Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
On the surface, our readings today convey confidence and optimism: "Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent" writes Isaiah. In the same way, the 72 missionaries come back to Jesus rejoicing: "Lord, even the devils submit to us when we use your name." And Jesus seems to confirm there optimism: "Behold, I have given you the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy, and nothing will harm you!"
Hearing only these lines, one would assume those who profess faith in Jesus are guaranteed success in their entire mission. Nothing is further from the truth. Only when we listen to the three readings in their entirety do we understand the background of suffering and failure that acted as a backdrop to these few small glimpses of success.
For instance, when Isaiah utters the beautiful consoling words over Jerusalem which make up the first reading, the holy city is just a pile of rubble. He is singing an optimistic hymn to a heap of stones.
In the same way, scholars often remind us that Paul had hardly left Galatia when his prized converts forgot his teachings. Many of those who had converted to the faith seemed to revert almost immediately to the Old Law. Moses was more important to them than Jesus.
In fact, the situation is so bad that Paul believes his long, hard work of evangelization has been a waste. This moves Paul to make an amazing boast: the execution of Jesus on the cross. The cross was an object of shame. Paul boasts in it! "Marks of Jesus on my body" contrasts with several other kinds of bodily marks familiar in the ancient world: the body of one who followed Moses was marked with circumcision. Another common mark, which Paul probably had in mind, was the brand of ownership placed by the slaver-master on the slave. It was a mark of ownership, a mark of belonging. Paul has no doubt as to whom he belongs: "The marks on my body are those of Jesus." The marks on Paul, whether real or figurative, all come from his service of Jesus. This seems to be why he ends his letter with a reflection on the failure of Jesus, the cross. "Brothers and sisters," he writes, "the only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." How could Paul expect his ministry to be an unqualified success when the ministry of Jesus himself was such an unmitigated disaster?
It is important to remember that Luke quotes the words of Jesus to his 72 -the ancient world believed that there were 72 nations on earth - missionaries some50 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. He and the community for whom he writes have had that long to reflect on what happens when people try to carry on Jesus' word.
This is why Luke's Jesus stresses how centred his followers must become on their ministry. Money, clothes and possessions are never to be a distraction. Comfort is not to be sought; neither is success. We shouldn't even worry about how people receive us. "Whatever town you enter," Jesus commands, "and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, 'The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.'"
Luke believes the disciples of Jesus shouldn't expect consistent success in what they do. Their task is simply to imitate Jesus. That means the first person who must remember that "the kingdom of God is at hand" is the one who proclaims that message. He or she must especially recognize the presence of God working among and through them at the very moment those to whom they are proclaiming that kingdom are ignoring it.
All our biblical authors believe that no one can be an honest follower of God who hasn't developed a familiarity with and an acceptance of failure.