When I was 16 years old, I traveled across the globe for the first time, on a missionary journey to the Philippines. I went with a group from my church in Louisville, Kentucky. The Rev. Bob Tebow (father to famous quarterback star Tim Tebow) was an evangelist from Florida who was a close friend of our church leadership at the time. So Mr. Tebow invited students from my church to join him on a mission trip. So I signed up.

I was so intrigued at the time by the opportunity to write one of those famous Pauline letters and send it back to my family... you know the kind. It begins with: "I pray that you are well, my dear family, as I write to you from my missionary journey overseas..." It’s so funny the things we romanticize as young people, only to find out how completely irrelevant they are in real time.

That experience of being sent out to spread the gospel was not unlike the 70 sent out by Jesus to prepare for His arrival. The students who traveled to the Philippines in 1996 were preparing for a five-year mission—what Evangelist Bob Tebow called a five-year plan to “Save the Philippines.” While my current theological convictions have me cringing at such a notion, my young self (raised in the hyper-evangelical movement) fully embraced the idea that we were needed to save those young souls. So I went.

Looking back, what strikes me isn’t how bold we were, but how little we understood the kind of
mission Jesus was actually talking about in the gospels.

Little schoolchildren on the other side of the world are NOT in need of Christian nationalist
propaganda to save their souls—in fact, in this text, Jesus explicitly states the reverse. It’s not the power of religious coercion, it’s the peace of God’s presence.

The beautiful thing about Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ plan is that he highlights the opposite of
what so many try to make the gospel about: salvation, the hereafter, who’s in and who’s out,
saying the right words, praying the sinner’s prayer, baptism that saves and cleanses us from sin and our evil ways...

Jesus said, yes, you will have gospel magic at your fingertips; there will be those yearning for
this radical love of God, and they will come because the harvest is plentiful. But do not find your
identity in the saving power God grants—find your purpose in the unfailing love God offers
through grace, because all of it has little to do with you... and everything to do with the One who
has called you by name and sent you forth.

Whether the potter or the clay, the sent or the saved, the sinner or the saint. The gospel has always been about the unfailing, inclusive love of God and the abundant grace of God. And to all 70 nations, He declares that message should be shared.

Church, the gospel was never a tool for empire. It was, and still is, a map that will lead us to build the beloved community, right here, right now.

So here’s what this means for the Church:

This message is significant for the Church in every age, but today, many who see eschatological
victory as the gospel’s main purpose are missing the heart of God’s desire for Her children.
God’s call upon the Church universal is about celebrating the gifts of God’s inclusive love that
can transform our world for peace. A world in desperate need of a gospel that can disarm us with grace and nurture us to thrive as God designed us.

But it all hinges on one important truth: we can neither do the saving nor the rejecting of God’s
beloved. We are simply sent as vessels of hope, deliverers of truth, messengers of love.

And even when we encounter resistance, because we will, we are not called to be caped heroes of the day or the avengers of God’s peace (although that would make one cool t-shirt!)—we are simply called to keep going, to shake the dust from our feet, and walk on.

It is what Luke reminds us of in this passage: we are not accountable for who accepts or rejects
God’s peace—we are responsible for the message of love we carry, the words of peace we
proclaim, the power of God’s hope we embody.

And this is not new. Many of us have knocked on doors for a cause we are passionate about. Whether political campaigning, advertising your uncle’s landscaping business, or selling newspapers, much of what occurs during canvassing is similar to what Jesus prepares these 70 to encounter—some people receive you with grace and a smile, while others snarl and slam the door in your face.

What is markedly different about Luke’s portrayal of this mission is that it was not an exclusive mission to save only a few worthy souls. They weren’t sent to the capital city or the swing states—they were sent to every town and place Jesus intended to go.

While my youth group’s mission was specific to the Filipino region of Mindanao, the 70 Jesus
sent in pairs were to share the Good News with the whole of God’s coming kin-dom come. Black, white, woman, man, transgender, queer, non binary or questioning, to the faithful and those who feared what faith stands for, to all.

