2 Timothy 4.5-17. Luke 10.1-9.
I have to start with a confession: I don’t find this very easy passage to relate to. It all feels so remote.
Firstly, this is rural Palestine about 2000 years ago, and is talking about harvests and lambs and wolves.
Secondly, this feels like a campaign and I’m not sure that I’m a natural campaigner. There are others who are more activist than I am, but here Jesus has appointed a big group — 70 other people – and he’s sending them out ahead of him with a sense of purpose.
Thirdly, there is a sense of urgency: the harvest is plentiful but the labourers few, more labourers are needed! But what is the harvest and who are these labourers?
Not only is it remote in time and remote from my experience, but it’s also very uncomfortable. When I read the gospels, I probably identify most with the disciples. I want to follow Jesus and learn from him and share in his mission, but this is challenging. What I hear him saying here is that he is sending people out in a situation of great danger – of being like lambs in the midst of wolves. Perhaps I am not very brave.
What is more these followers of Jesus are not to take anything that will help support their journey – no money, no bag for carrying things in (like food perhaps), nothing on their feet. This group of 70 followers go out on these terms. Can I really pretend that I am one of those? And what does it mean for me as a follower of Jesus now in a very different context? On the basis of this passage, it feels as though being a disciple is not something I can relate to very easily.
I find it a bit easier to relate to what Saint Paul describes when he is writing to Timothy. He writes of the reality of his situation as someone who knows himself to be near the end of his life and has given his all to ministry. I hasten to add that that’s not the bit I relate to! But it is this: in his naming of people he has known and worked with he conveys the messy reality of what it means to be faithful to Christ. You might have noticed him mention Demas. In Colossians and in the letter to Philemon Demas is mentioned as one of Paul’s fellow workers. But by the time he is writing to Timothy here, he describes Demas as someone who has deserted him, being in love with this present world. He mentions others, Crescens and Titus. He asks Timothy to get Mark and bring him to Paul. He says that he has sent Tychicus to Ephesus and mentions Carpus, someone with whom he left a cloak in Troas, along with books and parchments. He speaks of Alexander the coppersmith who did him great harm and warns Timothy against him. There is a sense of busyness, of many places visited, of fellow workers sent out, of people who have opposed Paul’s message, tried to harm him and of those who have turned away from him.
In the midst of all this he writes, “only Luke is with me.”
In Colossians Paul describes Luke as the beloved physician, which is why he is particularly associated with healing. But we know far more of Luke’s work as an evangelist. It seems that Luke is someone with staying power. We don’t know how he came to travel with Paul, but it is very clear from partway through chapter 16 of the book of the Acts that there is a shift in language. The narrator stops saying ‘they did such and such’ and starts saying ‘we did such and such’. Luke was there with Paul.
Luke was a writer, someone who wanted to set down an orderly account of all these things, learned from those who were with Jesus from the beginning, people he describes as eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. At the beginning of the book of Acts he says that he wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, and he goes on to speak about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the ministry and mission of the apostles. Luke wanted this story to be known, and so it is entirely appropriate that as we celebrate his feast day today we should, in his words, hear Jesus speaking of the task of the disciple. So what is that task?
When these 70 are sent out, what is it that they are actually asked to do when they are interacting with people? They are asked to give peace. If that gift of peace is rejected, then they are simply to go somewhere else. There is no aggression, no forcing it on others, no way of making people receive the gift that is offered.
Where this gift of peace is accepted the disciple is to accept the hospitality offered. Part of being a disciple of Jesus is about putting oneself in a position of vulnerability and allowing yourself to receive from others – here, the basic needs of food and drink. But it does not stop there. Jesus says that when peace is offered and received, then the kingdom of God will have come near.
It is often pointed out, in our world full of conflict, that peace is more than a simple absence of conflict. Peace is about circumstances which enable people to flourish, to be able to be fully themselves, without any need to defend themselves against the hostility of others. In this true peace, God is present.
The giving of peace is the work of reconciliation. The work of reconciliation is the giving of peace, yet not just giving it but when it is received, staying in that place and enabling the Kingdom of God to become a reality – staying even when others around us are distracted by the things of the world that exclude God. It is at the heart of what Jesus came amongst us to do: to reconcile us to God and through that to one another, and perhaps even to ourselves. Not for nothing is Luke described as a physician of the soul.
Perhaps, after all, I need not be quite so anxious about this passage. Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him. They are not alone, and if we go on just a few verses, we read that they returned to him with joy at what has happened. We too are called by Jesus to be bearers of peace, and in carrying that message of peace, heralds of the Kingdom of God.
And let us not forget, where Jesus sends us ahead, he is never far behind.
Amen