Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20
Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA
In this passage in Luke this morning, we see Jesus considering the task he has at hand. Jesus is looking ahead at the many opportunities and possibilities that lie before him in his ministry. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” At the same time, he is seeing the great burden that lay before him – the oh, so many towns and villages to whom he still had to bring the word, love and mercy of God. It was a daunting task. So, Jesus looked at the resources he had available to him. He had been traveling around Judah with his disciples. He had been teaching, curing and healing and had been gathering an entourage of followers.
We think of Jesus’ group of followers as being limited to the twelve whom he had called. But right away in this passage, Luke tells us that there were at least 70 additional followers who he could rely upon to do some of the work that lay before him.
Seventy. That is a symbolic number in Israel’s cultural tradition.
If you remember our Old Testament, seventy was the number of elders that Moses had selected to assist him in leading the Israelites through the desert. Also, seventy was the number of the Sanhedrin – the supreme council of the Jews. Significant because Luke is saying that this is the same number of workers that Jesus had called to be harvesters of the people. Luke is drawing a direct comparison between the leaders of the Jewish council and these new leaders that Jesus was commissioning for the harvest. One group was dedicated to its own political survival. The other, the 70 laborers commissioned by Jesus would be selflessly dedicated to the harvest.
Finally, in ancient times, seventy was believed to be the number of nations in the world. This is significant because it gives us a glimpse of Luke’s universal view of Jesus’ ministry and how widely he believed the story of Jesus needed to be shared. Luke was looking forward to the day when all the nations of the world would know and love the Lord.
Now, let’s take a look at the instructions that Jesus gives his harvesters and what we can learn from them.
“Do not take a purse or wallet or sandals.” In essence, Jesus was telling them to travel light. Don’t carry with you the burdens of your everyday life. Don’t pack up to carry with you your financial concerns about how you will pay your way. Don’t even wear sandals on your feet. In other words, go out completely dependent upon God to supply your needs. This was the complete opposite of how the priests in the Temple operated. They were paid per diem out of the Temple’s treasury. They worked independent of God’s providence. They had made their ministries a business designed to support their own lifestyles.
Jesus was saying the opposite. Jesus wanted these seventy to set an example – his example – that his ministry and theirs should be completely dependent upon God to provide for their needs. What Jesus was sending them to do was so important that he needed them to be totally committed and focused on the task at hand and not encumbered by the angst and distractions of everyday life.
This is particularly important when you remember that in the previous passage, Jesus calls two from his followers to follow him. One responds that he needed to bury his father first. The other’s response is that he first needs to say goodbye to his family. Both had placed other concerns ahead Jesus’ call to follow him. Jesus sends them both away making it clear that he cannot abide with lukewarm devotion. If you choose to be a follower of Jesus, you need to do it on his terms, not yours. You need to be all in.
So now, Jesus is being deliberate and clear with the seventy as to what expects from his harvesters. He expects them to follow his example – to be totally dependent upon God to supply their needs. He wants the people to see the difference between self-aggrandizement and a pure, selfless devotion to God.
Now Jesus does say that laborers [the harvesters] deserve to be paid for their work. He tells them to cure those who are ill and heal those who are broken and in need of being made whole again. He tells them to proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. As compensation, stay in the house that greets you and eat whatever is placed before you. That would be relying upon God’s providence to supply their needs. Don’t bounce around from house to house looking for a better deal. Servants of the Lord deserve to be paid but make this note – servants of the Lord cannot be seekers of luxury.
Two thoughts struck me as I wrote this and about how we can reflect on this notion of traveling light and relying on God to supply the needs of his workers. At LVPC, we recently commissioned workers to go down to the DR to work on constructing a new church building for a congregation there. I know from experience, when they arrive, they will go to a Pentecostal community center where they will be given mattresses and where they sleep each night on the gym floor of the community center. They eat meals cooked for them by members of that church. I know also, when you here send workers to Kenya to participates in the Presbytery’s work in that harvest field, you do much the same – sleeping and eating where and what God has provided for you.
OK. So, Jesus’ light traveling workers have been sent into the harvest. Jesus tells them one of two things will happen. Either you will be welcomed and greeted warmly exchanging God’s peace with one another, or you will not be greeted with welcome and your message that the kingdom of God is near will be rejected.
