The passage of the Gospel this week is the continuation of what we have heard last Sunday. If you remember, we talked about the freedom Jesus gave to the people to receive him, or not; to follow him, or not. With our reading of the letter of Paul to the Galatians, we also talked about how we have the choice to live for ourselves, to use the freedom God has given to us to do what we please, or, on the other way around, how we have the freedom to choose to live a life of commitment to Christ, to live a life of love – In Paul’s words, we can go from living a life according to the flesh to living a life according to the Spirit.
Today’s Gospel enables us to go a little further as we consider our freedom as Christians. Jesus gives more instructions, concrete instructions, to his disciples about how they are to live and, from that, there are several teachings we can gather for ourselves.
First of all, I would like us to consider how interesting it is that Jesus asks his followers to “(…) go on their way” and even to “go before him”. Luke tells us that Jesus “appointed seventy (…) and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go”. Well, I don’t know how you think about it, but I have always thought of being a Christian as being where Jesus is, being as close as possible to him. I had to reconsider this idea as I was reading this passage! Jesus gives to his people the gift of freedom. Rather than holding on to people, he sends them on their way, he frees them so they can accomplish the deeds he does – preaching, curing the sick, forming new communities, preparing the hearts to receive the Gospel. Jesus trusts his disciples not just to follow him but to take the lead.
This is not always the way we think about love, is it? When we love, we often just want to stay together and sometimes, even with all the good will in the world, we end up using people to fulfill our own needs, or we want to be everything for them. But it isn’t the kind of love Jesus shows us. It’s not a selfish love. At a time that was dangerous and scary for him (remember that Jesus was heading out to Jerusalem and knew he was going to be put to death), Jesus didn’t mind that many of his disciples would leave him, instead of staying with him to comfort or protect him. It was more important to Jesus that they would accomplish their mission, that they would be there for others people who needed to hear the good news or to be cured from their diseases. We said last week that true freedom enables us to love, we also see here how true love brings freedom – When we love, we have the freedom to want what’s best for others instead of looking only at what’s best for us.
This said, how does the freedom the disciples benefit from looks like?
– Well, very obviously, there is freedom from material possessions. Jesus says: “Carry no purse, no bag, and no sandals”. Jesus does not invite his disciples to a life of complete privation and misery, this is not the kind of poverty he preaches, but he invites them to lead a life where they can experience that they have enough and that they are enough. They’re good to go, if you will. They don’t have to plan ahead for the mission. They don’t need more than what they already have. On top of that, Jesus does not seem to care if they are successful or not – what matters is that they have the willingness to go.
– This freedom relies on the generosity of others and requires vulnerability and even humility on the disciples’ behalf. They will have to knock on doors and present themselves as needy, asking for food and accommodation. If the disciples are to believe that “they are enough”, yet they aren’t to believe that they are self sufficient. They are to help others, but they are also invited to trust that others will “have their backs”. In this process they build community, where everyone gives and receives, or as Paul says, where everyone “bear one another’s burdens”.
– Lastly, the freedom Jesus invites his disciples to is a freedom from people’s expectations. Jesus tells his disciples they can “wipe off their feet” from the dust of the streets of these towns that wouldn’t welcome them. Yes, they are vulnerable, and yet they are given the freedom to leave places when people are hostile. Since their activity of preaching and healing happens in a community, it’s not all on them. If people don’t cooperate, they may go. They have nothing to prove to anyone. They are not condemned to be successful, they just need to try their best.
And so, I think that all of this teaches us a lot on this weekend where we also celebrate our freedoms as a country. We see that freedom is important to Jesus, it is at the root of his love. But we have to be clear about how the freedom Jesus preaches looks like:
– It is a freedom from material possessions and from ambition, instead of the freedom to accumulate always more, thinking we have the right to pursue or purchase whatever we desire.
– It is a freedom of interdependence in community, a freedom found together, instead of a freedom of self sufficiency and selfishness.
– It is a freedom from judgment, guilt and toxic relationships, instead of the freedom to have power on people, to manipulate them or to wait for their endorsement.
In the end, it is the freedom to be who we are, even if we don’t conform to the standards of the world. And I think this what helps us to understand better what Jesus says when he says that he sends the disciples “like lambs among wolves”. The disciples will be like lambs because they’re materially vulnerable, having no possessions, but they will also be vulnerable because of their inner disposition, being humble and innocent. Yet Jesus does not send them to be devoured – although there is always a risk – Jesus frees his disciples to be themselves, to be good and yet careful in a world that is brutal and tough. In his Gospel, Matthew completes the saying putting those words in Jesus’s mouth: “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
So maybe that’s the most important thing we could reflect on today: How, as Christians, we are called to dare to love in a world of selfishness and violence. We are called to dare to love – believing that only by our love we can make a difference. Again, this is our ultimate, our most precious freedom. In John’s Gospel, Jesus teaches his disciples that they can be “in the world” without “being from the world” and I bet it’s a commentary on these recommendations he gave them.
And so, in the end, I think that this is what true power is about. Jesus says to his disciples: “I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you”. It does not mean that the disciples won’t suffer, it means that they will have the ability to persevere in doing good no matter what the world throws at them. They won’t be overcome by evil. If we turn to the Epistle, we will notice that in the same spirit, Paul tells the Galatians about the power to defeat evil by building a life of “gentleness”. Paul tells the Galatians that, even if they are discouraged, they shouldn’t “grow weary in doing what is right” or “give up”. This is what Paul calls the “power of the cross” by which he says “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world”. The followers of Jesus are freed from the evil of this world in the sense that they are able to choose the way of Christ and they are able to keep their integrity, even if for now, they can only hold on to the promise that “their names are written in heaven” while they suffer,.
Today, more than ever, we need to remember that these words are also for us.