The whole second half of Gospel of Luke is Jesus’ Journey to from Galilee south to Jerusalem. The movement Jesus has organized in Galilee, what we might call the “kingdom-of-God-drawing-near movement,” must now go to Jerusalem, to the big capital city, to confront the seat of power. A little like Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 march on Washington DC.

Jesus knows he will probably be killed, yet he does not fear going to Jerusalem.

What’s important for us is this: that Jesus doesn’t want to go on this journey alone.

Jesus invites us, his community of followers, to go with him on the journey to Jerusalem. “Follow me,” he said to the tax collectors and sinners. “Cast out into the deep,” he told Simon. Jesus is taking people—motley people, old and young, peasants, people healed from all kinds of infirmities, whether physical or emotional– and he is making us all into a community, a network. Jesus doesn’t want anyone to go it alone.

(Even in Gethsemane, his big prayer, he doesn’t want to be alone; he will want the disciples praying with him. Faith is not about being a solitary individual.)

First Jesus sent the Twelve disciples ahead of him, on a mission trip– that’s what he did chapter 9. We know this familiar story. The Twelve men disciples are trained and ready.

But what is truly amazing is that Jesus now sends out “seventy others” in today’s scripture from Luke 10 (or some ancient manuscripts give the number as 72 others.) A second mission trip. A much more involved mission trip.

 

Who are these 70 other people?

 

That’s the question. We have not heard a word about them before. They are not named. They have not had any training. Imagine, they go on this walking tour through the countryside, to be ambassadors of the kingdom of God. Who are these 70 un-named, untrained people, unique to Luke’s gospel?

I think they are us.

 

What’s your average church attendance last Sunday? 50? Plus 20 online? That’s seventy!. Whenever there are unnamed characters (like in the Easter appearance story on the Emmaus road in Luke 24—naming Cleopas but not the other disciple) I think Luke’s gospel is inviting each of us to see yourself in that character.

 

God’s kingdom is a movement.

 

Our participation makes a difference in that movement. At the seminary where I teach in Chicago, this is how we teach the Bible: the gospels, Galatians, other epistles: as documents of a community organizing movement, gathering people and sending them. By the spirit of God, Paul and his co-workers continue Jesus’ work 1000 miles north in Galatia, bringing good news to beleaguered undocumented people in Galatia and other far-flung places, empowering them by God’s spirit to become part of a renewal movement, a community of healing and resistance, God’s love for the world, for every creature, a movement that restores the world. They proclaim the gospel of love for everyone, in the power of the holy spirit. They proclaim hope, that the world is about to turn, and indeed already has turned in Jesus. The kingdom of God has drawn near, Jesus says, overturning sin and death, overturning the dominant narrative, overturning the grip of Rome’s dominant system.

“New creation” Paul calls this vision, at the end of Galatians, verse 15. “New creation is everything. And for those who will walk by this rule, peace be upon them. “

New creation!

 

We see that movement all through Luke’s gospel, how Jesus inaugurated it in Nazareth (Luke 4), filled with God’s spirit, calling people together in alternative joyful community, quoting Isaiah and the other prophets. When Jesus begins to heal he enacts the good news of renewal! the reign of God coming towards us, healing our demons; feeding our hunger; blessing us; giving us to one another in joyful community; defying Herod’s terror and despair. New creation!

 

Inviting 70 people—70 goofballs– to participate.

 

So how are these 70 instructed to prepare for this mission? Do they make lists, go on a shopping trip to Costco, so they bring the “10 essentials for this hike”? map, extra clothes, extra food, walking sticks, in case something unforeseen happen?

No, Rather than equipping the seventy for a journey, Jesus “de-equips” them, as one scholar describes. He de-equips: “Do not carry a wallet, a travel bag, or shoes” (Luke 10:3; cf. 9:3). The absence of standard traveling equipment indicates their total dependence of the seventy on the Sender– and on those they will meet.

It’s the very opposite of being prepared. It’s being vulnerable, open. Like lambs in the midst of wolves…. It’s trusting in the joy of the gospel–  a term from Pope Francis I love, “the joy of the gospel,” a great summary of Luke’s gospel; it’s trusting in hospitality of people in the villages where they will go, trusting in God’s gentle power, the love of God’s kingdom movement.

