6 Pentecost Yr C

The readings from Luke for the last three weeks have been about the unfailing love and abundant grace that God has for us. We have heard how that love and grace calls us into relationship with God, and transforms us. We have heard that God does not call us away or out of the world, but instead calls us to do our work, to be in relationship, to go about our business in a way that is new, in a way that reveals God’s unfailing love and grace to the world. We also call this discipleship. This is our call, this is our work. The gospel of Luke is all about being a disciple.

To be a disciple is to be on a journey of active faith formation, and to be a disciple is to be part of ushering in the reign of God. According to Luke, the reign of God is about reordering human interaction, we see that when Jesus brings to the center those people on the margins. And the reign of God is about loving one another as God has loved us offering peace to all we encounter. In the gospel passage from Luke this week, we hear that discipleship is expanded to include everyone, and that discipleship is about radical hospitality.

In the New Revised Standard Version translation we just read, we heard that Jesus appointed seventy disciples and sent them out in pairs. However, many New Testament scholars are convinced the earliest transcripts read 72. Seventy-two is a significant number. At the time Luke’s story was told, the number of the world’s nations is seventy-two. Seventy-two is also reckoned in an apocryphal book, Enoch, as the number of princes and languages in the world. And according to legend, seventy-two elders were commissioned to translate the law from Hebrew to Greek, a project undertaken in order to win renown throughout the whole world for the Jews and their God.

Seventy-two really means everyone. So now it is not just the original Jewish disciples of Jesus that spread the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. It is gentiles as well, and it is all of us; every one of us is a disciple and we are all called to spread the Good News.

Last Wednesday the church celebrated the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul. A gift that St. Peter and St. Paul give to us in the 21st century is the gift of disagreement. At the very beginnings of the church, these two important church leaders could not agree on who’s in and who’s out. The argument about circumcision which is referred to in the Galatians passage, was a huge argument in the 1st century. Basically, the question was do disciples of Jesus have to be circumcised as a Jew before they can be baptized? This question was about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, and what it means to be Jew. It is a question that caused communities to stop talking to each other; it caused communities to split apart and even stop eating together. The answer to the question however, was always Love one another as God has loved you. And, a sign of that love was to settle your differences before you come to the table to eat. St. Peter and St. Paul taught us to agree to disagree, because we are all part of one family. The way St. Peter and St. Paul taught us to agree to disagree is to practice radical hospitality.

That is what this passage before us today is about. All of us are called to radical hospitality; all of us are called to discipleship. What we have before us is both sides of hospitality, offering hospitality as well as receiving hospitality.

Jesus sends the seventy-two out to do the work of preaching and teaching, and harvesting the fruits of that labor. Jesus sends them with instructions. Those instructions are about receiving hospitality. First say “peace to this house” and then stay there and receive their hospitality. Eat and drink, cure the sick and preach the Good News. If they do not welcome you, if they do not offer hospitality, leave in protest, and know that the kingdom of God has come near. Remember, what Luke means when he writes about Jesus ushering in the kingdom of God is the reordering of human interactions. Jesus brings those who are on the margins to the center, those who are first will be last, those who are out will be in.

What does the discipleship of radical hospitality look like in the 21st century? Discipleship is offering hospitality and receiving hospitality, and in doing so, the kingdom of God is near. As disciples we are called to welcome the stranger. We are called to offer rest, to wash their feet, and a place at the table. When we offer this radical hospitality, we act as disciples and the kingdom of God is near. We, as disciples, are called to offer hospitality to everyone, people we agree with, people we disagree with, people that look like us, people who look different than us, people that we grew up with, people who are strangers.

As disciples we are also called to go out into the world, walking along side one another, and say to all we meet, Peace to you, peace to your house, peace to your people. We are to take the gospel seriously, be transformed by it and offer it’s message of hospitality to all we meet, to all whose paths we cross, and to all who come alongside us as we journey together. In this age of rampant individualism, offering hospitality and walking alongside one another, including and especially those who are different from us, is a radical and difficult call. This encounter requires attentive listening and willingness to enter into another’s world and be transformed by this world.

Peace to this house, peace to your house, peace to the stranger’s house.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.