As our liturgical time after the Pentecost unfolds, we are going to spend more time in Luke’s Gospel. We started last Sunday and we continue today. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the way the Gospels were written, most scholars agree that Mark’s Gospel is the first to have been written, and then later on, probably a few decades later, Luke and Matthew wrote their own Gospel, adding to Mark’s Gospel their own memories and materials, using some unidentified sources. And it’s interesting to notice what’s common in these three Gospels, because we can trust it wasn’t made up and people agreed on what happened, but it’s also interesting to notice what’s different because it says a lot about what each author is trying to communicate more specifically about God, Jesus and the Christian life. For example, in all three Gospels, it is said that, while he was still with them, Jesus sent his Apostles on a mission of evangelization. If you want to check at home, it’s in Matthew 10, Mark 6 and Luke 9. What’s unique to Luke’s Gospel though, is that it says that after Jesus had sent the 12, he sends also “70 others”. We’re not sure about the significance of this number, but in Genesis (Ch 10) the number 70 symbolizes “all the nations” and in Exodus (Chr 24), Moses surrounds himself with 70 elders to share his leadership. And so I think this is a very important story we need to hear, because it means that Jesus’s intention was to send on a mission not his own special close ones, but all the people. Interestingly in Luke’s Gospel, we are not only invited to “follow Jesus”, the disciples are also “sent ahead of him” and so are we. A priest noticed that our churches have been very guilty throughout the ages to make people in the pews think that their duty was to “believe, pray, obey and pay” when from the beginning Jesus is calling all of us to go work in the mission field, which can take many forms.
Actually, I am happy we hear this text this morning because it touches on different things we have talked with Stephanie during our parish retreat. We remembered that the purpose of the church is not just about saving our traditions, looking back at our past or even taking care of our own people, and we talked about that last Sunday as well, the purpose of the church is to share the Gospel with the world, and the sharing of the Gospel can take many forms according to our gifts and to our different calling: Teaching, healing, comforting and guiding, being hospitable. There are so many different ways we can witness the love of Christ. The church is here to equip us to do the ministry, as Jesus equipped his disciples. Jesus didn’t come on earth so he could save a handful of people! This handful of people was meant to be sent into the world to teach others and others who would share the message with others and so on. So it’s our role as well, each one of us. And I am so glad we read this text this week when I’ve heard already from two people in this congregation, with Millie willing to teach us something new this Sunday at our “All Teacher’s Forum” and Andrea who wants to start a prayer group. Again, throughout the ages we have made of the church this place where we sit down and listen, but Jesus’s every intention for us is not to be passive, even if we have to be learners and we continue to learn. If you’re a teacher, you probably know that the best way to learn is by practicing and then teach others. There is no way you can stop learning when you’re a teacher. And as we do that in our churches, we’re more equipped to share the Word beyond our walls and share the Gospel and invite people to join us, even when you meet them at the Walmart!
Okay – so that’s the invitation, that we would start doing the work, all of us, whatever our situation. Now I am sure it can feel a bit overwhelming, as it probably was for the 70 at the time. But there are a few things we need to notice in our Gospel today.
1 – It’s not about doing it all
I love it that Jesus says to the disciples he sends: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.Jesus has never said: There is so much to do, I am afraid you’re going to have to do it all,which is typically the way our work places look like. Our employers don’t want or are unable to spend money to hire more people, so those who are there need to take on a bigger load of work. Or maybe you cannot afford help at home, so you have to do all the cleaning and cooking and caring for Mom and looking after the grand kids as well. That’s the way it works in our world. But it is not the way God intends things for us. God wants people to work together, that each one participate in the work, and because everyone do a little something, then there are no people who are overwhelmed by their tasks. Yet in a lot of churches we do things like there are done on the marketplace right? A few people do everything and the rest just show up to church events, most of the time, and we talked about that with Stephanie, just because they aren’t invited to do some of the work, we don’t explain to them what the work is about, they’re not trained. I think in our church everybody participates, but we still need to keep an eye out for that, that all be invited and properly trained and also we all need to claim some time to rest. It is not God’s will for us that we do it all. Actually, it is God’s will for us to rest once our work is done! The third commandment about keeping the Sabbath is one of the less honored by us Christians in the Western World. We have to pause on Sunday to be able to open our hearts to God, and if we can’t do that because we have work to do at church, we need to find some quiet time during the week. God wants us to work but he wants us to do the work he has commanded us to do, he doesn’t want us to do everything we think we should be doing! We have to stop and listen to hear what God wants us to do and also take time to restore our hearts and strengths when our works is done. Here Jesus invites us to pray so we have people who can come and help us. How often do we do that? We talked during our retreat about maybe having a deacon or a priest in training at All Souls, but we could also pray just that God will send us some new people who can help us develop some ministries!
