Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
July 6, 2025
I once had the very dubious honor of sitting in with a group of people who were in charge of awarding a number of small grants to churches. One church asked for funding for a basketball coach for their after-school program; another was hoping for a driver to deliver their food pantry items to clients without transportation; another wanted a worship interpreter for a burgeoning Spanish-speaking contingent of their congregation. One by one, each request was denied.
“We don’t fund staffing,” the committee said. “We can buy you basketballs, or vans, or Spanish-language hymnals, but we don’t fund people.” I paraphrased the rules in my notes as “we can buy you stuff, but not staff.”
Now, I’m the daughter of a grant writer, and I understand that many constraints in the world of grants are out of our hands. It struck me, though, as the polar opposite of the model of ministry that Jesus offers in the gospel. When Jesus decides to accelerate the spread of the good news into the towns of Galilee, he doesn’t send stuff. He sends staff.
Not paid staff, of course, but Jesus does send people to do his work. In Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, he commissions 70 (or 72, depending on your preferred manuscript tradition) of his followers to go out and find people receptive to his mission and message. And as he sends these people out, he explicitly forbids them from carrying any stuff with them.
By stripping stuff away from the disciples, Jesus forces them to rely entirely on the people they will encounter. It is a risky move. Jesus sends them out “like lambs among wolves,” at the mercy of others’ mercy. Jesus warns them that not everyone will be reliable, welcoming, or trustworthy—he even gives them a ritual to help them acknowledge and release their rejection—but he also promises the seventy that some people will be ready to listen, and to share peace in return.
It’s an extraordinarily relational and mutual form of evangelism that Jesus commands in this passage. The disciples are to go to people’s houses and declare peace; and if the residents of the home are receptive, then they are to stay in that house, to eat with the people in the house, and to build relationships with people in the house. Jesus stresses that they are not to flit from house to house, even if it seems like they could spread Jesus’ message faster that way. The disciples are to build deep relationships with their hosts, so that these welcoming houses become new outposts of the kingdom of God.
Like in Jesus’ own incarnational ministry, there is a crucial with-ness to the way Jesus’ disciples are called to act. They are called to be with the people in these towns: with them in their homes, with them at their tables, and with them at their sickbeds. The disciples, like many in your pews, get easily excited by and sidetracked by the demons, who are the only beings Jesus has granted them power over. The disciples forget to rejoice in the bigger miracle, which is that strangers have become siblings in Jesus’ name.
Many of our churches still have an inclination to value stuff over people when it comes to doing ministry. I suspect that is partially because stuff can keep people at a comfortable distance. I can donate canned peas to the food pantry and never look a hungry person in the eye. I can obsess over the perfectly designed website and never ask my next-door neighbor if they have a church home. It’s not that stuff is necessarily bad—much of it is good and necessary—but when we prioritize stuff, or expect stuff (including dollars and cents) to do our ministry for us, we are abandoning the incarnational faith we profess. Jesus always prioritized a ministry of relationship, where real people get to know each other and find their lives transformed by the encounter.
Questions for reflection on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
- There are a number of themes, images, metaphors, and vignettes in Luke 10:1-11, 16-20. Which one is the Holy Spirit waving in your face this week?
- Have you ever been forced to rely on the welcome of strangers fully? What was that experience like?
- Jesus warns the disciples in Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 that they will not have a 100% success rate in finding people of peace. What is your tolerance for failure or rejection while doing the work of Jesus?
- When envisioning a new ministry or mission, it’s instinctive for many of us to ask, “What do we need to do the work Jesus asks of us?” What would change in the workings of your church if you asked instead, “Who do we need to do the work Jesus asks of us?”
View the corresponding Order of Worship for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
Sign up for worship resources in your inbox every Monday.
