NOTES for Mat 10:7-15

One incident comes to mind: a group of people came to a women's prison to congratulate the women held there on the feast of Easter, to share joy, to speak about God and about themselves, and simply to give them a chance to talk. One of the sisters brought a sweater there that she wanted to give away. But to understand who needed it most, she turned to the prison administration so that they themselves could decide who should receive the sweater. They could only say that humanitarian aid was already coming to them and that they tried not to leave anyone out. Then they added, "How can anyone tell who needs it most?"

So it is with us: can we really understand, can we keep track of who most needs our tenderness, warmth, kind word, or simply a smile? Which of the people passing by or sitting next to us on the subway needs our prayer? Who is hurting?

Yes, of course, there are times when the Lord as it were "points out" such a person to us, drawing our attention to the expression on his face, the sadness in his eyes... But above all, the Lord calls us to share unconditionally what we have: His peace, giving it in prayer, deeds, and a smile. And His peace will not diminish: "If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you" (Mt 10:13). For if it finds its place in the one "worthy" of it, then it will return to you "good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over" (Lk 6:38).

Calling the apostles, the Lord gives them a series of instructions and concludes them with a kind of summary in which He formulates one of the foundations of the Gospel vision of the world and of life: "freely you have received; freely give." These words are important because they can be applied to all the gifts God has given us. A gift, a present, is what this whole world rests on. As a gift it received its being and ordering; the people living in it have received everything as a gift, even life itself. But in Christ's commandment the key word is give. One may possess countless gifts, and all of them may lead to nothing good.

Two things are necessary for the right use of God's gifts. First, one must give thanks for every gift; otherwise the gift turns into something unlawfully appropriated. And, most importantly, only when we give these gifts away do we become like God, that is, become the image and likeness He intended us to be.

In Christ's instruction to the disciples, which we read today, there are a number of important aspects worth noting. Thus, the Lord tells the disciples, when coming to one city or another, to find out who is worthy to receive their word. In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks a strikingly memorable phrase: "Do not give what is holy to dogs," that is, do not offer holy things to those who do not need them and for whom they are not holy. The words "inquire who in it is worthy" appear to say the same thing. The witness of Christ's disciples is addressed to all, but under no circumstances should it be imposed on those who have no need of it at all.

In recent decades people have placed on the Church expectations and claims connected with its ability to serve the moral formation of society. Of course, Christ's disciples have something to say about this, but that word can hardly be addressed to those who do not need it, who do not want to think about the moral content of life. In fact, Christ's disciples have nothing with which to frighten the crowds (the masses, as people used to say) into taking the path of good: they can only bear witness to those who themselves need it.

Further, the Lord commands the disciples to give blessing and peace, but not to seek to ensure that their word is accepted. This is fundamentally important, because this is precisely what distinguishes the disciples' witness from ideology: Christianity is impossible without respect for human freedom.

Sending His disciples out to preach, Jesus tells them something very important about how they must carry their witness to the Kingdom. Above all, He requires from them what some contemporary Christians call a "consecrated life." This is apparently how we should understand the Savior's words about gold and silver in their belts, as well as about clothing, footwear, and a staff. All these things were absolutely necessary on the road, but in the Temple they were not only inappropriate; they were directly forbidden. Those approaching the altar were not to have shoes or outer clothing; during the sacrifice they were not to have money with them, and in their hands they were not to have either a traveling bag ("a bag for the road") or a traveler's staff.

In this way Jesus, as we can see, wants to tell the apostles that throughout their witness they must live as if they were standing in the Temple court by the altar. This is no surprise: one can bear adequate witness to the Kingdom only when one lives by its life, and one can preserve the life of the Kingdom within oneself and not lose it only by preserving that state of inward standing before God that belongs to a person approaching the altar.

As for their attitude toward the people they meet on the way, Jesus advises His disciples to keep things simple: choose a worthy, as we would say today, respectable, house and stay there if they are received, without regard to persons and without looking at which religious party the host belongs to. One can and must bear witness to the Kingdom to everyone. Religious differences and theological subtleties have no significance here, and therefore there is no need to pay much attention to these questions by carefully asking, as the Pharisees often did, whether the owner of the house they had entered belonged to their own brotherhood or to some other one. The only reason to leave a house or even a city is the rejection of the witness, and then one must leave at once and decisively: compromises in what matters most are impossible, and where there is no one to listen, a witness has nothing to do. Otherwise, if one simply lives there while forgetting the main thing, one will have to forget the consecrated life. And then one will also have to forget the Kingdom to which Jesus called the apostles to bear witness.

