14th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C
Isaiah 66:10-14c
Ps 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
Galatians 6:14-18
Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
In Biblical texts, ideas very often get immediately reiterated with hardly any change. These parallelisms seem unnecessarily repetitive to our modern sense of efficiency; usually nothing substantial is added to the original line.
For instance, according to the prophet Isaiah, the Lord says, “Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.” In this couplet “river” is intensified to “overflowing torrent” and “prosperity” is expanded to “the wealth of the nations,” yet the main points are identical. This phenomenon lives on still today somewhat in Mediterranean culture and can be frustrating to those unaccustomed to it who might wonder why a person is belaboring the same thing with practically indistinguishable differences.
It’s what we do with children or foreigners to get them to understand us. We use synonyms and try to restate the thought until we are understood. This kind of linguistic figure appears in poetry to relish in an idea or emphasize it. Even in short phrases like St. Paul’s “Peace and mercy be to all” we see two concepts intended to be understood as a unit, something more like “peaceable mercy” (Semitic languages lacked a developed adjective system, so this figure substituted). Prayer, particularly adoration, makes use of repetition out of necessity, as nothing radically new is to be said of our unchanging God.
For these reasons, the Lord often employs these reiterations in Sacred Scripture. Passages in verse from the Old Testament are notoriously complex (they are sometimes printed in contemporary Bibles in offset type). The whole book of Psalms falls into this genre. Today’s appointed Psalm essentially dwells on the world’s worship of the Lord for the first several lines. “Shout joyfully to God, all the earth, sing praise to the glory of his name; proclaim his glorious praise.”
When we pray, perhaps our spiritual expectations are conditioned by our commercialistic environment. We feel we need to “get something out of it” or make some kind of substantial contribution to the project. That’s not the Biblical notion of prayer. When it comes to the worship of the Almighty, we are not going to increase His intrinsic glory somehow. We also have no hope of receiving His grace in an exhaustive way this side of eternity.
Disciples get sent two by two: This Gospel-based principle holds great wisdom and practicality. Sadly, many of our parishes are served by only one priest. “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
Here, the term “ask” very casually renders one of the most foundational and powerful verbs, which is associated with a deep lack of an urgent necessity to the point of affixing or even imprisoning oneself for the sake of the desire. This manifests our human desire for communion and the grace of having someone to share our burdens and blessings, which gets expressed in a variety of ways: preeminently in marriage, the cornerstone of society, but also in vowed life in a religious order or in a parish as a priest.
All of these have a generative aspect that expands a nascent society. Isaiah invokes the tender image of Jerusalem (thus the Church) being a mother: “As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms.” Every child is a kind of genetic instantiation of the original couple, a holy echo.
A loner type of person, which stood contrary to a culture that highly valued community, hospitality, and family, was called an “idiot” in the language of antiquity. Simply keeping to yourself meant you wouldn’t be educated, experienced and supported. Unsurprisingly, the idea is repugnant to the Gospel as well. The 72 are instructed: “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.” Money, possessions, comfort, and even people might become distractions to the mission. An allied partner helps keep us focused.
“Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her.” Since these repetitions so regularly resounded in the ancient ear, a deviating type of parallel yields a forceful disjunctive effect: “Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” Only Christ is only-begotten, sovereign, supreme. He alone can accomplish the work of salvation by Himself. While He doesn’t need co-workers, He desires co-workers, and that we co-work with others. As disciples “sent ahead of him in pairs,” Christians representing Christ, let us simply re-echo Him!