(I went on a hike Friday with an old friend, and she said “I don’t bring the ten essentials, I bring ten essential friends! I guess the Jesus movement is a little like that: the most important is relationships, community!)

 

 

The seventy others are sent with a task– to heal the sick in every town and place ahead of Jesus– and with a message: to proclaim to people that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.” I love that.

 

In the King James “the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” Jesus repeats it twice in the instructions, verses 9 and 11. The New Testament verb in Greek is “to come near”; grammatically in the perfect tense, which means an action that has happened and still is happening NOW: so the kingdom of God has come near and stays near. God’s reign has sidled up to the world and is right alongside us. Adjacent to us. Here, at hand. The kingdom of God has become near.

Can you imagine? Jesus is saying that whenever we– the seventy unnamed “others” — go out in his name, to do ministry in East Wentachee or wherever, we can have confidence to say to people that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.” So near you can touch it. It is NIGH unto you. Now.

 

If these seventy are us, what is striking is the amazing success these seventy unprepared goofballs experience on their mission.

“The seventy returned with joy,” amazed at their own life-giving power they have put into motion, in Jesus’ name. “Even the demons submit to us.”

Demons: OK, this is figurative language we don’t use so much anymore. But it’s sort of akin to Native American understandings of a spirit world; which was also true in Jesus’ time. It was a way of diagnosing deep structures of systems of power in the world, the spirits behind institutions, like “the spirit of capitalism,” — institutions have spirits. The apostle paul called them the “elements” of the world, or “principalities and powers,”– the corporate personality of institutions. In Jesus’ time the spirit of Roman Empire’s military occupation and its increasingly oppressive economic system of more and more debt for peasants, was the overarching spirit that crushed people. The system made people sick. They were being crushed with the demon—the spirit—hopelessness to change the system.

Even to the point of scapegoating some individuals to bear the unbearable pain of a whole community—maybe like that man in chains in the graveyard last week, in Luke 8. That might be what demon possession was about, at least in part.

 

“Even the demons submit to us.” The 70 goofballs are empowered for mission! And they rejoice. When the kingdom of God draws near to us it means JOY, rejoicing.

 

Jesus’ healing (and ours) is 2-fold: first, diagnosing and overturning demonic power structures that hold people captive. It means Satan has fallen from heaven, as Jesus says, another figurative way of saying powers of evil have been dethroned. And that dethroning happens through us! The old translation of Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress” has this verse: “And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us; we will not fear for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.” Through us!

“The kingdom of God has drawn near.”

The kingdom that draws near means dethroning evil, and most of all it means healing, building up people, building up communities, creating a vision of hope. The vision of restoring hope and community.

Today’s gospel text says: Seventy people can make a creative difference, can change the world. Bear one another’s burdens.

Our congregation can make a difference. As a community of 70 — plus or minus each Sunday — that lives by this story, a different narrative from that or the dominant narrative.

We can be a “pocket” of new creation, of the kingdom that is drawing near. When we break bread together, when we come to this table, and share the peace. The kingdom of God draws near.

 

It’s easy to fear for the future, when things seem to be getting worse.

Whatever issues you work on: immigration, more.. I work especially on climate justice, Earth stewardship. The temptation is fear and despair; especially when alarmists tell you it’s too late for climate justice; too late, too late.

But I have seen 70 young people make a difference, fired up with God’s transformative spirit! A couple years ago, I spoke at an environmental event at Gustavus Adophus College, and the young people took our message seriously and ACTED on climate. They worshiped and prayed together. They built a “tree of life” in the chapel with their hopes and dreams for the future written on green leaves, and the commitments they are making to that future. They practiced being sent out, on a mission to do something about climate change, equipped with skills and knowledge and community….They wrote a call to the ELCA Lutheran church to do more on climate, that is happening this summer at the churchwide assembly. They inspire! They are the seventy!

And so are we! We are the 70 goofballs whom Jesus sends out, in his name, ahead of him in the world. To make a difference. To be seeds. To embody the truth that God’s kingdom has already drawn near. It is nigh. It is here. It is new creation.

 

 

AMEN