The struggle with one's own bias and distrust toward other people is an integral part of practically every person's life. All of us face situations when we have to make ourselves trust another person by an effort of will, whether a stranger or someone close. To open what is most hidden, most precious, ourselves. This is difficult, because one can imagine that the person opposite treats others with the same condemnation and hostility as I myself do. And yet life forces us to trust other people and entrust ourselves to them. The Lord calls us to realize that our good intentions, our good will, our wish for peace will never be lost. Even if we are rejected and mocked, that peace which He has given us will remain with us. In the other case, we will also gain those who were able to receive this peace just as we did.

Sending the apostles out to preach, Jesus entrusts them with doing the same thing He Himself did throughout His earthly ministry: bearing witness to the Kingdom that has drawn near. And He gives them a universal principle not only for witnessing to the Kingdom, but also for life in it: freely you received, freely give.

This is not about a witness being unable or forbidden to receive anything from his hearers. He needs food and shelter, at least for the time he spends in a given city or village as he bears his witness. It is about something else: witness to the Kingdom cannot be a matter of personal gain. And the point is not simply whether someone takes payment for talking about Christ, about the Kingdom, or about one's own spiritual experience. The point is the very attitude toward what one is bearing witness to and bringing to others. A fallen person, consciously or unconsciously, considers everything within reach to belong to himself. Something ownerless is possible in the fallen world only if it brings no practical benefit to anyone or is beyond human reach. The instinct of ownership tolerates no vacuum, and every available gap is filled very quickly. A fallen person is inclined to treat the Kingdom as something "his own" in the earthly sense, that is, as something he can dispose of at his own discretion, even if in theory he understands and agrees that such an attitude is inappropriate and impossible here. A fallen person always wants, often without realizing it, to separate off a piece of the Kingdom and carry it away.

But there can be no such "Kingdom for oneself"; the very nature of the Kingdom does not allow it. Everyone who shares in it can receive it wholly, in all its fullness, but only on one condition: it must be available just as wholly and fully to each neighbor who shares the life of the Kingdom with him as it is to him himself. Such readiness to share with everyone everything one has received by being joined to the Kingdom is an indispensable condition of life in the Kingdom and witness to it. And no wonder: none of us has deserved or earned even a grain of the life that we receive in the Kingdom, all of it, as much as there is there. We truly have no right to the Kingdom. We receive it freely, not as property, but for open-ended and unpaid use, together with those who want to share it with us. Just as open-ended and just as free.

Where and when does the Kingdom of Heaven begin, the Kingdom the Apostles went out to preach? It begins wherever the Gospel proclaimed by the apostles comes, where the Lord Himself is present in the gracious gifts of the Church. It begins where a person dies to the law of sin and is born to life in Christ. The other question is when it begins... When not only the preaching about the Kingdom reaches us, but the Kingdom itself comes in our hearts and changes our life?

“Jesus had compassion on them.” How precious these manifestations of His feelings are to us! But His compassion is active: He calls the disciples to pray that God send His laborers into the harvest, and He Himself sends them out to preach. This is not yet the preaching that He will command them after His Resurrection; but the training of those who will later become the first fruits of Christ’s Church and carry the Word of God throughout the world must include a practical part. The disciples’ task on this occasion is limited: only to prepare the way for Jesus’ subsequent arrival in the towns of Israel. Yet even for such a mission they need a special gift, a special power, and Christ endows them with that power. At the same time, He makes it clear that this ministry has nothing in common with our ordinary human prudence; the disciples will appreciate this experience later, when they begin to proclaim the Gospel among all kinds of people, including those who are hostile.

From the comparison of the crowds of people with sheep without a shepherd, human logic draws this conclusion: a good overseer should be placed over them, and let him restore order. But Christ, the good shepherd, chooses for Himself twelve helpers from among those being shepherded. It is important to Him that people be not unwilling slaves, but coworkers.

