At that time the Lord appointed seventy-two others 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.” (Luke 10.1-3)
In his latest book, The Whole Language, Father Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, a highly successful youth rehabilitation program for the last three decades that has assisted former gang members and ex-inmates living in South Los Angeles, tells of a visit he and eight members of Homeboy made to New York for a conference.
He tells of an incident that occurred during the seminar, writing, “Four homeboys and four homegirls were leading a brown-bag discussion at lunchtime. I snuck into the back of the very packed room and no one knew I was there. During the Q and A, an ancient woman stood, and said with an emphatic and overly loud voice, “FATHER GREG IS GOING TO DIE.”
Continuing, he writes, “I started immediately, thinking she was privy to some information I didn’t have. “SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WHEN HE’S GONE?” The panelists knew it was a question about a succession plan. Jose stood and gestured to the other panelists and said simply, ‘All of us . . . have keys to the place.’”
Father Boyle concludes, “The cramped room was filled with deafening applause. Frail-bonded kindness. Practitioners, all.” There is something particularly apropos about that exchange as we ponder the pericope from Luke that is put before us today. Generally considered a commissioning episode in the gospel, often called the appointment of the seventy-two, it is unique to Luke.
Scholars are uncertain whether Luke intended seventy or seventy-two since the earliest manuscripts differ. However, an argument can be made that since Luke wishes to portray Rabbi Jesus as a prophet like Moses, then seventy may be the correct number since seventy elders accompanied Moses to the mountain.
Adding weight to the argument, Luke previously had Rabbi Jesus send out the twelve disciples to teach and to heal, a parallel to Moses sending out twelve men to scout out the Promised Land. Other similarities exist between the Hebrew story of Moses and the Lucan story of Rabbi Jesus.
In the end, the number–seventy or seventy-two–is meant to show that the mission of teaching and healing is the responsibility of all disciples–not just a handful. Or as the homeboy said to the woman concerned about the departure of Father Boyle from the earth, “All of us have keys to the place,” as clear an acknowledgement of shared responsibility as we’re going to find. Simply stated, they were all practitioners, not just promoters.
It is a concept generally disproven by experience, the 80/20 rule more often the norm. According to this so-called “Pareto Principle,” roughly 80 percent of outcomes come from 20 percent of causes, a phenomenon seen across the spectrum, from church service to corporate sales. In other words, a small group of people do most of the work, while the greater part do little or nothing.
This may be the reality, but it is not the ideal as put before us by Rabbi Jesus when he sends out the seventy, although there is room to suggest that even he understood the reality of the situation, clearly stating at the same time, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few,” seemingly a realization on his part that show ponies outnumber work horses, leaving us to ask ourselves which of the two are we.
It would appear, at least in this instance, that numbers are important, the harvest or work requiring sufficient numbers to get it done, the assumption being that much of the work will be left undone if there are not enough workers on hand to do it, a challenge to the box seat Christians who never get on the playing field.
Put another way by the British writer Ruyard Kipling, “Gardens are not made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ while sitting in the shade.” Or as a horticulturist stated equally well one day in reply to a man who told her to create a maintenance-free garden since he didn’t want to spend much time on upkeep. “There’s one thing you need to deal with before we go any further,” she said. “If there’s no gardener, there’s no garden.”
Taking a second-glance, we see another point the Biblical passage makes clear is that as the seventy return after their missionary work “they rejoiced” because they feel that they have met with success in the field. Excitedly, they explain to Rabbi Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name,” suggesting that the hand of evil has been thwarted by the hand of good.
Concurring and confirming their statement, Rabbi Jesus responds with the intriguing assertion, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky,” in this way apparently forecasting the demise of evil because of the good works done by his disciples. In Hebrew, the word satan means adversary, opponent, or enemy. Hence, the enemy of God or the opponent of good.
In other words, Satan’s reign over the world is broken by the seventy and, by extension, by us when we bring good into the world through our acts of healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and defending the persecuted. There is a mathematical equation at work here–the more good done, the less evil possible. Or conversely, the less good done, the more evil proliferates.
The evangelist wants us to understand that this power over evil is ours to exert, if only we will. At the end of this section, we hear Rabbi Jesus say as much when he tells the seventy, “Behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.” While literalists like to think the power is limited to snakes and spiders, the right reading of the text sees these creatures as symbols of evil, as they were in the Hebrew mind.
Again, it is clear that the Teacher believes the work of evil is undone by the work of good and that the power of evil forces is crushed by the power of good. But, as he also knows, those willing to answer the call to take on the forces of malfeasance in this world are few, leaving the world in the grasp of evil people with evil intentions.
The point is simple. We can sit in the neighborhood bar decrying the decline of decency, drunk and despairing, or we can stand up and take responsibility, seeing it as our duty to bring good into the world, understanding that each small bit we can do takes that much and more away from the dominion of Satan, powerless in the face of goodness, generosity, and graciousness.
Why so few answer the call is no mystery, most of us being clear-sighted about the costs and consequences of combating evil, which–much like a shapeshifter–morphs into a multitude of menaces before our very eyes. Rabbi Jesus, never one to put on rose-tinted glasses, makes much the same point when he warns the seventy that he is sending them into the world “like lambs among wolves.”
Of course, the hesitancy and the half-heartedness in heeding the call are themselves harbingers of evil, our reluctance putting us in the camp of cowards, our cowardice in itself causing us to be complicit in the continued reign of evil. In fact, doing nothing is doing something–but for the wrong side. Or as the oft-quoted warning goes, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Just as evil had a heyday when the Galilean was later crucified on a cross because no one contradicted the crime, the silence of dissent eerie and uneasy, so evil dances the night away, confident and conspicuous, knowing the laborers are few who will challenge it for the floor, instead hiding out of sight in the darkened corners.
Early in his book, Father Boyle tells of a Southwest Airlines flight attendant who, after completing her spiel about safety, signed off with this simple statement. She said, “Now sit back and relax and enjoy the flight. Or, sit up and be tense all the way. It’s up to you.” Luke the Evangelist is telling us the same thing in this brief passage about Rabbi Jesus’ sending out the seventy, asking them to cure the sick and to bring peace with them all along the way. It’s up to you and me.
If we cannot disprove the 80/20 rule, at least we can be in the twenty percent who do the work entrusted to us, our joy coming in the sure knowledge that we are doing our part in bringing good into the world, our actions bringing spots of light into the darkened landscape, enough to remind the world that pockets of light still shine.
–Jeremy Myers
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