Several years ago, I noticed that sometimes in the Gospels Jesus spoke to the scribes and Pharisees; sometimes he spoke to the people in general; and sometimes he spoke to his disciples. I got curious about what he said specifically to his disciples. Was there a different standard for them? I sat down one Sunday afternoon with an old Bible and a yellow marker. My intention was to mark the passages Jesus said to his disciples.
What I discovered fascinated me: Jesus said very little specifically to his disciples before Peter said, “You are the Christ.” Up until then, the common description was “Jesus spoke to the crowds and his disciples.” But, after Peter’s proclamation of faith (and the Transfiguration) the phrasing changed to “Jesus said to his disciples,” or there is a notation that Jesus gave the disciples extra information.
The 72
The description we read today in Luke follows right after last week’s Gospel in which Jesus described what it took to be a disciple. Today he sends 72 disciples who must have met his requirements.
These 72 did not include the inner twelve deemed to become priests and apostles. They were second tier followers. But Jesus gave them a specific, impressive mission: they were to test the hospitality of the town, mix in with its people, cure the sick, and proclaim “the reign of God is at hand.” If they were rejected, they were to be in the role of a prophet and publicly name that the town was taking a grave chance “I assure you, on that day the fate of Sodom will be less severe than that of such a town.” (Luke 10:12) When they returned, Luke also tells us they were able to cast out demons.
Who were these 72 disciples? Was this the only time they officially worked for Jesus? Did they maintain their ability to heal the sick and cast out demons after this mission? Scripture doesn’t mention them again. There are legends about various early Christians and martyrs that include information that they had been one of these disciples.
My sense of them is they were very ordinary people—like me, like you. They weren’t meant to ever be equal to the chosen twelve. They were meant to be “warm up act” disciples who prepared the way for Jesus. I identify with them. Because of that, the question comes: What do they have to teach me today? The first two readings set the stage for answering that question.
Isaiah 66:10-14c
This selection comes from the last chapter of Isaiah. Written to those who were returning from Babylon, its original meaning was to give the people a vision of what was to come from their efforts to rebuild Jerusalem and live their Jewish faith and culture anew. It was to create hope.
Selected by Mother Church for us today in relationship to today’s Gospel, I read it as describing the Kingdom of God—the new way of being that is the way of Christianity. A key phrase is the last one: “The Lord’s power shall be known to his servants.”
This would have been a new concept: the POWER of the Lord given to ordinary people—not kings, not priests, ordinary people. You see that concept developed in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah which describe the rebuilding of temple, city, and faith. It is also what Jesus did when he sent out the 72.
Here—what is Isaiah saying to you today? Of late we are not used to seeing news reports that describe the Church as a place to “suck fully of God’s comfort” nor do we see current events as “spreading prosperity over the Church like a river.”
But, you know, people walking back over 400 miles from Babylon to Jerusalem probably did not have a natural picture of prosperity either. That’s why these verses are part of Isaiah’s ending. They are a description of what is to be–when Jesus comes, when Jesus sends out the 72, in the Church through the ages.
The psychology of change says that you cannot make a change that you cannot imagine. An alcoholic who cannot imagine life sober is not likely to stay sober; a couple who cannot imagine themselves living again in peace and love are not able to do the work to make that happen. There has to be a vision.
Isaiah gives us that vision. The images of nurturing church used here don’t quite reach me, so I put in some new images: that I have experienced: beautifully done worship, living in a caring parish community, deep study of Scripture–those nurture me. If the Church were to nurture you so you would “rejoice,” “flourish like the grass,” and God would carry you in His arms, what would that look like? What aspects of Church or faith might do that for you?
Galatians 6:14-18
How fascinating! Both the reading from Isaiah and this reading from Galatians come at the end of those books. These are the final verses. Earlier in Galatians Paul has written strongly about what it means to follow Christ—it isn’t about following Jewish law; it is about following grace and the Holy Spirit. Now he concludes with these well-known words: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
I tie that with Jesus’ directions to the 72 to enter a town humbly, seeking hospitality and being satisfied with whatever is given. Whether the 72 were welcomed or not, whether they could cure the sick and cast out demons or not, whether they could retell some of Jesus’ parables or not, it was not about pride or their own talents. They went without money bag or extra clothes or sandals. They went dependent on the hospitality of others—what a wonderful (and seldom used) way for us to go. The addition here of the cross reminds us evangelization isn’t meant to be a vacation. It’s meant to be work. It is meant to be sacrifice.
Back to the Gospel: Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
I have heard that the Chinese figure for crisis is a combination of the figures for danger and opportunity. Jesus’ instructions to the 72 indicate that he saw their work as crisis—their entry into a town would create both danger and opportunity for them—and for the people of the town.
Because of my lifetime of pro-life work, I’m applying all of the readings today to my own discernment, “What do I do now?” “How do I do it?” “Who do I do it with?” Plans are emerging in our diocese and in our parish. We are meeting this coming week to review the resource information we collected last year as part of the USCCB project Walking with Moms. We have attended a webinar about plans in our diocese. To also guide our conversations, we are using the materials developed by Sisters of Life and the McGrath Institute at Notre Dame. https://sistersoflife.org/, which is called Into Life: Love Changes Everything.
A number of readers have responded to my invitation last Sunday to participate in a zoom study of St. Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, the Gospel of Life. Plans are to begin that study on Sunday, July 17. There will be six one-hour discussions with some reading material before each one and opportunity to share written reflections with other participants afterwards. Subsequent sessions will be July 31, August 14, 28, September 11, and 25. Current plan is to have two zoom sessions each of those Sundays: at 2 to 3 pm Eastern US time and at 7 to 8 pm Eastern US time. If you would like to join the study groups and have not yet written to me, you can do so this week by writing to mary@skillswork.org.
Prayer:
Lead us, guide us, Lord. Give us a clear vision of the goodness of your Kingdom and its way of handling morality and social problems. Keep us within the reality that the Kingdom of God has always been accomplished through the wisdom, love, and sacrifice. Give us the Spirit of adventure of the 72. And may you say to me, to all of us what you said when the 72 returned: “I offer you praise, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the merest children.” (Luke 10:21)
