Homily

“Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two.” This is how the Gospel passage we hear this Sunday begins. Jesus calls them and sends them out. We could say that these two verbs (call and send) capture the identity both of the disciples and of every Christian community. These words, and what they mean, are not reserved exclusively for particular groups or privileged individuals. All Christians are called and invited to communicate the Gospel to the world. With extreme clarity the Second Vatican Council calls this the mission entrusted to the entire Church: “The pilgrim Church is missionary by nature…and it is incumbent upon every disciple of Christ to spread the faith as much as it is possible.” A Christian, therefore, is above all else someone called and summoned by God. Likewise, we do not become Christian by autonomously making a choice, but by responding freely to a call that comes before us. Yes, there is a love that is before our response. Paul, in the splendid beginning to the Letter to the Ephesians, reminds us of this: “Just as he (the Father) chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Eph 1:4-6).
The entire tradition of the First Testament, from Abraham on, puts God at the origin of every call. The initiative to begin the history of salvation of the people of Israel comes wholly from the Lord. “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called”, writes the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (11:8), indicating to every Christian the paradigm of faith. Throughout the narrations of the prophetic vocations there emerges always the primacy of the divine call. The story of Amos is emblematic. It was not he who chose. Nor was it he who even set out. The Lord took him (“The Lord took me from following the flock”) and flung him into a bitter confrontation with the injustices of the political power. He even had to go up against the cold considerations of the “chaplain of the court,” Amaziah the priest, who exhorted him, as often happens, to be selfishly prudent. Amos retorts that at the root of his words there is absolutely no trace of a personal decision linked to this mission. It is God who has forced him to take on this prophetic mission: “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel”(Am 7:14-15). We could say that each one of us was, and some of us still are dressers of sycamore trees. It is not unusual, notwithstanding God’s call that we hear every day, every Sunday, that we remain cultivators of our personal sycamore trees.
But the Lord continues to call us, not just once, but always, tearing us away from a sad and dull destiny. The call is always to perform the service of communicating, by one’s words and life, the Gospel of Jesus to the farthest reaches of the earth. Herein lies the opportunity for each person to find his or her saintliness. All of the Lord’s summonses are an invitation to accept the mission that always pushes us to go beyond ourselves, beyond the confines that we draw around ourselves. It is after all natural for us to set our own limits often clearly and definitively between us and others, between what we think possible or not possible to do. This instinct to set limits comes from fear: we want to be tranquil and certain, avoiding the unknown and that which is unfamiliar to us. In this manner we strengthen the walls that divide people. We strengthen the walls of culture and affinities, of age and social class, of nations and belonging. And there are still so many other walls. They are all walls that separate people from each other, often employing violence, injustices and sometimes war. These walls always lead us to see the other as an adversary, as an enemy. Each person seeks to remain only with those who are similar to him or herself—that is, with him or herself.
For Jesus, it is not like this. He left heaven behind to come amongst us, not because we were righteous, but because we were sinners. For this reason, Jesus cannot accept either limits or particularities. Besides, the Father also who is in heaven lets the “sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45). Jesus’ horizon is the entire world. No one is extraneous to his concerns, not even the worst of all enemies. For the Lord, everyone is to be loved and saved. He was the first to be sent and he obeyed: Jesus “went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness,” Matthew writes (9:35). Today still, Jesus does not cease from feeling compassion for the weary and exhausted crowds of this world, in particular for the poorest who wander like sheep without a shepherd. And he sends his disciples, “two by two,” so that they may continue his work of communicating the Gospel. Jesus’ disciples ought to be free in spirit and universal in heart, particularly today while the distances between people and countries have become shorter as never before, and yet new walls demanded by the individualism and particularism of individuals and groups, ethnicities and nations are going up faster and faster. Just as Jesus did not come to save himself, Christians are not to live for themselves, but for saving others.
Jesus invites his disciples both of yesterday and today to take nothing with them, neither bread nor knapsack nor money (and each one of us must ask him or herself what it is today that for us is bread, a knapsack and money). The disciples, supplied only with the staff of the Gospel and the sandals of mercy, must go along the ways of this world preaching the conversion of the heart and healing the sick and infirm. It does not require any particular weapons to enter into the homes of people, that is, into their more private and delicate places in the heart. The disciples, defenceless and poor, must go two by two so that their preaching may be an example of mutual love. Besides, Jesus had said: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Rich only in God’s mercy and the Gospel, Christians will be able to knock down the walls of division and liberate the hearts of men and women from the limits and burdens that oppress them. In the face of such a task, both attractive and terrifying, we cannot turn back. And along with the holy disciples we say: “Here am I; send me!” (Is 6:8).