In some intervening verses, Jesus mentions two towns in Syria that were notorious for their sinful ways – Tyre and Sidon. He tells them that judgement will be harsher on the towns that reject his message – more so than it would be on those two notorious and sinful towns. Why? Because those towns had never heard of Jesus. The harvest message that his seventy workers are carrying to the households and villages that they visit is that the Kingdom of God is near. As proof, these seventy workers are healing and curing and making whole the brokenness of the people in Jesus’ name. They have been given the opportunity to hear the Word; to know that God is reaching out to them. This is a great privilege. But it is also a great responsibility. Because it is a terrible thing to hear God’s voice and then reject it. That rejection becomes their judgement and those who reject God would be casting that judgement upon themselves.
Bible scholar William Barclay makes this comment. “If we receive these promises [of God’s steadfast love and mercy] they will become our greatest glory, but each one that we have rejected will some day be a witness against us.”
What does that mean? It means that we have been given the opportunity and privilege of hearing the voice of God. And if we listen, we will hear God’s promises of mercy, steadfast love and salvation. Jesus says, “tell them the Kingdom of God is at hand.” But if we hear those promises and reject them, we are piling up judgements against ourselves. It is an awesome responsibility that we have in deciding the fate of our souls.
Now let’s look at the euphoric outpouring of joy of the seventy when they return to Jesus. They are radiant. They are triumphant. They are eager to share their stories of casting out demons and of curing and healing the brokenness of the people. They are jumping up and down with excitement, chomping at the bit in their enthusiasm. They want to tell Jesus of their successes. They want to tell it from the mountain tops.
A couple of years ago, a crew at LVPC finished construction of a church in the DR and we celebrated the first worship service in the new space with that congregation. We came back with videos and photos of the event. We came back to our home church and wanted to tell everyone what we had accomplished. Now, we knew that we had accomplished all that through the grace of God. But we did take a few moments to share our enthusiasm and stories with our church family. And they deserved to know, didn’t they. Afterall, they had supported the cost of sending out the workers to the harvest. But Jesus’ casts this warning shot across our bows.
“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
Two things here. First, it is that Jesus was before the beginning and was with God to witness Satan’s fall from grace. Second, it is that hubris is destructive. It can sneak up upon us and suddenly distract us causing us to lose focus on the fact that it is God that is working through the laborers’ hands in the harvesters.
Jesus says to his workers. “Look, I have given you all this authority and power over the enemy… But do not rejoice in this… rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” [Barclay]
That’s a slap in the face with a wet towel. A wake up call, if you will.
Yes. I have given you this power and authority and you have dealt a death blow to the forces of Satan but be leery of your pride. Jesus is saying to them, “You have had your triumphs, but so had Satan – for he was once chief of all God’s angels. But Satan fell victim to his own hubris and pride and was cast down from God’s heavenly kingdom. Keep your pride in check.
Jesus is once again asking them to follow his example. You remember in the garden before his arrest; Jesus knelt before God in prayer asking that the cup before him be passed away from him. But he concludes his prayer saying, that it be God’s will be to be done and not his own.
Jesus could have been praying, “Look at everything that I have done in your name and accomplished in spreading your word. I sacrificed being one with you to come down to work in your harvest. Why are you demanding this final sacrifice of me?
Jesus could have gone to God pronouncing his laurels, expounding on his victories, praising his own glories. But he did not. Instead, he subjected his pride and bowed obediently before God as his servant.
That is the example that Jesus has set for us. Again, Barclay provides this comment, “It will always remain true that our greatest glory is not what we have done – but what God has done for us.”
Consider these words from the great hymn, Rock of Ages.
“Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress;
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the mountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.”
Again, I turn to Barclay for a closing comment on this passage. “Pride bars [us] from heaven; humility is the passport to the presence of God.”
So, I say to you my friends when we look at the work of our hands, when we look at all that we have built up, this church, this community, this congregation; when we laud all our accomplishments, let us say aloud. God is Good. God is gracious to us. Look at what God has done for us.
“Blessed be God because he has not removed his steadfast love from us.” [Psalm 66] Amen!
Reference Source: The Gospel of Luke by William Barclay, Westminster John Knox Press, 2017
