Robert Barron - The Church's Marching Orders
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Please be with you. Friends, this year has been unusual because Easter was a bit late, and then we go through Pentecost, then we come to the Feast of Holy Trinity and then Corpus Christi, and then we had the Feast of Peter and Paul. So all this has delayed the beginning or the resumption of ordinary time. So finally now on July the 6th, we resume ordinary time. And it’s appropriate, I think that we’re looking at a portrait of the church as we do so because we’re coming back, if you want, to the ordinary work of the church up and down the ages to the present day.
So I’m going to go through this passage from the 10th chapter of Luke and just look at it in terms of providing a template for the life of the church. So listen first, «The Lord appointed a further 72 and sent them in pairs before him to every town and place he intended to visit». Here’s the first thing we have to see. Inescapably, the church is missionary. Jesus took these people. He didn’t just instruct them and then say, «Now, revel in the spiritual teaching I’ve given you». He always sends them on mission. Mission just comes from the word, «mittere» in Latin means to send. An apostle, that’s from a Greek word «apostellein», that means to send. Sending is essential to Christianity.
The last thing we’re called upon to do is just, «Okay, this is really benefiting me spiritually, and now I’m done. I’m happy». What you’ve received as a gift, give as a gift. I wonder, I’ll just state it bluntly, I wonder how many Catholics really buy this, they really understand it. How many know their ultimate purpose is to go forth from mass, as indeed we say, «Go. Go. The mass has ended now go Christify the world». Every time you leave mass, you’ve been sent into mission country on mission territory. I don’t know. I think we tend to internalize it all and privatize it. That’s not Christianity. The gospel is like seed that’s meant to be sown. It’s like a light that’s meant to shine, right? And He sends them beautifully two by two.
Look, we’re in this together. Mission work is never just solitary work. In fact, I think that’s always a sign of something corrupt, something bad, something a bit dangerous. If you start saying, «Well, I figured it out. Here’s my mission. I am going to go do it». No, no. The Lord sends us two by two or three by three or a thousand by a thousand. He sends us always in community. Why? Well, I mean for a mutual support, that’s one thing. It’s awfully hard to do something totally on your own. Also, mutual correction.
If you have more people around you while you’re doing your work, you’re less likely to be saying and doing something stupid. It’s good to have people around you to correct you. We’re in this together, and to me, that’s a very Catholic sensibility too, is that it’s never a lone wolf enterprise. We are doing this now as a body. Think of so many of the saints, I’m always struck by this, a saint might begin with a very personal individual experience. Think of a Francis hearing the voice from the cross. «Francis, rebuild my church». Think of Mother Teresa hearing on the train ride to Darjeeling, the voice of the Lord, «Are you willing to serve me in the poorest of the poor»?
But see those two saints in particular, but all the great saints, as soon as they commenced their work, they were joined by people. Invariably, they were joined by people. They came by sometimes great numbers. Francis had thousands before he knew it, following him. Mother Teresa, a lot of her former students came. Think of Rose Hawthorne, one of my favorite of the American Saints, began simply caring for cancer patients and before she knew it, people were coming to join her. So we’re sent, yes, indeed, two by two. We’re sent in company. Next we hear, «The harvest is rich, but the workers are few. Therefore, ask the harvest master to send workers to his harvest».
Prayer, everybody, is not decorative. It’s not incidental to the life of the church. It is the lifeblood of the church. I mean, if you don’t ask the Lord for His help and to send people, it’s not going to happen. You could be full of goodwill and full of projects and programs and boy, «I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that,» but if you’re not asking the Lord to support you, it’s not going to happen. I’ve often said in the Bible, nothing great has ever accomplished apart from prayer. I don’t know any great saint who ever did anything worthwhile that wasn’t accompanied by prayer.
Go back to the Bible when King David or even young David before he’s king, when he asks, «God, what should I do»? He always finds the right path. When David goes bad, it’s because he stops asking God. So the church prays and prays and prays. There’s contemplative prayer, sure, but I think at the heart of the matter is petitionary prayer. We beg. We beg, we ask, «Lord, guide me. Lord, send me. Lord, help me». Without that, our work is in vain. Again, I think we miss out on this and we give into a, maybe it’s very modern, maybe even very American sense of self-reliance, «And I got my program and I’m going to figure it out».
Ipso facto, you will fail in the measure that you’re not praying. Well then the Lord says, «Do not carry a walking staff or traveling bag. Wear no sandals. Greet no one along the way». Translate walking staff, traveling bag. Imagine coming to the airport, you’re going to go on a trip and you have absolutely no luggage whatsoever, and you have no wallet, you have no money, no credit cards, and you have no luggage. What kind of trip is that going to be? Well, it’ll be a strange one, probably a very short one. But the point is, do you do this work relying upon yourself or relying upon God? This is why in so many of the spiritual traditions within Christianity, within so many of the religious orders, there’s some moment such as this when the young adept is asked to surrender to providence, to let go of the things that have kept him safe, let go and trust in God.