Many scholars, including Mike Parsons at Baylor, points to Genesis 10, which lists the genealogy of Noah’s sons. It’s known as The Table of Nations because it lists 70 nations—representing every nation, or all of humanity. The 70 number in Luke echoes Genesis 10’s universal appeal. It makes Jesus' mission global. Luke reveals that Jesus’ goal of peace-building was never tribal or exclusive. It was meant for the whole kin-dom of God.

For our hearing today, in a world bent on excluding those on the margins, denigrating those
different than us, seeking to uphold the status quo—even within the white, Christian church—
this “universal approach to evangelism” is perhaps the most compelling part of Luke’s telling of
Jesus’ mission. Jesus’ directions explicitly state that this mission is to share God’s peace with all
who might receive it. No strings attached.

One willing messenger sent out to one open door at a time.

Now, let’s open our own door for a minute, and talk about us.

Many of us in the mainline Protestant church are comfortable sending money to support others
spreading God’s inclusive love, but we squirm when we think about doing it ourselves. We’re
happy to give to the poor, support food pantries, donate coats, rally for justice, sign petitions, and show up at vigils—but when someone says “go out,” we look around the room. When the pastor says “share the gospel,” we get fidgety. Some of us even cringe. Why? We don’t want to be confused with those Christians. The loud, the judgy ones. The Bible-thumping ones…

Because we know what we don’t believe. We just aren’t sure how to speak what we do.

We believe in a gospel of grace over judgment, where love isn’t earned but extended, and where every human being is a beloved image-bearer of God.

So a question for the mainline Church today is: What journey are we on? What message are we
carrying? Because many of us are afraid to go. Afraid we’ll be judged, afraid of disagreement,
afraid we won’t have the right words...

But let's be honest: this isn't about walking barefoot down the highway handing out gospel tracks. It's about talking with a friend about bold, inclusive love—the friend struggling to accept their gay son, the co-worker who makes racist comments, the boss whose behavior is borderline harassment. It’s also about being curious—when you go to lunch with friends and they talk about the far-right agenda or use exclusive language about God, you ask a question that opens a door.

Many of us are ill-prepared to go out because we aren’t sure what message to deliver.

So let’s look at what Luke says that might quell our anxiety and offer the hope and confidence we need.

Jesus doesn’t say, “Gather what you need.” He says, “Go, and you’ll find what you need along
the way.” It’s spiritual abundance, not scarcity survival.

This is not a mission of exclusion or conversion quotas—it is a mission of abundance. Abundant
inclusion, abundant compassion, and abundant presence. Jesus sends seventy—not just twelve.

Men and women, trans, queer, Black, white... not just the 7-foot-tall CEO—it;s everyday people and those living on the margins. And they’re told: you won’t go alone. Not only does the Kingdom of God belong to all—we, the messengers, have all we need for the journey.

It’s a holy lesson in spiritual abundance. So when we fear we don’t know what to say... when we
worry about the optics or the awkwardness... we can take heart. We don’t go out with a script.
We go out with presence. We go out with peace. We go out with God.

Jesus said take nothing with you... and so we go, trusting that we are not alone.

For the Church, this is as radical a call today as it was then. We live in a consumerist, hyper-
capitalist culture. The world says, “Bring your résumé, your resources, your plans.” But Jesus says: “Bring yourself. That’s enough.”

So Church hear the good news: You don’t need the right shoes, or the right words, or a three- point theological argument. Just go with what you do know: that God’s love is wide. That peace is powerful. That grace doesn’t require prerequisites.

Go knowing that Jesus isn’t sending you to win arguments—He’s sending you to carry peace.
He’s not asking for performance—He’s inviting your presence.

So Church, I ask you... will you go?

The harvest is plentiful. And yes—you, even you—are enough.

Go now. The journey awaits.

May it be so. Amen.