Sunday's Gospel

After 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. 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. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 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. 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. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, '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.' "Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me." The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 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. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." -Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Lord, you give the great commission:
    “Heal the sick and preach the word.”
Lest the church neglect is mission,
   and the gospel go unheard,
help us witness to your purpose
   with renewed integrity.
With the Spirit's gifts empower us
   for the work of ministry.

Lord, you call us to your service:
   “In my name baptize and teach.”
That the world may trust your promise,
   life abundant meant for each,
give us all new fervor,
   draw us closer in community.
With the Spirit's gifts empower us
   for the work of ministry.

Lord, you make the common holy:
   “This my body, this my blood.”
Let us all, for earth's true glory,
   daily lift life heavenward,
asking that the world around us
   share your children's liberty.
With the Spirit's gifts empower us
   for the work of ministry.

Lord, you show us love's true measure:
   “Father, what they do, forgive.”
Yet we hoard as private treasure
   all that you so freely give.
May your care and mercy
   lead us to a just society.
With the Spirit's gifts empower us
   for the work of ministry.

Lord, you bless with words assuring:
   “I am with you to the end.”
Faith and hope and love resoring,
   may we serve as you intend
and, amid the cares that claim us,
   hold in mind eternity.
With the Spirit's gifts empower us
   for the work of ministry.

-Jeffery Rowthorn (b. 1934)
copywrite Hope Publishing Co. 1978
sung to tune Abbot's Leigh (Wonder, Love, and Praise) 

Jesus sent the seventy out ahead of him. Like John the Baptist, they were preparing the way for the change that comes with repentance, the peace that comes with kindness, the relief that comes with healing, the strength that comes with being acknowledged. Smoothing the way, preparing people for the good news, they were a Vanguard of Hope.

I myself am not a person of hope. I'm cheerful – I'm glad for what is in the glass whether it is half full or half empty. Depressives tend to see things as they are, so say the sociologists, and I don't have much hope for humanity, based upon my own well-meaning but broken life and what I have studiously observed around me throughout my seventy-one years. I certainly don't believe in false hope.

Hope is primarily silent, I think. Men and women who try to minister in refugee camps like the notorious camps in Greece, Kenya, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Somalia, and at Cox's Bazaar at the border of Bangladesh, for example, give me hope. More than 8 million Ukrainians are displaced. Over 30 million people worldwide are refugees as of 2022. This will increase as the climate crises and the conflicts caused by drought spreads. Understaffed, under-resourced, overwhelmed; Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, International Rescue Committee, The International Red Cross, hundreds of NGOs and ordinary citizens try and try and try again. Lambs among the wolfishness of war, greed, drought, violence, starvation, these individuals are their own vanguard of suffering against greed, power, ignorance, complacency.

When I look to the borders of my own wealthy country I begin to waver again, lose my own hope.

I suspect that most of those 70 people that Jesus sent out didn't see themselves as anything special. Most, if not all of them needed to be ministered to themselves. They lived in a terrible time – under the brutal oppression of a foreign power, systemic local government corruption, food insecurity, fragility of life and capricious fortunes. “Why send me?” they probably thought. Jesus warned them that it wouldn't be easy. They might face rejection, thirst, hunger, forces of evil. Behold I send you like lambs among wolves.

But they came back amazed. “Look at what we could do!” And Jesus said, (I'm sure he was laughing in his joy as he said it ) "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”

While I was groping around in the darkness of my own hopelessness to pray myself into this text, I read this flyby comment from a young American congresswoman.

... I learned that hope is not something that you have. Hope is something that you create, with your actions. Hope is something you have to manifest into the world, and once one person has hope, it can be contagious. Other people start acting in a way that has more hope. *

Do I dare to hope ?
Do I dare to act?

-sg

*Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez

Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.

― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

To hope is to gamble. It's to bet on your futures, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.

― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark