Reflection by The Rev'd Dr Deborah Broome

The Kingdom of God has come near

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He 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. Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. Remain 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. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘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.’                 

Luke 10:1-11

Jesus sends 72 disciples out in pairs to visit the neighbourhood – that’s a lot of villages!  They’re told to leave behind a lot of stuff, divesting themselves of the things travellers would usually take, so they have to trust that the little they have and the little they are will be enough.  And these are regular folk, ordinary disciples – they weren’t the twelve, or the inner circle of Peter, James, and John.  They don’t have a bunch of fancy qualifications: the only credentials they have is knowing Jesus.  This leads to a possibly uncomfortable question: if this was us, do we know Jesus well enough for that to be sufficient?

Being sent out without a lot of “stuff” makes them vulnerable. In one sense, it means they need to rely on God – but it also means they’ll need to rely on the people they meet. They’ll be dependent on strangers for food and shelter, and those strangers – the potential hosts they’ll meet in the villages they come to – have the freedom to welcome them in or to reject them. All of this evens out some of the power dynamics and strengthens the possibility of some sort of community developing, between the hosts on their home ground who make the house rules and can decide on the menu, and the travellers. Travellers who embody a strange combination of vulnerability and confidence: vulnerability because of the things they lack and the help they need and confidence because what they have to offer is the gift of peace to that house.  Maybe it’s in the receiving and giving of gifts that the reign of God comes to human community. 

What might life be like if we live so as to convey to the people we meet that “the Kingdom of God has come near to you.” And what’s the baggage we might need to leave behind in order to do that?