Apostolic Mission

Luke 10.1-11,16-20

1The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. 3Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” 6And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” 10But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11“Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.” 16Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’ 17The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ 18He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

Sermon

HARRIET lives in a small village in Yorkshire. We met recently at an ecumenical event. She told me she is having a gap year, which was a surprise, since she’s a glamorous 73-year-old. But her gap year is quite different from the pre-university sort.

As soon as Harriet’s four children had grown up and left home, she decided to do something apostolic in a serious way. In alternate years, she goes to work for a couple of months with the Franciscans in El Salvador, and then with missionaries in Africa. She has been doing this for more than a decade, and is having a gap year in order to recover from a car accident on her last missionary visit.

There are so many good things to say about Harriet. She is unassuming in her enthusiasm for the Church’s mission. She is great fun, as well as entirely serious. She lives responsibly as a global citizen whose home is unquestionably in the beautiful open space of Yorkshire. She exudes a Christianity that is simple, profound, and irresistible.

The quality of Harriet’s commitment and discipleship presents a standard against which I would wish to interpret the message of today’s readings. The Gospel opens with the statement that Jesus appointed and sent out “70 others”. The number is highly symbolic. It derives from Genesis 10, in which all the nations of the earth are listed. In the Hebrew text, the number is calculated at 70, but it is 72 in the Greek.

Whichever reading we follow, Luke seems to suggest that this account might refer to the universality of the apostolic mission in the Church’s life which will follow the resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Spirit. Perhaps that is why we read little of what actually happened on the mission, but plenty about the terms and conditions of undertaking it.

Jesus is specific about simplicity as the lifestyle that should typify his itinerant missionaries. They should not shop around for better digs. They themselves are to exemplify their message. It has authority, as the Evangelists discover and Jesus himself attests: “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightening. See, I have given you authority . . .” (Luke 10.17).

The gift of authority is one of the most humbling aspects of Christian identity. It is not to be confused with the kind of secular authority that regulates our legal, social, and economic affairs, even though it will have an interest in them. This gift cannot be separated from the character of God, its giver, whose strength is revealed in human weakness.

In order to receive and use this authority, we, the baptised, have to be configured towards the likeness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The final words of Jesus to his missionaries point us in this direction. The focus of their life and cause of their rejoicing is not power, but participation in the life of heaven.

The Church is a human and divine society in whose history the confusion between worldly power and spiritual authority is all too evident. The historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has recently pointed out how the interpretation of the book-burning at Ephesus, presided over by St Paul (Acts 19.18-20), has illustrated this confusion.

In 1568, the counter-reformation artist Maerten de Vos painted the scene at Ephesus, placing it in an urban landscape that could have been the Europe of his day. In this way, he was subtly attempting to secure scriptural support for the Index, a list of books banned by the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church.

The iconography of book-burning is a reference to power that can be dangerously misused to suppress knowledge. It is extraordinary that the artist James Thornhill would include the book-burning scene at Ephesus in the dome paintings of the newly rebuilt St Paul’s Cathedral. What might this have been saying at the time of the English Renaissance, when new libraries and scientific enquiry were closely linked with Christian faith? Did it plant a seed of suspicion that Christianity would ultimately seek to control science?

Professor MacCulloch goes on to identify a range of tortures that Christians have inflicted on each other and on people of other faiths. In our own time, we have also learned with shame of the emotional and psychological damage that Christians, especially those in authority, have inflicted on vulnerable and innocent people. These are terrible stains on our history, and few, if any, branches of the Church are innocent of perpetrating them.

Today’s first reading repositions our outlook on how we use the authority and knowledge of God that has been entrusted to us. A young girl, the victim of war and social displacement, retains her faith in the God of Israel. She responds graciously to the life-threatening illness of her master, a senior officer who may well have played a leading part in the conquest of her people. She offers him the hope of healing, her simple compassion reveal the authentic power and nature of the divine love.

Against the backdrop of our misuse of authority in the Church’s history, we need to recover a humbler capacity to exemplify the meaning of our message. We need to be more like Harriet in living our faith.