Wednesday in the 25th Week of Ordinary Time, September 22, 2021

Luke 9:1-6

Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.” Then they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and curing diseases everywhere.

“Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.”  According to St. Luke’s chronology, the Lord Jesus sent out his Apostles on mission after he raised the daughter of Jairus  from the dead.  After the Apostles returned, he preached to a crowd of five thousand, on which occasion he said to them, “Give you them to eat” (Luke 9, 13).  We can interpret this order of events as the Lord giving the Apostles a sign of his power in the raising of the little girl, which gave them the confidence to preach and to heal as he commanded them.  After they had done so, he tells them to feed the large crowd.  In this way the Lord showed them that their work was not done when they returned from their mission: they would always be doing the work of the Gospel.  Here, when the Lord tells them to give the crowd something to eat, he is telling them to feed the crowd spiritually with their preaching.  The Apostles will understand this later, that their preaching the word of God gives life more surely than physical food.  

To provide signs of their authority to preach the Gospel, and that it was true, the Lord gave them power to heal sickness and cast out demons — physical and spiritual evils.  These signs also pointed to the approach of the Kingdom of God, as a sort of fanfare for the arrival of their King.  We ought to glorify God, who gave such power to men (cf. Matthew 9:8).  That is, who worked through men with such power, for all power comes from God.  Almighty God continues to work great miracles through his saints, and the miracles of the Sacraments through his priests.

“Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.”  The Lord ordered his Apostles to go as they were, without any preparations.  They would look more like fugitives when they arrived at a town than the heralds of a King.  Their words would not be smooth and practiced either, as were those of the Pharisees.  This would actually lend greater credibility to their words, backed up by the miracles they performed.  They did not rely upon schools and training to tell the truth about God.  They were not professional preachers who did this for a living.  They showed up as people much like the people to whom they spoke, and whom they cured.  The Lord’s injunction to take nothing with them was also directed for their own benefit.  They could be in no doubt that God was working through them or that they were doing these things of their own power or skill.  For them, the sign was that they were doing the same work as their Master.  He had made them something like himself.

“Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”  If they were first welcomed into a humble house, they were to stay there and not move on though someone else might offer them the hospitality of their finer house.  The Apostles were not to give any impression that they were after prestige or money.  The message of the Gospel must not be impeded by the distraction of its preacher.  But neither must it be forced on anyone.  If preaching and persuasion failed, they were commanded to leave the town peacefully — not with anger and curses.  

“Then they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and curing diseases everywhere.”  They went out in pairs so as to assist and encourage one another.  Their success proved immediate.  Preaching in the marketplace or in the town synagogue, if it had one, and curing the sick, many came to believe in the Good News that the Kingdom of God was approaching.  The preaching the Apostles did at this time sowed seeds which they would nourish and which would grow after Pentecost when they returned to preach again. 

The Lord Jesus wills for us to preach the Gospel just as we are.  We do need to know the rudiments of our Faith, as the Apostles did at the time they went out under the Lord’s direction so that we have something to give people.  It is the sincerity of our words and the integrity of our lives that will plant the seeds which Jesus gives us to sow.