Down-to-Earth Benefits for the Entire Community – Dennis Ormseth reflects on stepping out beyond the religious competition to curry God’s favor and entering “a new creation”
Care for Creation Commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary
Readings for Sunday July 3 – 9, Year C (2013, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2025)
Isaiah 66:10–14
Psalm 66:1–9 (4)
Galatians 6:[1–6] 7–16
Luke 10:1–11, 16–20
This Sunday’s scriptures provide a basis for extending our reflections from the previous Sunday on the concept of the Kingdom of God as an ecologically sustainable Great Economy. Wendell Berry’s translation of the Kingdom as Great Economy, we saw, envisions a realm inclusive of all things, in which everything is in principle “joined both to it and to everything else that is in it,” an order “that is both greater and more intricate than we can know.” We participate in this economy whether we acknowledge it or not, but certain behaviors, especially the competitiveness that is the foundational dynamic of our capitalistic economy, are antithetical to an order that offers “a membership of parts inextricable joined to each other, indebted to each other, receiving significance and worth from each other and from the whole.” Those economies that presume upon this membership or violate it need to expect that “severe penalties” will be exacted; in terms of modern environmental discourse, they are not sustainable and will result, in due course, in ecological disruption and even collapse.
Jesus’ words and action as he turned his face toward Jerusalem embodied a principled refusal to engage in a culture of competition dominant in his time. A church seeking to model an ecologically sustainable economy in the face of our environmental crisis will heed his example by promoting activities that demonstrate ecologically sustainable membership in its neighborhood. Love of neighbor is a major theme of this section of Luke (and the explicit message of next Sunday’s Gospel); as we noted in last week’s comment, quoting Berry, “the good choice in the Great Economy is to see its membership as a neighborhood and oneself as neighbor within it.”
Thus, when Jesus sends the “seventy” to go out into the harvest of the Kingdom in this Sunday’s Gospel, we understand that his followers are thrust into an arena of heightened “competitiveness” that has the potential to explode at any time in violence. They are, as Jesus tells them, “like lambs” sent “into the midst of wolves.” His instruction to “carry no purse, no bag, no sandals,” might signal an obvious display of poverty that would forestall wayside robbery; so also the instruction to “greet no one on the road” would prevent unwanted provocation. On the other hand, the guidance concerning purse, bag, and sandals could signal the intention to create a condition of dependence upon those who welcomed them into their homes; and Jesus’ further instruction to “remain in the same house,” leads us to suggest that these emissaries are to enter into the economy of that village “eating and drinking whatever they provide,” for they are “laborers who deserve to be paid” (Luke 10:7). Moreover, they are also to engage in “curing the sick”; and the report of the seventy evokes from Jesus an acknowledgment of their success. We are reminded of the earlier freeing of the Gerasene demoniac from the destructive “spirituality of the people” (the phrase is from Walter Wink; see our comment in this series on the readings for the June 19-25 Sunday after Pentecost). Here even the chief demon, Satan, falls down in defeat.
By virtue of these behaviors, we are given to understand, the hosts might see that “the Kingdom of God has come near.” Their purpose is to embody the “peace” of the Kingdom that is the first word of the guests to their hosts. But this is no merely “spiritual” peace. Especially when read alongside Isaiah 66, we are reminded that as Moses once before chose seventy to provide for Israel’s welfare in the wilderness, so this new prophet “generates a world of blessing where none seemed possible,” as Walter Brueggemann puts it in a comment on our Old Testament lesson. Jesus “is perceived to be doing what Yahweh characteristically does,” transforming “situations of threat and distress into livable circumstances, wherein Israel surprisingly experiences joy and well-being.” The results of the actions of the seventy portend an astonishing transformation of cosmic import, bearing witness “to Yahweh’s capacity to bring life and fruitfulness out of circumstances of chaos and conditions of barrenness” (Walter Brueggeman, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997; pp. 204-205). Appropriately, Jesus’ blessing quickly follows: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings desire to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it” (verses 23-24, not included in the assigned reading).
“Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth,” reads the expansive psalm for this Sunday, and the congregation will understand in this interpretation of our readings the grounds on which such all-inclusive praise is warranted. “All the earth worships” Yahweh in response to this narrative, because we have to do here with the God who “turned sea into dry land” to provide not only safety in the Exodus from Egypt, but land, the “spacious place” in which they dwell (Psalm 66: 1, 4, and 12). But let the congregation also be mindful of the possible power of their witness to their faith in this God, in such appropriate demonstrations as they can mount of their vision of the Kingdom that is also a truly “great” and accordingly fully sustainable Economy. As Paul’s letter to the Galatians reminds us, “God is not mocked, for you reap what you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” Again, the words might suggest preoccupation with the Kingdom of God as heavenly realm; but this is not so. The Apostle’s counsel is for behavior that holds out the possibility of genuine down-to-earth benefit for the entire community of which we are members: “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” With the congregation at Galatia, we are to step out beyond the religious competition to curry God’s favor and enter “a new creation” (Galatians 6:15), the sustainable harvest of the Great Economy.
Originally written by Dennis Ormseth in 2013.
dennisormseth@gmail.com