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.” I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.
Luke 10
Let’s look at how much Jesus’s instructions to the seventy differ from the shape of modern ministry- or modern, mainline protestant, professional ministry anyhow. Jesus sends the 70 out with nothing but a staff, the clothes on their backs, and the sandals on their feet. They are to go out into the world to teach, to share the message of repentance. If it’s received by open ears, if the disciples are received by open homes, then great. If it’s not, no worries. Move on. Hope for more fertile ground ahead. Shake the dust from your feet and keep going. That last bit is interesting, the shaking the dust from your feet part. It’s a way of making a display of the fact that you weren’t shown the proper hospitality. Any host receiving a guest would wash the guest’s feet. It’s a basic comfort. Having dust to shake from your feet, maybe stomping around outside of the home, making a big display of it, lets everyone else know that you encountered someone unwilling to receive you. And remember: Failing to extend hospitality is a particularly grave sin as far as the Bible is concerned. Many of our mothers would probably say the same. But failing to extend hospitality is the sin of Sodom and Gomorra. It’s the root sin of Gibeah. It’s the sin of the rich man who finds himself in Hades haunted by the vision of the beggar Lazarus cradled in the arms of Abraham. The Bible’s heroes sometime murder a relative or lie to a friend or commit adultery, but their homes are always open and their tables are set.
But I digress. What we have here is a radically different image of what ministry is, of what the work of the church is, from what you and I, from what American Christianity, has experienced for the past 150 years or more. Here we have disciples going from town to town, looking for a home that will receive them, and staying and teaching there for as long as folks will have them. There’s no pastor’s office or contract or salary or pension, just teachers among the people, subsiding on the people’s hospitality, and knowing full well that the arrangements are temporary, that after a few days, a week, maybe a couple of months, they’ll have to leave. Perhaps it will just be time to go. The stories of Jesus will have been shared and the work will be passed to others. It’s likely though or at least very probable that the welcome will be worn out, that the message will grow hard, that it will rub someone the wrong way, (probably someone powerful, someone rich), and that the demand will be too much, and the message, along with the messenger, will be dismissed, sent away.
But it’s okay. Take your staff and move on.
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