The number twelve symbolizes the fullness of the humanity called by Christ, but it is also the number of the tribes of Israel. The Church, the renewed people of God, is created according to the pattern of the original Israel. This is emphasized even by the fact that at first the apostles are not recommended to go to the Gentiles; they are to become established in their calling among the Israelites.

The calling of the apostles was not a reward for any merits; they differed little from those around them. But in exactly the same way Abraham was called by God not according to merit, but because of his openness to God and his ability to follow Him. Such are the apostles too: not supermen at all, but seemingly ordinary people whose weaknesses and imperfections the Gospel does not hide. But the Lord, having called them to follow Him, gave them the opportunity to overcome their own limitations.

Here, incidentally, is the answer to a frequently asked question: why did Christ choose Judas as one of the apostles? Did He really not see what kind of person Judas was, that he was capable of betrayal? Then where is God's omniscience?

Of course, He saw all this, just as He saw many potential falls of the other called ones, falls that remained unrealized and therefore unknown to us. In exactly the same way He sees our hearts today, whatever they may be filled with. Yet He continues to love all of us, giving each person a chance to turn away from habitual filth and become clean. The same chance was given to the apostle who did not use it.

The words about those who reject the apostles' preaching sound severe. But is this a threat, or a warning about danger? After all, Sodom and Gomorrah have already been punished, and perhaps for that reason no new punishment threatens them. But those who even now do not intend to leave their sinful inclinations are turning away from salvation by their own choice.

The distinguishing mark of Christ's disciples is that they are open to God and to the world. They carry the news of God's Kingdom, and at the same time they go to people; they hope only in God, yet they receive help from people; they address rulers and kings, yet they speak the words of the Spirit. Both are not simple: being open to God can be difficult and frightening; being open to people is always difficult and sometimes dangerous. The disciples will have to combine in themselves qualities that are hard to combine: to be lambs, wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Nevertheless, this is the task of the disciples, each of whom is in some sense an apostle, that is, a representative, an ambassador of Christ in the world. For a messenger must in some way resemble his lord. So the disciples imitate the mission of the God-man Christ: belonging to God, they are turned toward the world and toward people, losing their connection neither with Heaven nor with earth.

The beginning of apostolic preaching is connected with only one, but most important, message: the Kingdom has drawn near. The preaching of the Savior Himself begins with this same proclamation. And this is no surprise: the apostles had to bring the people that very same message that their Teacher was bringing.

The message was precisely the message about the Kingdom that had drawn near. This, in fact, was that very "good news," that very Gospel, which everyone had to hear. For now, however, Jesus sends His disciples only to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel," to the people of God, who must hear it first, not because of any special privileges, but because God has special plans connected precisely with them. It is no surprise that the Savior gives special attention to the "lost sheep": the Kingdom is open to everyone, including those whose life up to now has not been the best spiritually. Life in the Kingdom is a clean slate from which anyone can begin. What, then, is this life?

The answer to the question is found in the powers Jesus gives the disciples who go out to preach. In essence, He gives them the power to do the very same thing He Himself does. Authority over dark spirits, healing from every disease and from the weakness or "infirmity" so characteristic of fallen humanity and expressed very differently depending on the circumstances: these are manifestations of the Kingdom, of its breath, of its life. For the Kingdom is first of all precisely life, life in all its fullness, in the fullness God intended for His creation from the beginning.

From the beginning, God intended the world to be His Kingdom; on the first day of creation it was exactly that: it was permeated by the light of God's presence, and there was no place at all for darkness in this world. All divisions, all darkness, came later, after the fall. Now, with the coming of the Messiah, the world is once again becoming what God intended it to be, and everyone is given the opportunity to share in this new life and to try himself in it, to try to become part of the new reality God is creating, where, as on the first day, there will be no place for darkness, sickness, or death. Such is the good news that Jesus brings to people together with His disciples.

These are the verses that are usually read with extreme inattention: a list of names - what is more boring? Who remembers the names of all twelve apostles? Twelve seconds, time starts now. Hard to remember? There is no harm in that. The main thing is that the Lord remembers them.

Yet it is important that the evangelist considered it necessary to name each one. He could simply have said that there were twelve - and that would have been all. He could have. But then they would have remained completely faceless. By naming each one, the evangelist reminds us that every person is important and dear in God's eyes precisely because he is himself. The Lord does not love "everyone in general"; He does not choose "someone," but concrete people.