Because the proclamation of the gospel is the word of God, it is not to be treated as a merely human message — “take it or leave it.” In rejecting the preachers, they were not simply rejecting a couple of poor itinerants, but the very kingdom of God, and that has serious consequences for closing ears and hearts to the news of God’s reign – the people have drawn down judgment on themselves

Jesus makes drastic comparisons for the obstinate cities of Galilee where he centered much of his ministry. Chorazin and Bethsaida will be no better off than Sodom. And proud Capernaum, Jesus’ “headquarters” in Galilee, has learned nothing from the Jewish heritage that was preparing for the coming of the Messiah. Tyre and Sidon, Gentile cities, would have been able to read the signs that Capernaum overlooked. The conclusion of the instruction is a reminder of the deeper dimension of the mission: the disciples are bringing Jesus and the Father to their listeners.

Condemnation or Lamentation? Quite noticeably, the Sunday gospel passes over vv.13-16, sayings that are difficult in themselves, and certainly present larger homiletic challenges for a Sunday morning. In our English-language hearing of the “woe to you” expressions, we are conditioned to understand the phrase as a condemnation, or at least as “unless you change your ways, the curses promised by the condemnations will come upon you.” Especially in the context of these verses, condemnation is held up as a very real possibility when all things come to judgment. The question I would pose is this: what is the tone of the expression’s use. Is it condemnatory? Or is there another viable linguistic alternative.

The expression “woe to you” is written in the Greek as “ouai soi.” The word soi is straight forward and means “to you.” The word “ouai” is a bit more interesting. Most scholars hold that the Greek is really a Semitism used as an interjection expressing pain, lament, and especially a threat in 41 NT passages. [EDNT, 540]. The Semitism is not that unfamiliar to us. We have all heard the expression “oy vey” – the ethnically Jewish way to react when you find out how much your son’s root canal will cost, or when you find out that there is a two-hour wait time for a table at the restaurant where you just arrived. [Chabad.org] Oy and vey are two very old Jewish interjections which both mean “woe.” Oy is found many times in the Bible (see Numbers 21:29, 1 Samuel 4:7 and Isaiah 3:11 for a few examples). Vey is newer than oy; it is oy’s Aramaic equivalent. But at their root meaning, they are also expressions of pain and lament.

Why could this be important? I think it is because of the manner/tone we assign to Jesus as he says these words. I think we are prone and conditioned to assign Jesus the manner/tone of a street corner preacher call down the wrath of God on sinners. But that is not consistent with Jesus or the deeper meaning of the text. What is more consistent with Jesus’ manner and mission, is that he is lamenting the current state of things. Bethsaida and Chorazin were witnesses to the mercy and mission of Jesus, and yet remain unrepentant. Should they remain this way, it will not go well for them. And that is lamentable. Oy vey!

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

This coming Sunday is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time during lectionary cycle C. The gospel is taken from Luke, chapter 10. The instructions for how the disciples should receive hospitality are expanded from 9:4, which simply commanded that they stay wherever they were received. Here the instruction has two parts, with commentary on each: (1) say, “Peace to this house,” and (2) remain in the house where you are received. The peace they offer seems like a tangible gift or even a living reality with a mind of its own. This notion of peace rests on the biblical concept of the word of God as being not only a message but somehow an embodiment of God’s own personality and power (Isa 55:10–11; Jer 20:8–9). The peace-wish of the Christian missionary is more than an expression of good will — it is the offer of a gift from God of which they are privileged to be the ministers and heralds (see 1:2; Acts 6:4). Those who bring spiritual gifts can expect their physical needs to be taken care of by the beneficiaries (v. 7; see Gal 6:6 “the one who is being instructed in the Word should share all good things with his instructor.”).

The Twelve were to remain in the one house in any one town (9:4) and this applies to the seventy also. They are to have no compunction about receiving their meals free, for the laborer deserves his payment (cf. 1 Tim. 5:18). This is a principle of wide application that has sometimes been overlooked in Christian activities. But if the laborer is worth his wages, he is not worth more. The disciples are not to go from house to another. That would mean engaging in a social round and being entertained long after they have done their work. There is an urgency about their mission. They must press on.

When the evangelists are welcomed, they are to accept hospitality, eating what is put in front of them. In the area beyond Jordan to which they were apparently going there were many Gentiles and the food offered might not always satisfy the rigorist for ceremonial purity. They were not to be sidetracked into meticulousness about food and food laws. They were to heal and to preach, the content of their message being that the kingdom of God is at hand. 

Three instructions are given regarding the conduct of the mission in each village: (1) Eat what is provided, (2) heal the sick (cf. Matt 10:8), and (3) announce the kingdom. The three facets of the mission encompass the creation of community (table fellowship), care of physical needs, and proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom. The disciples, therefore, were charged to continue the three facets of Jesus’ work in Galilee.

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

This coming Sunday is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time during lectionary cycle C. The gospel is taken from Luke, chapter 10.

² He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. ³ Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. ⁴ Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.

The prophets of the OT used harvest as a metaphor for eschatological judgment and for the gathering of Israel in the “day of the Lord” (Joel 3:13; Mic 4:11–13). In every culture, harvest season is a time of great urgency. The common day laborer would understand the exhortation to plead with the landowner to bring in more laborers to help with the harvest. In the context of the parable of the sower and the seed earlier (8:4–8), it is now time to gather in the harvest from the soil that has produced a hundredfold. [Culpepper, 219]

Again, there is no room for illusion. The disciples will be lambs among wolves, defenseless, completely dependent on the Lord of the harvest for whatever is needed (Isa 11:6; 65:25). The metaphor warns the disciples of the opposition they will encounter. Unlike Matthew (10:16), Luke does not give any instruction as to how the disciples should prepare for or respond to the opposition they will encounter, unless the instructions that follow are understood as following from this warning. The simile points both to danger and to helplessness. God’s servants are always in some sense at the mercy of the world, and their own strength is inadequate. They must depend upon God. So Jesus tells them to take no equipment (cf. 9:3).

Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way. The command neither to carry sandals (hypodēmata) nor to greet (aspasēsthe) certainly amplified the sense of urgency about mission.  Most scholars see the echo of both the Mosaic and the Elisha tradition, where the theme of urgency is evident. In Exod. 12:11 the Israelites were commanded to eat their first Passover with their sandals on their feet, and in 2 Kings 4:29 Elisha sent Gehazi on his way with this command: “If you meet anyone, ouk eulogēseis auton [‘give him no greeting’].” Greet no one along the way is not an exhortation to impoliteness: it is a reminder that their business is urgent and that they are not to delay it with wayside acquaintances. The traditions of the near eastern make roadside encounters, however hospitable and gracious, are elaborate and time-consuming. These traditions highlight the point of Jesus’ commands, as the eschatological urgency of his ministry surpasses that of the first Passover, and the command not to offer greetings reflects the same concerns. 

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

This coming Sunday is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time during lectionary cycle C. The gospel is taken from Luke, chapter 10.

¹ After this the Lord appointed seventy (-two) others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit.

Only the Gospel of Luke contains two episodes in which Jesus sends out his followers on a mission: the first (Luke 9:1–6) recounts the sending out of the Twelve; here in Luke 10:1–12 a similar report based is the sending out of seventy-two (seventy in many manuscripts) in this gospel. The narrative continues the theme of Jesus preparing witnesses to himself and his ministry. These witnesses include not only the Twelve but also the seventy-two. Note that the instructions given to the Twelve and to the seventy-two are similar and that what is said to the seventy-two in Luke 10:4 is recounted to the Twelve in as part of Jesus’ final instructions to the Apostles during Holy Week (Luke 22:35).

As mentioned, only Luke among the evangelists tells of this second mission of disciples (cf. 9:1-6 for the first sending). “Luke provides no geographical setting for the mission of the seventy-two, and there is no reason to expect that Jesus’ envoys participate at this juncture in a mission to the Gentiles. Nevertheless, in other ways Luke uses this scene to prepare for and anticipate a mission that is in the process of expanding beyond the land of the Jews. This is suggested by the number of important parallels between the sending of the seventy-two and the mission ‘to the end of the earth’ as it is portrayed in Acts—for example, the thread that runs from the mission of John to the mission of the seventy-two to the mission of Jesus’ followers in Acts, as well as the parallels between the forms of ministry (‘in the name of Jesus’) and anticipated reception of the seventy-two and their counterparts in Acts. In indirect and figurative ways, too, this narrative unit points to the wider mission. The appointment of the seventy-two portends in a symbolic way a concern for all the peoples of the world. Moreover, the rejection of Jesus and his message among Galilean towns, set against the claim that a mission oriented toward Gentile settings would certainly have produced repentance, raises the prospect of opportunities for response to the good news outside the land of the Jews.” [Green, 410-11]

The disciples are to go “ahead of him,” therefore not announcing themselves or their own message, but preparing the way for Jesus. This is the continuing charge of Christian preachers. The missionaries are sent in twos to give a witness that can be considered formal testimony about Jesus and the reign of God (see Matt 18:16). In the readers’ setting (both in Luke’s day and in ours), is it the disciples calling to prepare the people for the (second) coming of Jesus? How do we do that? It seems that the apostles in these verses do it by proclaiming (in words and actions) the Kingdom of God as a present reality.

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

This coming Sunday, the gospel is taken from Luke 10, but it is perhaps good to “set the scene” before we jump in the reading. Luke 8 is a chapter that offers several miracle accounts (calming the storm at sea, the healing of the Gerasene demoniac, and the healing of Jairus’s daughter and the woman with a hemorrhage) but it also contains the parable of the Sower and of the Lamp. These parables contain messages about evangelization and thus about mission to the world. It is with that as background that Jesus first sends out the 12 apostles: “He summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal [the sick]. He said to them, ‘Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.’” (Luke 9:1-3)

Luke 9 recounts some of the key events in the story of Jesus: the feeding of the 5000, Peter’s confession about Jesus, the Transfiguration, and predictions of his passion and death. Chapter 9 is a pivot point when the story moves from Jesus gathering disciples to the preparation for their mission to the world in the post-Resurrection epoch. At the end of the chapter, Jesus and his followers set out for Jerusalem and immediately He and his disciples began to experience resistance. They are rejected in the towns of Samaria (vv.51-56). The Apostles James and John’s reaction to this rejection was “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”

Perhaps some “cracks” are beginning to show among the followers of Jesus. At the end of Luke 9 we see people beginning to equivocate on their commitment. Jesus remarks: “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God,” a clear challenge to any would-be disciple about the reality of mission. Taken together, all this points to the coming dangers for aspiring disciples. Each scene brings the disciples’ understandings and expectations into contrast with Jesus’ own mission for the disciples. Discipleship is radical, calling for the unconditional commitment to the redemptive working of God, and to understand that God’s Kingdom has the highest priority and largest claim on one’s life. 

What comes after this?

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