This Sunday is the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time. The gospel is from the opening verses of the Matthean Missionary Discourse. In the previous post we discussed Jesus’ commissioning of the Twelve but noted the geographical limitations on the mission. It is worth exploring this limitation a bit more.

R.T France [2007, 381] notes: “Jesus is the Messiah of God’s people Israel (Mt 2:6), coming in fulfillment of Israel’s scriptures (as we have seen repeatedly in chs. 1–2 and since) to save “his people” from their sins (1:21). So it is at first sight not surprising that it is specifically to Israel that his disciples are also sent. That will be more than enough to keep them busy until “the Son of Man comes.”

As the Twelve continue to journey with Jesus, there will be encounters with non-Israelites, for example,

• The encounter with the Canaanite woman in Mt 15
• Responding to a Roman soldier in Mt 8
• Delivering a Gentile demoniac also in Mt 8 while clearly in non-Jewish territory on the other side of the Sea of Galilee

But then again Jesus can certainly define his own area of mission nonetheless Jesus’ own response to the faith of the Canaanite woman and Roman soldier are a foreshadowing of a salvation other than an exclusively Jewish presence in the kingdom of heaven.

It is also noteworthy that Galilee is completely surrounded by gentile territory except to the south, but then that is Samaria. The mission is effectively restricted to Galilee, but even then in the mixed society of Galilee there would inevitably be some earlier contact with Gentiles.

Image credit: Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311, National Gallery of Art, Public Domain