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Jesus sends out the 72 Luke 10 Rev Charmaine Braatvedt. 18th October 2009 Based on a talk given by Mike Aldridge and William Blake’s poem ‘Tiger, tiger burning bright’. This story is recorded only in Luke. Jesus sends out 72 of his followers and encourages them to travel light, without moneybag, luggage or extra sandals. They were not to network along the way. They were to go on his authority alone and tackle the risky mission of healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God. This curious story then, is at heart a story about risk taking for God and trusting in his power and acting on his authority. We are all familiar with risk taking. It is part and parcel of life. We encounter it in almost every aspect of our lives. Those who are in Business take financial risks. Teenagers may take adventurous risks, snowboarding or skateboarding. Mountaineers take calculated risks. We take a risk every time we start a new relationship and of course we take a huge emotional risk when we get married or choose to have children. This is to name but a few of the risks inherent in our lives. And yet when it comes to our faith journey many of us find it difficult to take risks. We seem to want to play safe when it comes to God. I wonder what that’s about? Is it even Biblical? Is that what Jesus modeled? My reading of Jesus is that he was a man who lived outside the comfort zone. Like the Lion in the Narnia stories, Jesus was always on the move both physically and spiritually. His faith journey and ministry was dynamic and full of risks. He seemed to move everywhere from synagogue to wheat field to village to Temple, taking his love and power to anyone and everyone who needed him, often with scant regard for the personal risks involved. And it would seem that this was also the journey to which he called his followers, as the Gospel story for today so vividly illustrates. “After this the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few”. Not much has changed. Still today the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. We live in a country that is spiritually hungry, needy and lost. And where is the church? Many times I see churches figuratively crouched in the fetal position, clutching their bibles to their breasts, silent and nostalgic about past times when Christianity was main stream, while out there in the world are countless people in need of God’s healing and hungry to hear about his kingdom. In this passage we see that Jesus sending his disciples not to a safe and accepting environment where ministry would be easy, Rather to places where there was a need and these places were frequently filled with risk and danger. “Go I am sending you out like lambs among the wolves”. Not a task for the faint hearted! What did Jesus know about these lambs of his that they did not know about themselves? Here’s the rub…. The One who created the lamb made the tiger also. Jesus calls forth from his followers, his sheep, the tiger that lives within each of them. The spirit of courage that will define them as harbingers of his power to heal and renew. Jesus believes in his followers, he knows that he is able to work through them and so he challenges them to Go. The task is big, the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few; you will be like a lamb among wolves, the environment is hostile; You will need to rely on your wits and talents, but I have a work for you to do, I want you to go because I choose to use you to reap the harvest, I believe in you, now you believe in me and Go. Still he is doing the same today. The challenge is loud and clear Jesus is saying ‘You look like lambs, but if you want to follow me, you must have the courage to take up your cross, you must allow me to call forth the tiger of courage within you, for I have a work for you to do.’ Jesus himself was the Lamb of God, but he was also a tiger. Turning the other cheek may be an act of non-violence but it is also an act of defiance. Cleansing the temple of money lenders was an act of righteous anger that is more closely associated with tiger-like behaviour than lamb-like behaviour. To follow Jesus’ ministry we need to go when he says Go; where he says Go and as far as he asks us to go. This may mean living on the edge of our comfort zone where we may encounter ridicule, rejection and sacrifice, but the rewards of being faithful to his commission is the experience of life in full abundance. In verse 1 we read that Jesus appointed the 72 and sent them ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. Here’s evidence of the way in which God partners with his people in the work of salvation. God always works his healing through humans. He even chose to become a human to affect salvation. We are his messengers, his evangelists. To be effective evangelists, we need to be prepared to go not necessarily where it is convenient or comfortable but where he chooses to send us. Where Jesus might be calling you to go this day? Into whose home; to bring healing into whose life; to proclaim his kingdom in which community? What risks might he be asking you to take so that his kingdom which is near may become a presence? I can just imagine what the disciples thought as Jesus instructed them to go with nothing to aid them on their journey. Some of those 72 if they were like me would have found the concept of traveling light very difficult; would have left with their hearts in their boots and the taste of fear in their mouths; would have thought“ What is Jesus doing sending us out like this?” Here’s what he was doing. He was challenging his followers to take risks for the kingdom of God; to be spiritually courageous and to be defiant . In doing so they would become a stronger and more effective force for good. And the personal benefits to their own faith development would be huge. Each time we get out of our comfort zones and take a risk for God and do ministry in our homes, in our communities, in our workplaces, in our school, we grow stronger in our own faith. When we take risks for God, some faith muscles are exercised and developed. Tell the story of the girl who jumped into her father’s arms from the garden wall. Go I am sending you out like lambs among the wolves. Many of us are spiritually under-confident. So often we are so fearful that we might encounter a wolf that we hang back and fail to Go. We forget that Jesus who goes with us has the power to overcome any wolf. I believe that God has wants this Church to grow in faith and in ministry. He wants to use each of us for that purpose but to do so we need to be prepared to take emotional, physical and spiritual risks. We need to act on the authority of Jesus and allow that authority to make us courageous as tigers. ‘Go, I am sending you out.’ In the Great Commission Jesus promises: ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ As a faith community let us heed the call to Go and then let us go. Where to? We know that God loves ministry to the poor, the sick, the lost, the brokenhearted, the marginalized. This is where he is sending us. Let us each of us respond to this call in practical ways and with tiger-like courage. Let’s take risks for God in the service of his people wherever he has placed us. So that one day when we die, we may soar into heaven, filled with spiritual adrenalin that comes from the sheer joy of riding the risky wave of God’s healing ministry. Today’s reading ends at verse 9 but the story continues. In verse 17 we read that the 72 returned with joy and said ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.’ Jesus replied: I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy…….rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Someone once described courage as ‘the best part of me showing up’. Despite our fears, despite our failures, let us as individuals and as a church grasp our courage, let the best part of us show up as we go out of this church into the world this week, filled with the call of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. Let’s be tigers for God taking risks to heal in Jesus name and proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of Jesus which we know is near, might indeed be here. I invite you to courageously search for and embrace any opportunity to bring healing and spiritual life to your community. And may we like the 72, joyfully return to Jesus next Sunday knowing that by his authority vested in us we will have, in some small or large way overcome an evil or trampled upon a snake of suffering or a scorpion of misery through what we have done and proclaimed about the kingdom of God. In conclusion I would like Katie to perform her rendition of William Blake’s poem Tiger which she has arranged to music. |
