Today we read in our gospel that Jesus gathered together 70 disciples…paired them up, gave them quite the speech and then sent them out to the ends of the earth.

We also hear that they returned with joy…saying to Jesus ‘even the demons submit to us!’

What a triumph!  It’s a familiar story, but also an incomplete one…

What we are missing is the middle of the story…we get the beginning…we get the end, but that bit in the middle is sadly missing.

This is often the case in the gospels we hear the results but not the journey people took to get there, quite a departure from Old Testament stories where we get to hear all about the journey…even if it’s 40 years worth.  In the Gospels it seems people are always rushing from one place to another…time is short.  Even in our story today the 70 were sent because Jesus didn’t have time to get there himself.

So, we get the sending, and the ending, but not the journey…which is a shame because it is a journey we all share, a journey we can learn from, grow from…often the journey is something that is repeated throughout spiritual history.  We are all on a journey… a path of Christ’s sending and the 70 were no different, they weren’t the first and they weren’t the last, but just as they learned from those who had gone before…so too, we can learn from them.

The sending of the 70 disciples not the first sending in Luke’s gospel.  In Luke’s previous chapter Jesus sent out the 12…the Apostles, the chosen ones. He gave them power and authority, commanded they take nothing with them and receive hospitality from those towns that accept them and shake the dust off from those towns that don’t.

We are told the apostles proclaimed the good news and healed people everywhere.

A rousing success one would say.

However, in the remainder of the chapter we find that those apostles didn’t learn as much as one would hope from their journey.  Those same chosen apostles couldn’t heal a boy with a demon…the apostles bickered about who was the greatest and when a village refused to welcome Jesus among them… James and John asked if they should command fire to come down and consume the village.

Not exactly lesson learnt… and these were the apostles, the chosen twelve.

Now we find that Jesus has chosen 70 more from among the followers…70, perhaps to represent all the nations of the earth, as listed in Genesis, and Jesus was sending them out …everyday disciples….you and me.  A very intimidating prospect …

Sent out into the world as lambs in the midst of wolves…no money to ease the way, no means to accumulate wealth or security, not even a spare pair of sandals.  Nothing that they were used to carrying with them…nothing that would help them feel secure.  Or ready for the task ahead…Seriously.  What did you pack the last time you went on a trip?  More than a spare pair of sandals I’m sure!  Most likely more than you needed, you know… just in case.

And yet these simple disciples were sent out into a new world with nothing but each other. I say new because it is likely that few, if any, of these disciples had done a lot of traveling before.  Most people were comfortable spending their whole lives in the places they were familiar with…never travelling beyond what they had known and had grown up with.  The familiar traditions, foods, people and cultures that inhabited their own small towns.

There was precedence though, others had done this before!  The Apostles had been sent out, the chosen few had walked this path before, but they were different…they had been Jesus inner circle…specially trained.  Yet, even they didn’t get it 100%.

So those 35 pairs of disciples must have felt very anxious, intimidated and likely a bit overwhelmed…but still excited, after all Jesus was sending them out into new territory and that must mean he trusted them.

Trusted them, but also had a very realistic about the difficult situations they would face.

Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.
Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.
Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!'
And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.
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.'

Like lambs among wolves… if nothing else those disciples must have felt vulnerable.  So very much aware that they didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t know what to expect…they walked in faith, went out in faith…but I’d bet that they were nervous…scared even.

Acutely aware that things were out of their control.  Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…nothing that could distract or weigh them down, but also…nothing as backup if things went wrong.  A very vulnerable position indeed.

However, I believe that the disciples were meant to be vulnerable, meant to ones who received the hospitality of others, rather than acting as host.  They were meant to go out from their safe and familiar setting and enter a new place, an unfamiliar house…and if they were welcomed…they were to stay.

Stay regardless of whether the food was kosher, the people were the right sort or the situation comfortable and whatever the situation they found themselves in…they were meant to proclaim to them “the kingdom of God has come near to you.”

The Benedictine Monastic tradition has something that reflects this idea called a vow of stability.   The concept that to be a community, you stay in community, together, weathering the ups and downs that all community faces, the changes in leadership, the introduction of new people, the joys and the sorrows…you commit to being together.

This is what Jesus was advocating, because even in the midst of challenges …this stability meant the disciples knew that they could rely on one another and that together with those in the house with whom they were staying, a strong community could be formed which would stand up against the difficult times that all communities, especially new communities face.

However, if the disciples were not welcomed into the new place that they arrived at…it was not to be taken personally.  Those disciples were not to look at these rejections as failures, or obstacles or testament to their own inabilities…in fact they were still to proclaim ‘the kingdom of God has come near’.  But then, they were to wipe off the dust in the sight off all, so that all may know that this bump in the road will not weigh them down or stop their mission, that rejection will not cling to them or hamper God’s work…the disciples would carry on doing what God had called them to do.

Serving where God sent them to serve, remaining where they are welcome and walking on when they are not…but in all things proclaiming the gospel.

No easy task and I’m sure that all those disciples encountered welcome and rejection in turn.  Yet in the end, we read that they all returned in joy.

Beginning in anxiety and vulnerability, but returning in joy, telling Jesus of the miraculous things that they themselves saw and accomplished.  From humble beginnings to a world wide community of Christians.  The outcome is amazing and indeed miraculous, but it is the journey that we all share.  Success, failure…it is all a journey of learning and neither is going to be 100%.  Even the apostles took rejection personally enough to want to burn down entire communities!  Not exactly a Jesus centered response.  And not all the 70 were accepted everywhere they went, but they continued…they walked on…they proclaimed in good and in bad times the words that Christ had spoken…and so fulfilled the mission they were sent on.

What is success? What is failure?  That is for God to decide… it is for us to make the journey, just disciples of Christ have done for millennia…sent by Christ into the world to make communities, to form relationship, to proclaim the kingdom and to return with joy to the communities that form and strengthen us.

We are apostles…ones who are sent…and we continue that journey…perhaps full of vulnerability but also full of joy.    amen