The mission of the Lay Person (Fourteenth Sunday of the Year) Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

A preacher was speaking at an open-air crusade in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Billy Graham was to speak the following night. But he arrived a day early. He came unannounced and sat on the grass with the crowd. In front of him sat an elderly gentleman who seemed to be listening attentively to the preaching. When the call came for people to come forward and make a commitment to the Lord, the gentleman did not move. Dr Graham tapped the man on the shoulder and asked, “Would you like to accept Christ? I’ll be glad to walk down with you if you want to.” The old man looked him up and down, shook his head and said, “No, I think I’ll just wait till the big gun shows up tomorrow night.” In the thinking of this man and in the thinking of many people, winning souls for Christ is something that should be reserved for the “big guns.” Today’s gospel story, however, shows us that mission is for everyone, big guns and little shots alike, the clergy as well as the laity.

Luke’s Gospel has two stories of Jesus sending out his followers to go and spread the Good News. In chapter 9 Jesus sends the Twelve apostles and in chapter 10 he sends seventy disciples. Matthew’s Gospel has only one: the sending of the Twelve. Scholars believe that Luke’s story of the sending out of the Seventy is his way of emphasizing the universal scope of the message of Christ. The mission of the Twelve, according to Matthew, was limited to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). The mission of the Seventy has no such limitation. According to Jewish tradition there are twelve tribes of Israel and seventy nations of the earth. The sending of the seventy disciples, therefore, symbolizes the sending of the message of Christ to the whole world.

Today, however, I will invite you to look at the story from a different perspective, from the perspective not of those receiving the message but of those bringing the message, from the perspective of the missionaries themselves. Christian tradition identifies the Twelve apostles with ordained ministry in the church. When at the Last Supper Jesus commissioned his followers to “do this in memory of me” he was addressing the Twelve, the clergy. If this is so, then the Seventy who are sent out on mission in today gospel must be understood as lay people. Today’s gospel, therefore, is the commissioning of lay ministry. This way we can 

read the two missions in the Gospel of Luke, the mission of the Twelve and the mission of the Seventy, as the mission of the clergy and the mission of the laity. By including the two accounts Luke, unlike Matthew, is saying, therefore, that mission is not only for the clergy, mission is not only for the “big guns,” mission is for us all, ordained and non-ordained followers of Christ alike.

What is the reason for lay involvement in the spreading of the gospel? Because “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few.” (Luke 10:2). This is as true today as it was in the days of Jesus. What role are the laity supposed to play in fulfilling the mission of Christ? The role of the laity is twofold: “Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest” (verse 2), i.e. prayer, and “Go on your way. See, I am sending you” (verse 3), i.e. active involvement. It is not a question of doing either the one or the other. Every Christian is called to participate in the spreading of the message of Christ through a commitment to prayer and a commitment to action. Pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you. Jesus goes on to detail the disposition we should bring to the work of evangelisation: a spirit of meekness and vulnerability, a spirit of politeness and adaptability to the changing and challenging local situations in which we find ourselves in the course of mission work.

Jesus places special emphasis on the work of curing the sick. This is not an optional task in the work of spreading the gospel. Someone may ask: Is health of body necessary for salvation? Is holiness of soul not enough? We tend to forget that holiness is another word for wholeness. It has to do with the whole person, body and soul. The Good News is good not only for the soul but for the body as well. The seventy disciples went on their way trying to implement what Jesus charged them to do. They were surprised to see that, acting in Jesus’ name, not only physical sicknesses but “even the demons” submit to them (verse 17). A similar happy surprise awaits all followers of Christ, ordained or non-ordained, who dare to embrace the work of spreading the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ just as he directed us.

FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE:

WE HAVE A MISSION

The family of Robert Giles had barely finished celebrating the birthday of their daughter; very pretty girl, when armed robbers stormed the family. He is rich but stingy, and always physically and verbally abused the wife and their children. The armed robbers tied him up, and every other person was ordered to lie on their faces. After taken everything they could find and were about to kill, the girl (4 years of age) appeared from one of the rooms with a beautiful bouquet of flowers she got from the Dad, as birthday gift. She gave the flower to the leader of the gang who had his gun pointed to the Dad, and said “Uncle take; this is all I have; please don’t kill my Dad!” Stunned by the courage and gesture of this beautiful girl, he took the flower, and they left without taken even a pin. It was like a new dimension started in the lives of armed robbers, and a new mission was given to them. This event not only changed Robert’s life but also the lives of the armed robbers, and that day each of the people involved in this episode received a new mission in life. A few years later, the leader of the armed robbery gang told the story, as a preacher of the Word of God and no longer an armed robber.

Any movement we make in life has an objective; the objective may be self-inspired or comes from another person. Meanwhile the objective may be evil intent or good but it is a mission. People had created a lot of troubles between husbands and wives after their visits. People are sent on the mission to kill for some political reasons or on personal vendetta. There are people who travel very long distances just to spread false and destructive rumors and gossip, and deform the characters of people they jealous. There are also covert military missions for various intentions, personal inspired adventures and spiritual movements like astral travels.

Like the bouquet of flowers handed to the armed robber by the little girl. God gives every Christian a special mission and instrument for the mission. The prophet Isaiah describes it as a mission of nourishment and comfort to all the nations of the world. Jesus Christ tells us that we are carrying the message of peace, reconciliation and love to the entire world. Paul who has been on this path before indicates that accomplishing this mission depends on our disposition to glory only in the cross of Jesus Christ through which God administers forgiveness, compassion, liberation, peace and love to all. We all have a crucial mission with clear objective, and the objective is the total wellbeing (body, mind and spirit) of the entire person we meet.

In this mission, a bouquet of flowers should replace the various weapons of sorrow, death, character deformation and oppression of others that we are used to. What does this mean? It means that peace has eluded many hearts and nations, and everyone wants to use different forms of violence, tricks clothed with diplomacy, power, position and all kinds of manipulation to achieve their goals. These only create more problems, violence, suffering, terror, and destruction of families, hatred, anger and sorrow among individuals, families and nations. The peace and love that Jesus talks about are gifts we can only receive from God by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace and real Bouquet of Love. These can only be established by recognizing the dignity of each person as the images of God and not as cheap labors, instruments of terror, sexual objects, ritual objects, slaves and people good only for our dirty works. Our mission is to be like the Jerusalem described in the first reading that brings comfort and nourishment that comes from the depth of our hearts. It is a service of genuine love, rich in all the spiritual, physical and psychological nourishments (like the breast fluid of a woman that contains the nourishment) that a person needs to live healthy and happy. It is the mission of the Church as Mother of all.

The beneficiaries of this mission are each person, family and the entire world where there is poverty, starvation, chaos, abuse of human dignity, exploitation, war, hatred, lack of faith, the spirit of revenge and lack of forgiveness; to people without hope, peace, love and vision in life; we are sent to people who need to smile, to sleep without been afraid, people who have the demons of fear, shyness, disbelief, arrogance, pride, hatred, destructive languages and to people with oppressive demons. One act of love could expel the demons in a person and change him/her from being agent of hatred, confusion, violence and death into an angel of love, life and peace.

Jesus Christ sent seventy two disciples because the harvest is rich but laborers are few. So it is not a mission for priests and religious men and women alone, everyone should get involved. Nurses, doctors, engineers, farmers, educators, sports men and women, business people, lawyers, masons, youths, adults and indeed everyone has an important role to play. We evangelize more effectively by what we do more than what we say. He sends us not regarding our color of skin, language, defects in life, mistakes/sins of our past, cultural barriers and social status. The number seventy represents every person from every nation of the world. He also warns us of huge obstacles on the way, but in his name, we shall make progress. United in this mission, we can say “Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. Shout joyfully to God, all the earth, and sing praise to the glory of his name; proclaim his glorious praise. Come and see the works of God, He has changed the sea into dry land; through the river they passed on foot.”