2- It’s not about success
Another thing I notice in our passage is that Jesus does not send the 70 asking them to make lot of converts, to bring back lots of money and to be very successful in their ministries. What he observes when the 70 come back is that, by their work, they are able to defeat evil. He says to them: I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightening. It’s kind of extraordinary that the disciples’ ministry would do that. But we have to believe that it is true for ourselves too. Each time we share the Gospel, bring back hope, joy, healing and faith in our world, we defeat evil. That’s actually the biggest, most significant work we can do, to show to people how they are loved by God and how they can love God and their neighbor in return. What’s destroying our world right now is our collective selfishness and lack of concern or lack of hope, but each time we go against the current, we’re defeating this kingdom of darkness and despair.
And yet Jesus says, it’s not even the most important. He says: Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. What matters the most is, that by going out there and be willing to do God’s will, we manifest our love for God and we testify that we belong to God indeed. In this book I was talking about last week about “Doing God’s will”, the author notices that what God wants first and foremost is to have a relationship with us. Before we do anything for God, and each time we do something for God, we need to be rooted in God’s love. You know, you can be married with somebody who does everything for you, but if they do everything well but don’t give you their heart, it’s not going to work, you’re going to feel lonely and empty. Whereas, if they love you with their whole heart, you’re going to be happy even of they forget to wash dishes. It’s the same for God. God does not care if we do everything for him when we forget to give him our hearts. I think we should pray that our church really be able to rejoice God’s heart just because would love God so much, and then God can guide us to do God’s will. I think that is what Jesus’s idea of success is. It’s not out of reach for us, even if we are small and have little power. In Revelation 3, Jesus actually says to the church in Philadelphia: I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear that for us as well on the last day? This is what it means to have our name written in heaven, this is Jesus’s idea of success.
3 – Jesus does not ask us to do his job either!
One last thing that I really love about this passage is that Jesus, who so often asked people to follow him, this time, sends the disciples ahead of him, like God did with John the Baptist and all the prophets. Sometimes we hear at church that we need to do the Jesus’s work, or that we are the hands and feet of Christ in the world. I understand what we can mean by that, but I would also disagree on some level. We cannot do Jesus’s work, he did the work of salvation and we cannot save people and we’re in great spiritual danger when we think we need to rescue people. What we can do though is to go ahead of Jesus to prepare the way. And Jesus sends us being very vulnerable: with no purse, no bags, no sandals. When I was a teenager I would always advise my friends to read books about God so they would come to faith, I was always carrying books around. But one day I had a friend who told me: I don’t care about your books, I want to hear about what you experience. And he was right in that way: Of course people need to hear the Bible, but we need to tell how the Bible resonates in our lives, how Christ is present in our lives. And it’s very vulnerable to invite ourselves in people’s lives sharing this. The rules of hospitality have changed and I don’t think we can invite ourselves to stay at a stranger’s house for a few days, but Jesus commandment is the same: Share the Gospel around you, in the world you live, with the people who surround you. You may experience rejection, but it’s not your job in the end. What matters is that you would have planted the seed so I can make the faith grow, if those who listened to you are willing. For example, it is quite well known that most people who come to church for the first time come because somebody has invited them. It is quite intimidating to people to come to a church for the first time, even if they want to. But if they know they’ll find there a friendly face, someone they can sit next to, it changes everything! And then Jesus can do his job, right? It’s not on us to bring them to faith, it’s only on us to bring them to church. Again, Jesus does not ask us to do anything impossible, but sure we have to take a little risk, and that’s what love does.