He said to them, The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few. (Gospel) 14 th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C July 7 th, 2013 Todays Readings Isaiah 66:10-14 Psalm: 66:1-7, 16, 20 Galatians 6:14-18 Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
First Reading: Isaiah 66:10-14 10 Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her 11 that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom. 12 For thus says the Lord: I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm, and dandled on her knees. 13 As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. 14 You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bodies shall flourish like the grass; and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his servants, and his indignation is against his enemies. Responsive Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20 1 Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; 2 sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise. 3 Say to God, How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you. 4 All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name. 5 Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds among mortals. 6 He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There we rejoiced in him, 7 who rules by his might for ever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations let the rebellious not exalt themselves. 16 Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. 20 Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me. Second Reading: Galatians 6:14-18
14 May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! 16 As for those who will follow this rule peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. 17 From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body. 18 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen. Gospel Reading: Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 10After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace to this house! 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near to you. 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 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. 12 I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town. 17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us! 18 He said to them, I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Homily In our readings today, we see that the warnings that Jesus gave the seventy who went out in his name that they were going like lambs among wolves seem congruent with what the Apostle Paul found on his missionary journeys. There were physical hardships and risks as well as emotional and spiritual ones. In Galatia, Paul s competitors were preaching the need for the Gentiles to conform to Jewish law and traditions including circumcision, and Paul is very angry in his response, an emotional tone that is not so apparent in the English translation as it is in the original Greek. His opponents ridiculed Paul, claiming that his gospel message was incomplete and inadequate, trying to persuade people in the community to switch sides in the dispute. Paul says he has died to all this jockeying for position, that there is no pride in being circumcised or not, and his glory is in the wounds shared with Jesus he had been flogged, beaten, chained, and ill, for the sake of the gospel. Paul was no passive, quiet lamb in the face of those he perceived were teaching a false gospel, that the new believers had to jump through hoops to comply to the Jewish law. He reminds us as believers that there is risk -- there will be battles to be fought.
Certainly, it is unlikely that any of us will face the threat of death and physical abuse that Paul suffered, but we all face people who try to kill the spirit, ridiculing and dissuading us from important goals and tasks. Paul would tell us that if we are followers of Jesus, to not be dissuaded from our mission. Last week, we saw that on the Christian path, we have to learn to make choices that are based on immediate as well as longterm plans. In the Gospel story, we are not given negative or positive outcomes beyond the seventy s initial return when they were elated at their powers given in Jesus name. But in other stories, others were not as successful. Success or failure in the short-term may not be apparent or may be misleading, so as Christians, we pray to follow the mission we ve been given, with the outcome not ours to measure. The risks were real in the Gospel account, not unlike those of Paul in the subsequent generation. And we recall that among Paul s coworkers, prison and hardship were common. Junia and Andronicus were said to have been Paul s coworkers although they were in Christ before he was, and that they were in prison together (Romans 16:7). There are important symbols in this story and some interesting sidelights as well. As modern-day readers, what are we to make of Jesus saying, I have given you authority To tread on snakes and scorpions And over all the power of the Enemy He [the Enemy] shall harm you in nothing (10:19). Notice the statement is in a parallel arrangement: Authority Power; Snakes and scorpions shall harm you in nothing. In their world, snakes and scorpions were a real risk in their daily lives. But they also symbolize evil in the OT. The serpent or snake was the origin of evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-14; Numbers 21:6-9; Sirach 21:2). The scorpion is a biblical symbol of divine punishment (I Kings 12:11, 13). The combination of the two is seen in both the OT and Nt (Deuteronomy 8:15; Luke 11:11-12) suggesting extreme risk and threat and unfavorable conditions. What we are hearing in this passage is that Jesus explains to the seventy how they have prevailed by placing all threat of evil under his authority, e.g. physical harm, demonic forces, symbolic or personal evil. And Paul came through the adversities he faced. Today, we suffer little for sharing our faith in comparison to those early generations. It is said that by the year 60 CE, four years before Paul s death, that there were roughly two thousand believers. It doesn t sound like much, but the seeds were planted. Paul may not have seen the results, but he kept to his mission. What was Jesus saying about the seventy disciples not being provided for by people in the places where they went out? We know that one of the highest values in their culture was hospitality to be offered to the stranger, because travelers were extremely vulnerable as far as not getting robbed on the road and getting their needs met for water, food, and shelter. It was normal to travel with little because if one was robbed, one could lose everything. It was a dangerous situation, as Jesus said they were like
