Commentary on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

There is a lot going on in this scene. 

Jesus sends messengers out. Not just a few. Not just the Twelve. He sends out 70, or even 72—sends them out in pairs to all the places he himself will soon go. 

This is an enormous operation. The storyteller seems to imply that these messengers go out, one pair per village. That is a lot of villages. And that is a lot of messengers. The storyteller does not imagine that Jesus is traveling incognito, appearing in a town, creating a scene, and moving on. Jesus in Luke’s story does not say, “I think our work is done here, Peter,” and then ride mysteriously off into the sunset. 

Jesus in Luke’s story sends a mob of messengers ahead of him and tells them, no matter how they are received, to say that the “kingdom of God” (whatever that is, exactly) has come so near. 

Maybe you are sure what “kingdom of God” means. I am not so sure as I once was. 

But before we get to that, notice the insane flurry of activity: 35 teams going village to village, curing the sick, announcing the kingdom. 

But notice that the messengers go out without a purse. No money, not even for parking meters. They go out with no bag. They go out without even shoes. 

Why?

Consider this odd situation carefully before concocting an answer. 

Jesus has just said he is sending the messengers out like lambs in the midst of wolves. And his instructions make them even more vulnerable than they already would have been. 

Why?

Consider carefully.

If Jesus is telling the messengers to pretend to be poor, this scene sounds like yet one more manipulative scheme to fleece the flock. We have all seen enough of such schemes. 

But notice that the instructions create more than just poverty. The messengers arrive in each village with sore feet and no place to stay. They arrive and find themselves radically in need of hospitality. Notice that Jesus expects that someone will take them in. Someone will feed them. Someone will give them the gift of hospitality. Maybe it will be the mayor of the town (if they had mayors!). Maybe it will be a prominent citizen. Maybe it will be someone like the widow who sheltered Elijah, someone who barely had enough for herself. 

In the congregation I served, now a very long time ago, one of the finest cooks around was a member of a family that did not have much in the way of resources. What they had in abundance was hospitality. Our family had been invited to supper at their house. It was meatloaf. It was amazing meatloaf. Nedra could make flavors dance. The preparation was perfect. The gift of the meal was wonderful. 

During supper, someone knocked on the door. It was a young man, someone I did not know. He stood outside on the front steps. I could hear what I thought was someone crying. Arnie brought him into the living room, just off the small dining room. They spoke softly for a while. Arnie went into the bedroom, also just off the dining room. He came back with his Sunday shirt. 

I heard the young man leave. Arnie came back to the table and told Nedra he would need her to mend a shirt.

It turned out that the young man had a job interview the next day and had just ripped a big three-corner tear in his only good white shirt. He needed the job. He had been out of work for a while. Arnie gave him his only white shirt. The next Sunday in church, I noticed that Arnie was wearing a shirt with a three-corner tear that had been expertly mended. Turns out Nedra could also sew. 

The more years I have to remember that evening, the better the food tastes. 

Jesus tells the messengers to go out with no resources. One of them might even have ripped his only good shirt. 

Eat whatever they set before you. Even if they do not cook as well as Nedra cooked. Oh, and heal the sick. 

And in the receiving and giving of gifts, the reign of God comes to human community. 

I used to be pretty sure I knew what the kingdom of God meant. These days, I just remember that meal at Arnie and Nedra’s. Those might be their real names. Or not. It matters more that you (like the mob of messengers) might also have been to a meal like the one at Arnie and Nedra’s. And if you were, it matters. In Jewish faith, the Messiah has the task of turning the world right side up. That’s why healing the sick is so important, such a sign of the reign of God. Healing the sick restores people to their families and to their roles in the community, and that turns the world right side up. That’s why eating together is so important. Sharing meatloaf given as a gift allows us to relax into generosity. 

The young man got the job, by the way.

That is how the reign of God comes so near.