The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. 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 labourer 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.”
Luke 10:1-10
Last Sunday’s Gospel reading – the sending of the 70 to share the good news of God’s love – has stayed with me through this week, not least as I spent Wednesday morning with colleagues who have recently been ordained: their own response to being called and sent.
What Luke gives us here is a wonderfully real account of being sent into ministry (and by “ministry”, I’m using the widest sense I can: anything that we do as a response to a higher calling – in any sphere and for any reason). With the curates I was with earlier this week, I spoke of feeling displaced. Either geographically, for those who had moved into new homes and parishes, or at least spiritually, for those who had moved into new roles and taken on new identities. I was mindful that within a Diocese that gives curates 3 year contract, we were a room full of people in transition. Displaced people.
My own experience of becoming a curate was deeply unsettling. We had a new home (which we’d not been able to see prior to moving into it), a new place (we’d moved 186 miles North), and a new context (we’d moved from a working class dock town, to a wealthy suburb with a village feel). I had a new role and identity, with new clothes and responsibilities and expectations and colleagues. Despite the love from so many in the place I moved to, I felt completely inept when it came to speaking the language and reading the culture of the people around me.
I felt displaced.
The ordained life is one of exile, of displacement: of longing for home and of pointing others towards a homecoming that is more than simply belonging in a place. But of course, we have a rich heritage – in scripture and tradition – of this nomadic wandering. If we feel displaced, if we feel like we don’t belong, then with the saints before us we are in good company.
And if the ordained life is one of spiritual wandering, then this is only because we are modelling the calling placed on every disciple. Perhaps it is just harder for us to avoid the journey once we are ordained. Perhaps those of us who are ordained are just better equipped and better encouraged to start placing one foot in front of the other.
In the Judean desert, which was of course the context for Jesus’ teaching, the task of shepherding is very different to the welsh hills and valleys. Shepherds in Palestine have to keep their flocks moving if they are to find water, food and shelter. Jesus as the “Good Shepherd” is no Little Bo Peep, but is the one who drives the flock on to find sparse pasture in the dryness of the desert.
We don’t walk alone. We’re called to take our people with us if they, too, are to find pasture. We’re called to lead from the front, from the middle and from the back – tying up shoe laces and bandaging blisters, holding people as a group, and, together, looking for the way ahead. But without this big picture, without this reminder of the task to which we are called, it’s easy to feel lost, displaced, and in exile.
I have my spiritual director to thank for this next bit. One resource that might help us in our own exile is the labyrinth. You may or may not have walked a labyrinth before. A labyrinth is not a maze. It has a beginning, and an ending, and a path that leads you on faithfully from one to the other. There are no dead ends. But there are twists and turns. There are moments where you have to walk in blind faith. There are moments where you near the centre, and you think you’re done – but then quite quickly the path throws you back to the outer edge and you wonder quite what happened. And – as my wonderful friend pointed out to me – when you walk a labyrinth you only ever see 6 feet in front. Only 6 feet, before the path twists out of sight and you have to turn faithfully, in trust and hope and joyful expectation.
When I met with the curates last week, I was able to speak of all this in terms of ‘formation’. We talk about formation a lot with ordinands and curates. It’s a posh word for the tough stuff of training: the process of falling apart and being slowly pieced back together. We might talk about it most in terms of training, but actually, formation is, I think, the work of God in every disciple. It is a leading of us down new paths, a building of us in new ways, and a humble and obedient response from us to this work of God within us.
What does Luke say about it?
The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’
Luke 10:17-20
The seventy returned with joy.
You can sense their astonishment, their excitement, that this wandering, this being sent, led them to experience such acts of God that strengthened them and built them up. And so this is my prayer for you, and for me. That no matter how we feel at this moment, no matter how much we might feel lost, or out of place, or like we don’t belong, that we too will have these moments in ministry of returning with joy – of being blown away by the good that we see God doing within us and around us – and even in spite of us!
Following from the Front 