Jesus appoints seventy people to go ahead of him to prepare the way for his coming.
Once again, we encounter the sacred number seven in Scripture.
The number seven in seventy points to God and to divine perfection.
Jesus here is doing a divine work – it is God inspired.
There is also an Old Testament story in the book of Numbers where Moses is told by God to bring seventy leaders forward to join Moses in the work that he is doing.
Here Jesus is doing the same thing.
Jesus says to his seventy, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
Today just like in Jesus’ time workers are needed in God’s kingdom.
When the people have gathered, Jesus gives them a warning.
They will be like lambs in the midst of wolves.
The wolves come to destroy and to attack the lambs.
Jesus’ disciples will not be welcomed by everyone.
Some will turn them away and some may even attack them.
As they travel, they are to share the Lord’s peace with those they meet.
In verse six Jesus gives a very interesting teaching to them.
I have always been fascinated by this teaching.
In verse six we hear: “If anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.”
I would like for us to think about that word, return for a moment.
To return is to go back to something.
Here Jesus is using this idea as a positive thing.
In life if you share the Lord’s peace with someone that peace will rest upon that person but if the person chooses not to receive that peace, then it will return back to you.
So, nothing here is lost.
Either you bless someone with peace and that person receives peace or the peace is not received and then it is returned and you are blessed by the Lord’s peace.
Jesus teaches us here a very important truth about life.
If we put out peace into the world that peace will be received by others or it will return back to you and you will receive that peace.
Either way peace is given and received.
Think for a moment about the peace makers in the world.
Jesus said in another Gospel: “Blessed are the peace makers for they will be called what… they will be called children of God.”
This verse reminds me of a person that I have admired for many, many years.
In her life this person simply went by the name, Peace Pilgrim.
Her actual name was Mildred Norman but everyone knew her as Peace Pilgrim.
Peace Pilgrim was a spiritual teacher, mystic, and peace activist.
For twenty-eight years she walked around the United States going from town to town spreading the life-giving message of God’s peace.
She had no money or possessions.
She walked until she was given shelter and she fasted until given food.
The day before she died someone asked her if she was happy living such a life.
Her response was simple and profound.
She said, “I am certainly a happy person. Who could know God and not be joyous? I want to wish everyone peace.”
After her death in 1981 her ashes were spread in a family plot near Egg Harbor City, New Jersey and in 2017 she was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
She lived today’s Gospel reading literally and blessed so many people with the Lord’s peace.
Now we may not pick up and start going from town to town spreading God’s peace as the Peace Pilgrim did but still, we all have a calling from the Lord to spread Jesus’s peace.
People like her and others inspire us to do what we can to spread the life-giving message of God’s love and peace.
And we live right not at a time when peace is very much needed in our world.
In the Bible peace refers to wholeness.
The word shalom is used in the Old Testament to mean peace.
The word shalom is a Hebrew word which means not only peace but also harmony, completeness, and abundance.
To receive God’s shalom is to be blessed by God.
In the Bible shalom can also refer to restoration and a return to completeness.
Now hear again that word, return.
Sometimes in life it may feel like we do not have peace.
The peace that we desire is not with us.
We have stress, we have conflict in our lives, we live with regrets and we have of sorts of problems.
If this is the case know that this is not what God wants you to experience in your life.
God is with you in your pain and God wants to bring you healing and peace.
God wants us to return to that place of peace and shalom where we know God’s joy and God’s happiness.
So often in my life when I have felt the absence of God’s peace it only took for me to return back to the Lord where my peace was restored.
If I am struggling and life feels very difficult that’s when I need to return to Jesus in pray to receive his peace once again.
How valuable my morning prayer and meditation time is for me in finding a new sense of peace in my life.
Without fail, when I begin my morning with prayer and with meditation how much more deeply, I feel the Lord’s peace.
Then when things come my way, I am able to handle those things with more grace.
I am certainly not perfect so don’t hear me saying that… what I am saying here is that the Lord’s peace comes to those who seek it.
And when we receive God’s peace, we are to give it away knowing that even if the peace is not received it always returns back to us.
Jesus said, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
And again, he said, “If you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into the 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.”
In other words, as we spread God’s peace, as we share the Lord’s peace with others, after we do so we then let go.”
We let go and give it to God.
Either it will be received or it will not be received but either way you have God’s peace upon you.
People of God, live in this peace.
Do not let your life to be filled with anger and resentments.
Forgive, give your peace, and pray to the Lord of peace for the gift of God’s shalom.
And above all rejoice that your names are written in heaven – for we belong to God. Amen.