Why so many of the great saints are marked by poverty, not because there’s some kind of love for poverty in itself, but there’s something about letting go of all the visible means of support that permits you to rely on the invisible means of support, if that makes sense. It’s easy enough when I’ve got all these things around me, I’ve got money and I’ve got support, and I’ve got friends, and I’ve got institutional help. Well, okay, then off I go but I’m relying on all these worldly things. But if I kick all that away and I’m just trusting in God, so I’m praying, yes, but then that prayer gets so internalized that I can now trust in God to take care of it.
I think it’s a mark of all the great missionary movements, all the great orders in the life of the church. There’s this kind of letting go and cleaning out moment, Francis, Claire, Dominic, Ignatius, Mother Teresa, on and on, you’ll find this dimension. Then notice this as maybe a balancing principle. He says, «Stay in the one house eating and drinking what they have, for the laborer is worth his wage».
Now, I’ve been talking a lot about those who go out and do the work and those who proclaim and those who are serving the poor and so on. But a big part of the life of the church, everybody, is those people who support that work of the church, who make it possible by their generosity. Again, the laborer is worth his wage. Well, who are these people in whose house these ministers are staying? See them as an anticipation of all those people up and down the ages to the present day who support the work of the church by their generosity. I’ve come to know this well since I’ve been a church administrator these past many years, Rector of Munderline Seminary, Auxiliary Bishop in LA, now Bishop in Minnesota, we can’t do our work apart from generous donors, period. Period.
I mean, yes, we rely on collections on Sunday and so on, and that’s of course a form of generosity. But were it not for people who say, I’m going to give a lot of my wealth to the work of the church, we wouldn’t have schools, we wouldn’t have hospitals. We would not have seminaries. We wouldn’t have parish buildings. So it’s a beautiful evocation here of all those people who through their generosity, make the work of the church possible. I’ll be blunt, we’re not that great at it, to be honest. If you look at American Catholics, we’re not that great at expressing our generosity. That’s an essential part of the church. For those who have means, give, give, give, and then watch what the church does. He gets more specific. He says, «Cure the sick there».
Again, I think we underplay this. The church’s teacher, yeah, we get that. Church celebrates the liturgy and prayer. Okay. The first thing he says in terms of ministry, «Cure the sick there». The church is a source of salvation from salus in Latin, meaning health. That means health of the soul and mind, sure. But let’s face it also means health of the body. Jesus spent a lot of time healing sick and broken bodies. Is that part of the church’s work? Yeah. In fact, we have a sacrament called the anointing of the sick, not just praying for the sick, it is that. It’s praying that they might be cured.
The church has hospitals indeed because of this command, and so maybe it’s God healing through the secondary causality of nurses and doctors and technicians, but don’t overlook the fact a big part of the church’s life is to heal. Where are people sick and suffering around you? Well, if you’re part of the church, you’re called upon to address them. And the second great task of the church, He says, «Proclaim that the reign of God is at hand».
All right, the church cures the sick and it proclaims the kingdom of God. What’s the kingdom of God? It’s Jesus. He’s the auto basileia, as Origen said, the kingdom in person. He’s the coming together of divinity and humanity. He’s what the new order looks like. And so we proclaim the kingdom has come, and then we invite people to join into that kingdom. We’re not just saying, «Be nice boys and girls. I mean, be people with hearts of gold». No, no. We’re announcing this concrete breakthrough of divinity into our humanity. Proclaim the kingdom of God. A new king has come around whom our lives need to be organized.
Well, that remains the preaching and teaching job of the church. And then just one more. When the 72 came back having received all this instruction, they say, «Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name». And then He says, «Behold, I’ve given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you».
Wow. Cure the sick, proclaim the kingdom and the church. Remember last week, the gates of hell will not prevail against you. That means the gates of hell that we are going after. We’re not just enduring the onslaught from hell. We’re going after the kingdom of the fallen powers and we’re going after their gates, that’s the weakest part of the wall. That’s what it means. The gates will not prevail against you. Do we have the courage and confidence as a church to face down the powers of darkness? Do we do it with our sacraments and the power of our word and the witness of our saints? Right. Right.
And when we’re tempted to say, «Look, the world is dominated by wickedness and the devil has control over the world,» he does not. In the wake of the cross and resurrection. The church is meant to claim that power. Yes, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And so, right to the present day, the church goes forth with that kind of confident power. Hey everybody, spend a little time with this Luke chapter 10 passage. It’s telling us exactly who we are as a church and what our marching orders are. And God bless you.