When you grow up
Luke 10.1-9
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” A question we often ask children. Perhaps you’ve not been asked that question for a while? But it makes me think about our ambition as Christians. And, if we haven’t yet reached full spiritual maturity – if, in other words, we haven’t yet taken on the full likeness of Christ – and which one of us has? - I suppose it’s a question we could ask ourselves. “What do I want to be when I grow up, in Christ?”
Luke always wanted to be a doctor… well, one can assume that he held that ambition as it’s what he became, according to a passing reference in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. And so Luke is often remembered and celebrated as Luke the Physician – and today is a day when, rightly, we pray for doctors, nurses, and all who work in medical facilities and for the care of others. But Luke isn’t remembered primarily for his medical prowess, but for writing the gospel that carries his name and the Acts of the Apostles. So the church remembers him today as Luke the Evangelist, Luke who told the ‘euangelion’, the good news. Sometimes life surprises us and we find ourselves doing things that we would never have imagined.
Presumably Luke had spent some time studying and preparing to be a doctor. But being a missionary, a companion of St Paul, was quite another thing. I wonder what preparation he had for that? Well, some commentators think he might even have been amongst the seventy whom Jesus sent out on a missionary journey, the seventy about whom we have just read. And Jesus sent these disciples out, “like lambs into the midst of wolves” with very little. Their task, their mission, was to go ahead of Jesus, preparing the way. Seventy might sound a lot to us, but there weren’t really many of them, as Jesus commented, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few.”
So, we seem to be saying that Luke and his companions were under-trained, under-resourced and over-worked. Some would say that sounds like the church today! We know that we have a huge task to turn round the decline in church attendance, to reach this generation with the good news. We need more training, more resourcing, more workers, don’t we?
You might think that Jesus would have spent more time training his team, investing in them and providing them with resources. We do normally think of the three years he spent with his disciples as their apprenticeship, being prepared for the time when Jesus wouldn’t be with them any more. But the seventy here seem to be sent with very little. Indeed, Jesus says, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…”
Jesus is encouraging this band of missionaries to be utterly dependent on God. The danger if we have so many ‘things’ is that we won’t notice what is really happening, our spiritual senses become dulled. Our beautiful buildings can become stumbling blocks to mission when we invest all our time and energy in them; even our plans and our programmes can prevent us from seeing what God is already doing in the world without our help or interference. Sometimes the most fruitful thing we can do is to walk through the village and open our eyes, seeing what is happening, praying for our neighbours and friends. Empty handed, we can be open-handed, ready to receive from God, and ready to give to others, too.
And in fact, we aren’t without resources. We do have each other, for a start, and we shouldn’t be doing any of this one our own. A little phrase in the first verse of the reading reminds us that the seventy were sent “in pairs”. They weren’t alone; they had each other. It is good for us to work together, to pray together and to grow together. It is good for one person who has a job in the church to take another person along with them – as an apprentice, if you like, but also as a companion. We are not in this on our own.
Jesus also reminds his team that they have God; “ask the Lord of the harvest..” he says, before they go out. Whatever we do should be rooted in prayer – because prayer is commanded, “ask”, says Jesus – but also because it connects us with the source and the purpose of the work we are doing. I know how easy it is to start a day’s work without remembering God’s presence, as the pressure of the day squeezes out prayer; but I also know the huge benefit of starting the day by asking and by remembering God is with us. We are not in this on our own.
And Jesus also points his team to the way in which they will be built up, their numbers increased, their range extended. They go with a word of blessing, ‘Peace to this house!’ and a command to engage with the people of the villages they go to, wherever they receive a welcome. They are commanded to receive hospitality, something which some of us might find difficult to understand. Surely Christian mission is about giving, not receiving? But here Jesus points us to a significant truth, which the church has been rediscovering over recent years. We used to say that people had to believe before they could belong – which, for Anglicans, meant that people had to be confirmed. We like to know who is “in” and, therefore, who is “out”. But now we understand that sometimes people have to feel that they belong before they come to believe. For the seventy, this meant accepting hospitality and getting to know people in their own homes; for us, it could mean getting people involved in church life in a variety of ways before we even begin to talk to them about faith. But I do think it is interesting that Jesus commended a pattern of missionary work that involved going in to people’s homes, meeting them on their territory as it were. I know we are in exceptionally difficult times and some of our reflections on mission may be about planning for the future rather than doing it now, but I wonder where you will be this week and whether actually you will be meeting people on their own territory, on their familiar ground, and if that isn’t a better place to sow the seeds of the gospel than here in a church building? We are not in this on our own – because God calls us to be with the people of our community.
The message we carry into the community is, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” The life-changing, life enhancing, life-promising presence of God is here, now. We believe that knowing God makes a difference in our lives and we want to share that with others. That difference is demonstrated by the seventy as they heal the sick, showing the truth as well as speaking it. Although St Luke’s Day is a good day to discuss it, I don’t have the time to consider what healing the sick might look like in our generation. But we do pray for people, and I assume that we think God can heal? The most significant thing about Jesus’s commission, though, is that it is a command to make a positive difference that points to God at work in your life and in the world.
So, we witness to God at work when we care for family members and neighbours; we witness to God at work when we tell people that we are praying for them; we witness to God at work when we get involved with debt counselling or the food bank; we witness to God at work when we read Bible stories to our grandchildren. There are so many ways that we can bring healing and peace in the world in which we live – and so witness to the God who has shaped our lives.
A reminder, then, that as we face the challenge of bringing good news to this community and building the church, we need to begin with prayer. “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” But, as you pray, remember that the answer to that prayer might well be - you! “What do you want to be when you grow up?”