lambs going into the midst of wolves. When Jesus said it would be more intolerable for the town that refused hospitality than for Sodom. This is an interesting point, because overall, scripture points to the sin of Sodom as being one of inhospitality, not homosexual relationships. There are various aspects to this issue which I will comment on in our Study Notes. So why was it seventy [or 72 in some manuscripts] missionaries going out? The number may be symbolic since it is the tenfold of the sacred number of seven. The expansion of the Gospel is depicted as going forward despite the high risk. The number seventy is found through the OT, for example, 70 men going with Moses to Mount Sinai. When asked how many times we should forgive, Jesus replied that not just seven times, but seventy times seven. So now we see that we can have confidence that our mission in this world is sacred and we go forward to share the Gospel of Jesus, bringing his message of love to all who cross our paths. Let us not forget how the Gospel began: That the fields are ripe for the harvest. Our artwork depicts the huge crop and the workers inadequate to do the job. And what is the harvest? All those around us who are ready to enter into faith, if only someone will show them the way. We are commissioned to bring them into full awareness of the kingdom of God. Father in heaven, was there ever a time when you held back your love? You sent your only son. We can see you, and feel you within our hearts. We rejoice and are glad. Holy Spirit of God, show us the world as Christ saw it from the cross. Stay at our side as we find, like Paul, what is needed in our time. Let us hold what is holy and let go of
all that is not. As a mother bears her baby in her arms so you cradle us in your everlasting love. Do you send us out with sack, sandals, moneybags? No, but with wealth beyond all telling. Your grace and your love for your little ones and your poor. Prayers only. Copyright 2013, Anne M. Osdieck. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce for personal or parish use. A Homily from St. Augustine of Hippo (354 430 CE): Your peace will rest upon him. The Gospel which has just been read raises a question. When the Lord told his disciples that the harvest was indeed abundant but laborers were scarce and urged them to ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers out to harvest his crop, which crop did he have in mind? That was the point at which he increased the group of twelve disciples whom he had named his apostles by the addition of another seventy-two, and his words make it clear
that he sent all these out to gather in the ripe grain. But which crop did he mean? Evidently not a crop of Gentiles, from whom there was nothing to be reaped because there had as yet been no sowing among them. The conclusion must be that the crop in question consisted of Jews. The Jewish people were the harvest to which the Lord of the harvest came, and to which he dispatched his reapers. To the Gentiles he could send no reapers at that time, only sowers. We may understand, then, that harvest time among the Jews coincided with sowing time among the Gentiles, for out of the Jewish crop, sown by the prophets and now ripe for harvesting, the apostles were chosen. Here we have the joy of observing the divine husbandry. How good it is to see God s gifts and watch the laborers in his field! Consider his twofold harvest, the one already reaped, the other still to come. That of the Jews is over and done, but there is a crop yet to be gathered in from the Gentiles. Now let us see if this can be demonstrated. And what better place to look for evidence than the holy scriptures of the divine Lord of the harvest? Here in this very chapter of the Gospel we have the saying: The harvest is rich but the laborers are few; ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest. This harvest is the people to whom the prophets preached, sowing the seed so that the apostles might gather in the sheaves. For the seed to sprout it was sufficient for the prophets to sow, but the ripe grain had to wait for the apostles sickle. Another time the Lord told his disciples: You say that summer is still far off. Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are already white with ripe grain! And he added: Others have toiled over it, and you have entered into their labors. Those others were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets. Because they worked hard at sowing, at the Lord s coming the grain was found to be ripe. Then the reapers were sent out, wielding the Gospel as their sickle. They were to greet no one on the road, which meant they were to have no aim or activity apart from proclaiming the Good News in a spirit of brotherly love. When they arrived at a house they were to say: Peace be to this house. This greeting was no mere formula; being filled with peace themselves, the apostles spread it abroad, proclaiming peace and at the same time possessing it. Consequently when one of them, fully at peace with himself, pronounced the blessing: Peace be to this house, then if a lover of peace were in that house, the apostle s peace would rest upon him. (Sermon 101, 1-3.11: PL 38, 605-607.610)