The Peace That Rests – Luke 10

A text – Luke 10:1-11

10 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two 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; 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 a person of peace is there, 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.’

A reflection:

If you know me and my work with Church Innovations, you are smiling now, because this particular bit of St. Luke’s gospel is somewhat familiar. We did Dwelling in the Word in this passage every week at staff meetings for 25 years and whenever we met with new partners in mission. This sending out of 70 or 72 followers (the ring of persons beyond the 12 disciples) was both our grounding and our mission. It comes up every summer in the lectionary, and to me hearing it is like running into the friend who saw you through your best and worst times growing up, or the friend who was there with you all the way through junior high school. Every verse has captured my imagination at one time or another.

This morning I am struck by how Jesus sent them “on ahead of him” with the ability to perceive, so that when they would enter a house and extend the peace, they would have a kind of Geiger counter working for them. They were to look around for the person of peace, with the peace resting on them. A visual cue. Perhaps the person was the busy mother who stopped in mid-stirring to pause and extend peace back to them. Perhaps it was the 10-year old in the corner playing. Perhaps it was the grandfather out in the yard. Perhaps there was no one, in which case this extended peace returned to Jesus’s followers – nothing was lost. Especially the first time these followers went out, I imagine it would have been comforting to see/feel/experience that there was for sure a person of peace in the house that welcomed them.

When we are sent out to do things that make us anxious, God goes with us, before us and beside us. We, in our lives today, might also always be seeking persons of peace. And if we look closely, those persons might be seen to have the peace of God resting upon them. What kind of difference would seeing God’s peace make to us in our otherwise slightly frantic lives? Let’s watch for the peace of God this week. I think we will find it.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for your peace, which passes our understanding. Help us to remember that we can extend that peace to others and watch it rest upon them. If it doesn’t, help us to remember that it returns to us, so that we remain ever aware of your presence with us. Amen