3RD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
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Readings: Galatians 6: 7-16 and Luke 10: 1-11 and 16-20
No doubt some of you tune into or just find yourself listening to the Radio 4 programme More or Less, where Tim Harford examines the various statistics and figures offered us by politicians, health services, supermarkets, climate activists and other organisations. This last week, he turned his attention to trends in church attendance, following a report from the Bible Society showing quite a surge in churchgoing after the Covid slump. The Church of England’s own statistics don’t reflect the same level of increase, hence Tim Harford’s enquiry into where the truth lies.
What would be of equal interest, if such figures were available, would be to discover how people are brought to church attendance. There is no doubt that our Covid incarceration encouraged many people to start thinking about faith and life, and searching online for guidance and help. Many churches now livestream their services as a matter of course, and have Facebook pages or WhatsApp groups to bring people together.
So these examples of evangelism and mission are a far cry from what we heard in the gospel today. Jesus sent out seventy disciples – actually called ‘others’ in the text – on mission, with a task and specific instructions. Now there is some doubt as to whether it is 70, or 72, because the text is uncertain. Both figures are symbolic. Moses had 70 elders to assist him ‘to bear the burden of the people’, but there were considered to be 72 nations of the earth at that time. So 72 could suggest the universal outreach that Jesus was starting.
The seventy, or seventy-two, return, reporting success. “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us.” The circumstances of today’s Church seem very different from the situation these early missioners found themselves in, and they were very much thrown in at the deep end. Notice that ‘the Lord … sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.’ Yes – not only does Jesus call us to follow him, he also sends us out ahead of him to be his herald and to harvest the fruit of the kingdom.
Today it would not be considered safe to send people out in pairs along remote country roads, as in Jesus’ day. Then you would expect to find people nearly always at home or quite close to home. Today you would encounter empty house after empty house in the middle of the day, or properties where you were sure somebody was in but wasn’t prepared to answer the door. Notice that Jesus expected these seventy, or seventy-two, to be put up by people they barely knew. Today you and I would be wary of inviting complete strangers to stay overnight, but then ideas of hospitality were different, and people would offer accommodation to passing travellers; indeed, that was something enshrined in the religious code of the day.
Were we in the position of those disciples listening to Jesus’ instructions, we may not have been heartened to hear that he was sending us out ‘like lambs into the midst of wolves.’ They went without even the basic equipment for travelling: ‘Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no-one on the road’ was the instruction. Of course, they didn’t even have a bible to share with people; they were certainly travelling light. And maybe that was the point of it. They were to be walking advertisements for the truth they were proclaiming: walking advertisements for the presence of God’s kingdom. It is a task that requires dedication and the ability to travel lightly through life, holding on to what really matters and letting go of the rest.
These people would be fired with the love God had for them, and by their personal encounter with Jesus. And that is how we should consider our task for the Lord today – sowing the seeds of Christ’s love and patience and gentleness where we can. Despite the changed circumstances in society today, we should be those walking advertisements for the gospel. So – the instruction today might be: “Off you go. Meet people with the love and claim of God, and leave it to them to decide Yes or No.” I expect those seventy or seventy-two were ‘people like us.’ So what is our experience of God that we can relate? How has the living Christ come into our lives? What difference has our faith made? We don’t have answers to life’s Ten Most Difficult Questions in our pockets, but we will have our Christian experience – armed with whatever God has built up in us, and the gift of the Spirit.
‘Greet no-one on the road’ was one of Jesus’ instructions to these missioners. This isn’t meant to be discourtesy, but a reminder of how urgent the task was. ‘The harvest is plentiful, but labourers are few.’ It is as though, all around them, the fields were full to bursting, waiting to be harvested, perfectly ripe. Another day or two and it would be too late. We’ll shortly be getting to that time of the year when farmers will be working late into the night to bring the harvest in, tractor lights shining brightly in the early hours in remote country fields – the work has to be done there and then. So Jesus saw the urgency of spreading the news of God’s kingdom. The seventy must not turn aside or linger on lesser things while there is greater work to be done. Perhaps today’s version would be “In your conversations try to get off the subject of the weather and onto more important matters.” The fact is that we are all walking advertisements for the gospel whether we see our daily lives in this way or not. I hope we do, and shape our lives accordingly. St. Paul adds to these challenges with words of instruction and advice to the young church at Galatia. “Whenever we have an opportunity,” he says, “let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”
It is hard sometimes to hold to the integrity of Christian values in a world that seems so careless about morality and indifferent to God’s place in human lives. St. Paul comes to our help. “Do not be deceived,” he says, “God is not mocked. You reap whatever you sow….so let us not grow weary in doing good.”
You reap whatever you sow. Things will catch up with you eventually. Or if they don’t catch up with you, they may catch up with the next generation. The Reverend Martyn Percy says, “A society that puts work, pleasure and money at the heart of its priorities will raise a generation of individualistic, distracted and avaricious children. The development of moral character and social awareness will, alas, be secondary.”
St. Paul tells us to be aware of this in the Church and in the world. And churches can foster and focus distinctive values that provide leaven in complex contexts. Martyn Percy goes on to say that faith communities often find themselves promoting forms of goodness that secular organizations might miss. Through a simple ministry of hospitality, care and celebration, churches sometimes do more good for their communities than they can often know; they open up a different side of the Church to the world. The Church is, in other words, an extension of Christ’s love for the world.
We get back to that idea that we can all be walking advertisements for the gospel by showing simple acts of goodness, thoughtfulness and charity, in its best sense. But it is important that we recognise from whom that source of goodness comes, and are prepared to share that conviction when the opportunity arises. Not all encounters with other people will yield fruitful results for God. But Jesus told the missioners, “Whatever house you enter, first say ‘peace to this house.’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.” By which I take to mean that once you’ve done your best, you move on. Even if it’s gone pear-shaped you haven’t lost anything; you still have God’s indwelling presence with you, ready to be shared with someone else.
St. Paul was motivated by one thing – the need to tell the world the saving significance of Jesus’ death. May we be similarly inspired, and to say, with today’s Collect: “Give us grace to dedicate ourselves to your service, that we and all creation may be brought to the glorious liberty of the children of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”