The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 10, 1-12; 17-20

Jesus appointed seventy-two other disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another. Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the Kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.”  The seventy-two disciples returned rejoicing and said to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.” Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.”  In times when the crops had been watered with plenty of rain, but not too much; and plenty of sun, but not too much; and there had been no pestilence or hordes of insects eating the crops, nor foreign invaders to burn it as it stood in the field, there might be a glorious harvest.  The crops would still have to be gathered in quickly, as the window for harvests tended to be narrow.  A miscalculation could ruin a perfectly good crop.  At harvest time, every hand is needed to get the crop in before it spoils or rains.  The Lord says, “The harvest is abundant.”  That is, the world abounds in people who could be saved.  They are attracted to the Lord’s call and yearn to hear more and to be baptized.  They long for the Sacraments.  They cannot wait until they are enfolded within the saving embrace of the Holy Church.  “But the laborers are few.”  On farms in the western part of our country, at least, laborers are flown in from Australia to work in the fields because of the shortage of farm workers here.  These men are hired by blocs of farmers and they go from farm to farm.  If these men were not available, we would have food shortages in our country.  In the “field” of the world, all possible hands are working night and day to bring in the harvest of those to be saved.  Missionaries bring the Gospel to the people of far-off or isolated lands; priests and men and women religious along with lay folks teach RCIA classes, teach CCD or religion classes in the Catholic schools, and meet with people individually who are searching for the truth.  Likewise, lay people working and living in the world attract their neighbors and colleagues to the Faith through the good example of their lives.  And still, these are hardly enough.  Christ calls all those who believe in him to labor for the salvation of the world.  On America’s farms until fairly recently, even the small daughters in a farming family were expected to do their part at harvest: they would form part of a chain of women and children who continuously supplied the men gathering the harvest with cold water.  All of us can offer prayers and sacrifices for the good of souls.  No prayer is wasted, no sacrifice overlooked. 

“So ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  The Lord addresses these words to us.  Some laborers are reluctant to be sent out: they might fear the workload or not think themselves skillful or strong enough.  But there is a place for every believer.  Some prefer the shade they have now to the sun they will face in the field, but these will miss out on the joy and celebration once the barns are filled.  If they exclude themselves from the work, they will be excluded from the reward.  The Master of the harvest does indeed send out laborers for his harvest.  We know that he goes into the marketplace at all times of the day to hire them, if only for an hour or two (cf. Matthew 20, 1-26).  But the ones he desires to hire and send out must still agree to be hired.  And so we pray that they will respond to the grace and inspirations of God to work for the conversion of the world.

“Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.”. The Lord changes his image here from the harvesting of crops to going into the world as sheep among wolves.  He means for us to win souls by our innocence, but also to lure in the wicked by allowing them to see us as prey.  Indeed, those who work for the Master are often killed as they do his work.  These hear a voice from heaven, declaring, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow them” (Revelation 14, 13).  But innocence also has the power to convert the wicked: “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain behavior in the tradition of your fathers, but with the Precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb unspotted and undefiled” (1 Peter 1:18–19).

Lord, even the demons are subject to us.”  The fearsome, snarling, sneering demons who had taken up residence within a person as though in a nest, were subject to these followers of Jesus who, up until a very short time before, had little to recommend them.  But they know their own mortality and that they had not accomplished these deeds on their own.  In fact, no one knows better than the miracle worker that it is the Lord who actually heals.  The healer feels no power running through him and may not even be aware that the person for whom he is praying has recovered.  There are no flashes or thunders, there is no music to announce the fact of the completed healing or successful exorcism.  It is clearly God, and him alone: “because of your name.”

The Lord then makes an extraordinary statement: “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.”  The Greek is better translated, I beheld Satan, as a flash of lightning, fall from heaven.  The verb tense of “I beheld” is in the aorist tense, not the perfect, indicating a completed action in the past that was done once.  Here, Jesus speaks of an event so distant in the past that neither the universe nor time existed yet.  It is in an instant following the creation of the angels in which they were offered a choice as to their eternity.  We read of Lucifer’s choice: “How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who did rise in the morning? How are you fallen to the earth, that did wound the nations? And you said in thy heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High’ ” Isaiah 14, 12-14).  And to this, the Archangel Michael cried out, “Who is like God?”  They fought and the devil fell from heaven “down to hell, into the depth of the pit” (Isaiah 14, 15).  He fell as “a flash of lightning”, that is, instantaneously and shedding his brilliance in his plunge, for he went from being the brightest of the angels to the darkest.  This statement the Lord Jesus made told his disciples why his name had such power: because he was God.  Only God could have made such a comment.  “Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.”  The “serpents and scorpions” of which the Lord Jesus speaks are the demons, so here he confirms the power he has given them.  “Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”  That is, written in the Book of Life in heaven: “There shall not enter into [heaven] any thing defiled or that works abominations or makes a lie: but they that are written in the book of life of the Lamb” (Revelation 21, 27).