Is 66:10-14c

Gal 6:14-18

Lk 10:1-12; 17-20

When I first read it, this gospel passage raised a lot of hard to answer questions, at least to my mind. For example, why does Jesus tell his followers to greet no one along the way? Isn’t he telling them to be rude?

Even more troubling to me, why does Jesus say the kingdom is at hand and threaten the towns that reject him with a fate worse than the fire and brimstone that God rained down upon Sodom to destroy it? (See Gen 19:24-28.) Was this not an empty threat? We believe the kingdom of God was at hand, but did anything close to a fire from heaven destroying the towns that rejected Jesus ever take place?

Plus, why is Jesus threatening violence against people for their religious views? Didn’t we go through this last week? The disciples asked Jesus for fire from heaven to kill the Samaritans and Jesus rebuked his disciples for even asking about this at Luke 9:55. The overall message of the gospel passage and the beautiful reading from Isaiah emphasizes peace.  Does this violent threat not contradict the message of peace?

I can think of many more questions provoked by today’s gospel, but most of them can be answered once we frame the passage appropriately.

Spreading the Word: Christian Mission Then and Now

What does today’s gospel tell us about the mission of Jesus’ followers to spread the gospel? It turns out much of what Luke’s Jesus had to say nearly 2000 years ago still holds true for us today.

Brian Stoffregen and R. Alan Culpepper have identified “10 Principles of Mission,” expressed in this reading from Luke. Here is a link to their website http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/ and many thanks to my friend Duane Paetznick for telling me about it. I am using many of their ideas in today’s post.

Principle number five, “Jesus calls for singularity of purpose,” offers one possible answer to my question about why Jesus tells his followers to greet no one along the way. I would add that a consistent theme in the gospels is the urgency of responding to Jesus’ proclamation the kingdom of God has arrived. Greeting people and visiting with them delays the mission. It also suggests a “business as usual” attitude at odds with Jesus’ mission.

We may not always need to take this direction literally, but it can serve as a warning against the danger of small talk, of wasting time in trivialities. The mission is too important!

It sometimes seems as though many people, especially the young, in our supposedly secular world, have zero interest in Jesus’ message. For this reason, I like the first principle Stoffregen and Culpepper believe this passage affirms: the world needs the church’s mission. They derive this from 10:2, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few…” There is more work to do than people willing to do it.

Some might question this assertion. Jesus was speaking about the situation a long time ago. Have we progressed beyond the need for Jesus’ message?

Nine in ten young British people believe their lives lack purpose or meaning, according to a 2019 poll https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9637619/young-brits-life-lacks-purpose/ I have not seen a similar poll for the U.S., but Britain is a more secular society than the U.S., so my hunch is that this British poll tells us something about what can happen when faith withers.

Guidance for Today?

Today’s passage offers us some direction on how to do this work. Jesus warns his followers, “I send you out as lambs in the midst of the wolves.” This metaphor suggests we are to do our work with innocent, vulnerable humility. Jesus’ life and death proclaim the power of non-violent resistance to injustice. If we are to follow him faithfully, we must do the same.

Humility is also affirmed in the requirement that you eat and drink whatever is provided, wherever you go. If we don’t restrict this passage to its literal meaning, we can see that Christian mission must not impose any particular culture on those we are trying to reach.

Not everyone is going to be receptive to Jesus’ message, and this reading prepares us for this. We are to give our peace to everyone. If someone rejects it, we are told not to let this lack of peace throw us off track: the peace we wish for others will return to us no matter what the response.

It can be so difficult not to imitate anger or violence! If someone hits you, you want to hit back. If someone yells at you, it is natural to yell back. Jesus is here freeing us from acting like mindless parrots, stuck repeating what is done to us without the freedom to remain true to ourselves and his message of peace.

Jesus knows sometimes the whole mission may end in failure, and he prepares us for it. It’s OK, shake the dust off your feet, keep moving and do not let the past failure cling to you, or bother you. Whether we succeed or fail, it is ultimately God who is in charge of the results. It is dangerous to let your ego get too tied up with success or failure. Jesus was ultimately rejected by his people. That said, I would add here that we will want to ask the Holy Spirit to help us learn from failure and success, as St. Paul did after his mission to Athens ended badly.

We have seen how remaining peaceful and dealing with rejection are essential parts of mission. How can we square this with Jesus’ threat to the towns that do not receive his messengers? The threats are even stronger in a passage our reading skipped, viz. 10:13-16. Here Jesus specifically threatens Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum because they failed to repent and respond to Jesus’ message.

One way to understand these threats is to see them as the human Jesus speaking. How frustrated and hurt he must have been that so many of his own people rejected his offer of love and peaceful reconciliation! He loved these people; he knew this would be good for them. Yet God will never force anyone to believe or do anything. So even God is “powerless,” in this sense.

Jesus’ threats may also reveal a deeper tension between his divinity and humanity. As the Son of God Jesus had the power to destroy these towns. Perhaps he was sometimes tempted to do so. Would he be human if he did not feel exasperated at his people for rejecting his message?

We know from his time wrestling with the devil in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13) that using his power to serve his mission, rather than his own needs, was a critical temptation for Jesus. It is possible that Jesus’ angry threats are another example of this ongoing temptation.

Another way to understand these threats is that the peril faced by those who reject Jesus’ message is worse than fire, or anything material. It is spiritual—the loss of your life, the loss of meaning, the loss of a reason to go on living. On a material level the threats were empty. God does not, and did not, operate this way. But the spiritual danger is real. People in despair may kill themselves and others.

Anyone who has been a parent will understand the frustration of knowing what is best for your child when the child stubbornly refuses to listen.

I could be wrong, but I see the threats as expressions of this same frustration. God did not destroy any of these cities. Nor is there any evidence Jesus asked God to do so. Jesus’ frustration was human. The refusal to use his power, divine.