This coming Sunday is the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle B. Jesus has gathered his disciples: He went around to the villages in the vicinity teaching. 7 He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. 8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts. 9 They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. 10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. 11 Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” 12 So they went off and preached repentance. 13 They drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. (Mark 6:6b-13)

It might be helpful to think of this passage as the “halftime” talk by the coach – in this case Jesus speaking to his “team,” the disciples that have gathered around him. The “first half” of the Galilean public ministry was centered on Jesus’ navigation of the tide that seemed to ebb and flow – sometimes propelling his mission, sometimes hindering it. Five Sundays ago, Jesus faced opposition from the scribes of Jerusalem who accused him of being in league with Satan as well as family members who thought he was out of his mind. The “playing field” was becoming more clear, revealing the true members of Jesus’ family in support of his mission to proclaim the presence of the Kingdom of God. Next, Jesus began to teach the disciples about the Kingdom via agricultural parables: the farm workers have their role but the real dynamis (power) to make the kingdom grow is of God. In the midst of the parable of the mustard seed there is a first reference to the ultimate extent of the mission to all the nations, as the parable echoes the Prophet Ezekiel and Daniel and their oracles of God’s promise being extended to all the nations of the world.

It is notable that Mark, like the other gospel writers, for the most part, do not use the expression “the Twelve Apostles.” The word “apostle” means “the one sent” – and Scripture rightly refers to many people sent to spread the word of God as apostles. “The twelve” however is a different matter. This expression refers to those men chosen by Jesus to represent the restoration of Israel to its divine mission to be “the light to the world” (Is 66:1)

Image credit: The Exhortation to the Apostles | James Tissot | ca. 1890 | Brooklyn Museum NYC | PD-US