Reading: Luke 10-11, Psalm 117
A couple of chapters ago, we saw Jesus send out twelve disciples to carry his message. Today’s reading opens with him sending out seventy two disciples to carry his message. They are going to all the towns and places that he himself was about to go. They were forerunners. Harbingers. The runners ahead of the king that announce his arrival. Something has happened between the sending of the twelve and the seventy two. Power has taken notice of him in the form of Herod. His disciples have seen his transfiguration and the voice of God proclaiming that he is the Son of God. Jesus has spoken to those who follow him of the difficulty in becoming his disciple. The seventy two who are sent out are believers. Jesus has not made it easy to follow him- look back up to his words about letting the dead bury their own dead, and about carrying a cross- those who continue to follow him know what they are in for.
When the seventy two go out, Jesus pronounces a curse on the towns that have rejected him after his miracles. We don’t often think of Jesus issuing curses, but it is right there. Having seen the miracles, pagan cities would have repented long ago. Not exactly a peaceful, easy message to hear if you are a resident of one of those cities. The coming of one of the pairs of the seventy two disciples was apparently the arrival of both healing and judgment. Once a town had witnessed the miraculous arrival of the Kingdom, it was placed under interdiction- Jesus goes on to compare those who see these kinds of signs and yet ask for more signs to the ancient sinful cities of Nineveh and Sodom. It seems that it is important to listen when the message of the Kingdom of God is presented, because there is responsibility that attaches to hearing. Be careful how you hear. The seventy two disciples are themselves astonished at what they are capable of, and the lack of repentance of those who are the subject of it is not going to go unnoticed by Jesus.
We next get a series of contrasts between those who hear, see, and listen to the message with those who have the message but chose to ignore it. Jesus has presented them with a new way of life, and they are having none of it. He exclaims that no one having lit a lamp hides it in a cellar or under a basket, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see by it. He has given the people a new light, a light that allows them to see, but they have tried to bury it. This leads into some of the harshest language Jesus uses in any of the four gospels.
In the next two dialogues, Jesus calls the Pharisees unmarked graves, dirty dishes, murderers of the prophets, and a barrier to the life of those they claim to teach. It is not gentle or nice. There are reasons that each of these were especially insulting to the Pharisees and teachers of the law in particular, but we don’t really have to go too far that way to understand that Jesus is telling them off real hard. He is done with people who have been presented with the truth but would rather ignore it, even attributing the new Kingdom life to the devil or demons. Jesus is more than happy to engage with those who know they are lost, who have accepted the message of John- that they must repent of their sins. He is not gentle with those who have rejected John’s message, who believe they do not need a savior. What we read in Luke is a story about a savior of the lost and a judge of the arrogant. Jesus has brought new light and life into the world, and he is not going to hide it under a basket.