This passage raises many questions.
Why sent seventy or seventy two for that matter? Why does Jesus do the same thing as in chapter 9? Why the vulnerability? Why no greeting in the street? Why stay in one house? When does Satan fall from heaven?
But the main message is clear. The kingdom of God has approached you or the kingdom of God has approached. From the beginning of Luke this has been Jesus’s message.
In 4:43 he says: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God”. In Luke 10 it seems that this ‘kingdom of God’ is something else than heaven. I wonder whether the kingdom is near because Jesus is following his disciples – they went ahead to the places he intended to go to. And Jesus carries the kingdom of God with him. I wonder whether the kingdom is near because people will soon choose to live as if God is king. I wonder what happened when the kingdom arrived. Or is the kingdom of God 2000 years later still approaching? Or is the Kingdom of God near in the sense a mustard seed is near (13:19).
It is around us but we have to look very carefully to find it, because it is so small. I wonder what Jesus meant.
3 July 2016
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
This weekly blog on one of the lectionary readings is by Anne Claar Thomasson-Rosingh, Programme Leader for Lifelong Learning at Sarum College.