1After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
Luke 10:1-9
With acute awareness of our fragile social fabric, I want to listen carefully to the Gospel proclamation: The kingdom of God has come near to you. Luke offers us two sending narratives. In the first it is twelve and later it is seventy-two, where the scope of mission is expanded for the whole world: ‘go into every city and every place’. As we look closer, Luke frames the narrative around three aspects: The Mission, the nature of the mission, and the missionary.
Luke presents Jesus’ mission as holistic and deeply subversive: proclaiming good news, strengthening the weak, healing the fearful, and promising abundance where others see scarcity. Grounded in vulnerability and shalom, the fullness of life, it embodies peace even amid hostility and rejection. In a society shaped by power and privilege, Jesus sends his followers with humility and open hands, dependent on the hospitality of others. This is not a colonial mission of conquest, exploitation or superiority, but an invitation to recognise God’s realm near us and among us, responding creatively to each place and its needs.
The Nature of the Missionary
The missionaries themselves are to embrace poverty rather than accumulation: “do not take a purse or bag or sandals”, a stern challenge to our consumerist economy. Jesus also says, “Eat whatever is set before you.” As a South Asian, I take this command very seriously! In crossing such social and religious boundaries, the good news reaches beyond the immediate community without excluding anyone.
For Luke, God’s kingdom draws near when strangers become neighbours, hospitality becomes justice, and labourers undertake this counter-cultural mission with peace, humility and courage.
The Church that we long for
So, what kind of kingdom of God is near us? Does it resemble the Lukan portrayal?
From a racial justice perspective, we inhabit a broken and restless world. Anger towards immigrants and minority communities is not new: since the 1960s, opposition to immigration and race-relations legislation has fuelled unrest and enduring forms of racism. The Church has never been immune. Then as now, racism and racialised discrimination persist within it, intensified today by the nationalist fervour of far-right groups.
A Counter-Cultural Imagination
So, we are caught up between the ideal missional mandate of the Gospel and the reality of our fragmented lives. How on earth are we to go out to ‘every city and every place’ to proclaim the proximity of God’s realm? That too, with humility and peace?
Perhaps the answer for me lies with Jesus’ missional approach: a subversive and counter-cultural imagination.
One of my beloved seminary teachers was Stanley J Samarth. He taught us that we need to move away from the idea of mission as expansion and conquest, to mission as dialogue, which is rooted in living alongside neighbours, sharing life, and participating in mutual transformation. The goal of mission is not “adding members to an institution” or changing communal identity, but calling all people into the Kingdom of God, a realm of peace, justice, reconciliation, and healing. God’s mission of hospitality.
Such a perspective enables us to reimagine a church in this nation, a church that is not obsessed with numerical growth and shallow inclusion.
A Church of Belonging
So my challenge to you today is:
Let us go as the seventy-two went: without the armour of superiority, without the baggage of fear, and without the need to control the outcome.
As a church, let us go with open hands, ready to receive as well as to give; ready to listen as well as to speak; ready to discover that Christ is already present in the neighbour we have not yet learned to love.
In a world that teaches us to fear difference, the Church must become a community of belonging. In a culture that builds walls, we must set a table.
Where racism wounds, we must practise justice. Where voices have been silenced, we must listen. Where communities have been divided, we must embody the reconciling peace of Christ.
And when we live like this—vulnerably, courageously, peaceably, and hospitably—we will not need to announce God’s kingdom only with our lips.
Our common life will proclaim it. Our tables will proclaim it. Our friendships will proclaim it. Our struggle for justice will proclaim it.
Then, as in the glorious vision of Isaiah (35:3-6), the forgotten will be remembered, the invisible will be seen, and the stranger will be welcomed as neighbour. And through us, by the grace of God, this nation may hear Christ’s promise afresh:
“The kingdom of God has come near to you.” Amen.
