Two by Two: The Mission and Mystery of Discipleship

07-06-2025Weekly ReflectionFr. Albert

In today's Gospel, taken from the Evangelist Luke, we read of the commissioning of the disciples by the Lord. we see that the Lord does something a little bit unusual and perhaps for our modern standards, a bit inefficient! He sends his disciples out two-by-two. Why would the Lord do this? with all the ground that He has to cover, with all the souls that need to hear the message of the Kingdom of God, why wouldn't He just send them out one-by-one? As one homilist put it years ago: '' if these disciples can survive each other, they can survive anything the world, the flesh and the devil can throw at them.

Discipleship in the Lord comes with the understanding that we are all, ultimately, as the Scriptures phrase it. ''useless servants''. we all need to pull together and sanctify the world by what we do and what we say. The fact that Luke records no less than two occasions of sending shows the significance he attributed to this action of Jesus. undoubtedly both accounts were meant to provide a model for Christian missionaries in his own day. Both underscore the essentially missionary nature of the church. Its supreme task is to proclaim the onset of the kingdom of God. Mission accounts also communicate a sense of spirituality that should accompany the proclamation of the kingdom.

While the instructions Jesus gives the missionaries cannot, in most respects, translate literally into our own situation today, His central message, bearing upon spiritual practice, has a lasting relevance. The missionaries are to go out very lightly clad and take no provisions for the journey. This means that they will have to run the risk of relying on what hospitality they find. This reliance has to do with the nature of the combat they face and the gift they bring. The gift of peace seems to be the rationale behind associating with the Gospel the text from Isaiah 66;10-14 that make up the first reading. The prophet tells the exiles returning to a ruined Jerusalem to rejoice because her beauty, richness, and capacity to nourish will be restored.

God will send peace in the full measure. But Jesus' instruction also foresees situations where neither the missionaries nor their message will receive a welcome. People do not always want to hear good news if it challenges their present assumptions and settled way of life. then the missionaries will have to exchange their positive message for a negative prophetic gesture; shaking the dust of the inhospitable towns and villages off their feet as a sign of judgement to come . Paul speaks in starkly confronting terms; through the power of the cross he '' crucified'' to the world and the world to him. Through the ''death'' that this involves there comes into being nothing less than a '' new creation.”

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