline the one who has sent Jesus. We often presume that the linguistic communication of 'I accept been sent…', with its assumption of pre-incarnate being and Jesus being 'sent into the globe' is a purely Johannine phrase, but information technology in fact occurs a number of times in the Synoptics and indicates that belief in Jesus' pre-existence is present here too.
17–xx The seventy–two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your proper name."He replied, "I saw Satan fall similar lightning from heaven. I accept given you authority to bruise on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing volition harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to yous, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
It is striking that those returning thought that the near meaning confirmation of Jesus' words to them, and his granting to them of authority, was the power he had given them over demons. There is some clear confirmation that Jesus was known as an exorcist, in that Jewish sources from the first and second century thus acquaintance Jesus with magic. What is striking here, though, is that Jesus connects this ministry with the defeat of Satan (in anticipation of the cross), and with the presence of the kingdom, as he does in the side by side chapter in Luke 11.20 ('If by the finger of God I bulldoze out demons, the kingdom of God has come amongst you'). As was anticipated in the Benedictus, the coming of the kingdom ways freedom from every foreign power that occupies the human soul, freedom to worship God without fearfulness. This association between the kingdom of God and exorcism appears to be entirely without precedent in the existing Jewish tradition.
Merely, over again, Jesus insists on keeping the main thing the primary thing: for all those involved in Christian ministry building, the focus and celebration isnot to be on the 'success' of that ministry, but on the security that comes from knowing the love of God inside the participation in the kingdom.
There remains an important interpretive question: To what extent is this educational activity, which Jesus gives to particular people on a particular occasion, really paradigmatic for mission today? Get-go, it is worth noting that the discussion 'mission' does non appear in English translation hither, or anywhere else in the NT for that matter. (In Acts 12.25 in the NIV, the discussion 'mission' translatesdiakonia, elsewhere translated 'service' or 'ministry'.) But our discussion 'mission' comes from the Latinmittere 'to send', itself a translation of the Greekapostello—which Luke has Jesus utilise hither, and which is a cognate of 'campaigner'. To say nosotros are an 'apostolic' church building ways both to be rooted in the churchly teaching and testimony, but also to be 'sent' on mission as the apostles (and the 72) were.
Luke emphasises the importance of this blueprint past repeating information technology, first with the 12 in Luke nine, and so here with the 72. Matthew conflates Jesus' teaching from more one occasion (as is his habit, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount) in Matt ten, and interlaces it with what looks to be later teaching that relates to the period afterwards Jesus' decease and resurrection. These all suggest that Luke and Matthew meet this pattern as a template for the communities they are writing to, and non just of historical interest concerning Jesus' practice.
It is also worth reflecting on the all-time ways to preach on this exemplary passage. Information technology would be tempting to give a list of things nosotros 'ought' to be doing or 'ought' to be thinking—which just leads to a hardening of the oughteries! We demand, instead, to recognise that all the practices commended hither flow from what Jesus has already done for us, in winning the victory over the powers of evil, inviting us into his victory, and commissioning us to share that victory with others.
(Tradition has non been able to resist naming all the lxx sent out by Jesus, and ascribing them histories, nearly of which appear to be pure invention…Annotation: some of this cloth was previously published in 2014.)
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