When the Lord Jesus
sent seventy-two disciples ahead of him two-by-two into the Israelite towns he
intended to visit, he deliberately made his followers just about as vulnerable as it was possible to be.
“Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no
sandals, and greet no one on the road.”
So, no spare tunic. No spare anything, for
that matter; not even a change of clothes, from the sound of it. No backup
sandals when the pair on your feet wore out, which was bound to happen when you
consider the distances involved. No moneybag, so you couldn’t even buy your
next meal.
Lambs among wolves. Pretty much the go-to metaphor for vulnerability and risk.
Lots of opportunity to see God’s provision
though, and lots of opportunity for people to participate with the seventy-two in the work
of God and benefit from doing so. As Mark puts it, “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you
belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.” In effect, after day one, the entire seventy-two man mission depended on God touching numerous hearts independently day after day as they went along. Lots
of learning to depend in that process.
Rules of the Road
Some of the Lord’s ‘Rules of the Road’ are interesting and maybe a bit perplexing. Like “Greet no one on the road.” What’s that about exactly?
I doubt the intention was to make his
followers appear standoffish. They were, after all, out there to take the
message of the kingdom to the people in advance of the coming King, healing the
sick as evidence of the King’s authority. It seems unlikely the Lord intended
his heralds to be particularly reserved about the job of heralding. But that
instruction would certainly prevent the disciples from being tempted to schmooze
themselves a meal or a place to stay. It would keep them on-mission and undistracted
as they traveled from town to town. And it meant that if they needed anything,
God would have to take care of business without them taking care of themselves.
House Rules
Or how about this rule: “Remain in the same house.” Wouldn’t it be more egalitarian to spread the blessing around a bit? Or might that tempt the disciples to shop around for the most lavish available
accommodations, avoiding the poorer homes and favoring the rich?
Or this one: “Eat what is set before you.” I grew up subject to that bit of biblical instruction, which is exceedingly useful when a preacher’s family gets an invitation for Sunday dinner and
smaller kids find themselves staring at a plateful of something they’ve never tasted
before and would prefer not to. You don’t want to snub your host, after all.
But the Lord wasn’t sending out young children with fussy eating habits, was
he, so that’s not the purpose for the command. I suppose it would keep the
disciples from giving unnecessary offense. God’s provision is not always lavish
but it is always sufficient.
The King is Coming
Are there instructions to be found here for
missionaries today? It would be unwise to be too rigidly literal about imitating
the specifics of a “sending out” that had a unique historical purpose in a time
when the Lord himself was physically present, not least because few of us are
equipped to heal the sick or drive out demons. Whatever we might glean from a
passage like this would be in the form of inference rather than direct commands.
Still, we too are charged with passing on
the message “The King is coming.” There may be one or two principles here worth
considering.
Like, say, the principle of not making
distinctions between rich and poor in our travels — if that was indeed the
Lord’s intention. That one would seem universal. James says, “Show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”
Givers and Takers
The principle of dependence also seems to transcend time and place. “The laborer deserves his wages,” the Lord said. It’s easy to give if you have plenty, and even easier to do it
for the wrong reasons: for the accolades, out of pride or even a sense of
grudging obligation.
It’s harder, I find, to learn to take from others without shame or self-consciousness, especially when those others may
have very little to offer. But it’s a necessary skill to be learned if poor
believers are to have the chance to contribute what they are able, which is something
of great value to the Lord. “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them.”
Weakness and Dependence
The principle of speaking for God from a position of weakness and
dependence rather than strength and autonomy is something the Lord had already
established in his birth (“You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger”) and lived out throughout his ministry (“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”). We would be unwise to ignore it. The instructions to carry no moneybag, knapsack
or sandals suggest all these things could easily have been taken along had the
disciples wished, and their natural inclination would probably have been to
bring them.
Today, if you have the financial resources
or the funding of a major organization, you can pretty much go and do anything
you choose to in the name of Christ. But unless you allow the Lord to be the
one turning the spigot on and off, how do you have the slightest idea if what
you’re doing is his work or merely your own? How do you know if you’re where
you should be, as opposed to merely where you can afford to be?
Vulnerability does not come naturally to
us. We’d rather be wolves than lambs — or at least sheepdogs.
The Lord’s example doesn’t really leave that option open.
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