July 6, 2025

 Having just returned from being away, I am relating to this Gospel in a different way. When you go out into the world, you make yourself vulnerable, you make yourself open to new experiences, you may find yourself rejected and you may find yourself being helped and you learn what is central to you, who you are regardless of what else is going on, and you remember to pray and have faith that shalom, peace, wellbeing can be found anywhere and not just in your own comfort.  

It would have been easier for the 70 to stay home.  But they are coming to know Jesus and Jesus has no home.  He is on his way to Jerusalem to suffer and die, and he is looking for recruits to prepare the way.  He is looking for 35 sets of John the Baptist to go ahead of him and make an announcement, heal, and build community.  

The 70 can't stay home because they have been changed by their encounter with Jesus.  There is more to life than comfort.  They want to do something.  They have good news that can't be contained that needs to reach out, that others are longing for. But it doesn't come without its risks.  They are like lambs, peaceful, defenseless, and ill-equipped.  Here, ill-equipped is not negative.  They are equipped with what is essential, that is, good news, new life, and power for healing and building relationships.  But they are not equipped with distractions and tools that will keep them comfortable.  They are equipped with need which will make them receptive to what others offer.

They are going out into a hostile world.  This world is well-equipped with answers to every question.  This self-help remedy will answer your longings, this ointment, this surgery, this food, this philosophy.  We can relate.  It's so nice to have answers.  Our favorite is that money will make it better--an expensive medicine, a costly vacation, the right clothes will solve our problems.  We are going into a hostile world that tells us we are divided, by age, by income, by political party.  We are going into a hostile world that says that might and violence and bullying are the way, the way of wolves that devour sheep.  We go into a world plagued by war and weapons-making, that enriches itself through the taking of innocent lives.  We go into a world  hostile to the Gospel and yet hungry for it, because the violent, greedy, mighty world is destroying itself and it is unsustainable.  It seems to be winning, but it does not follow God's ways of shalom and well-being, looking after the lost and small, loving the neighbor, and the sharing of resources, so it cannot last.  It is ripe for the harvest.  It knows another way is better and it's looking for the messengers that will come and say another way is near, that there is support and community to help make the shift, and that this exhausting way of life can be thrown off.  

Think of a time when someone brought the good news to you.  Maybe you were hungry and someone cooked you a meal.  Or when you were sick and someone visited you.  Maybe you hurt yourself and someone patched you up, or you were grieving and someone accompanied you.  Who in your life is in need, that you can go and accompany, bring good news to, not by lecturing or necessarily inviting to church, but to sit with and let them know they aren't alone?  

Now think of your life right now.  In what ways is your life aligned with God's shalom?  Where do you see the Kingdom of God near to you and your world?  Where do you see your life is far from God's Kingdom and wholeness? Who might be bringing a message to you of peace and wholeness and well-being?  Who might be knocking at your door to see if you have room for some good news?  In what ways are you receptive?  What would you have to leave behind to be open to receiving it, your purse or wallet?  Your shoes?  Your prepared food?  Your need to control?  Your ideas of who is worthy to be God's messenger and your idea of what God's messengers look like?

This idea of eating whatever is put in front of us is a hard one for me.  I am vegetarian partly as an expression of my faith, my connection with other creatures, and my health.  This aspect of control for me means that I sometimes cannot eat what is put in front of me.  Well I can, but I choose not to.  It can be an area for me of disconnect between me and others.  We all have standards of what we will eat and what we won't.  That was true of the early Christians, too.  You make yourself very vulnerable when you eat whatever is put before you.  Jesus is saying here that the table fellowship is more important than your food preferences and your cultural norms.  We have to let go of control, and accept the food given in generosity.  

So we come to this table where the food given is Jesus' own body and blood.  Ordinarily none of us would eat food like this.  Yet is the offering of Jesus our Savior, a sign of how very close the Kingdom of God really is.  We not only eat this food but we receive it with joy and we cannot hold back the generosity that has come to us.  We must receive this new life and we must share this new life.  

This world is a hostile world, especially to those who are hurting.  We get to enter it with openness to receiving, letting go of control, learning Jesus' loving way.  We get to enter it in vulnerability, without defenses, to carry the good news of the nearness of the Kingdom, to live in community, to live generously, to live the resurrection new life that Jesus is giving us.