Lambs among wolves

In last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem—the city that kills the prophets. He told those who wished to come with him what following him would require of them. They would need to leave behind comfort and family and the obligations of ordinary life. “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he said to one follower who asked for time to bury his father. “As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Today, Jesus’s journey continues, and he sends out messengers to prepare his way.

Jesus sends them out two by two to towns where they don’t know whether they’ll find welcome or rejection. He tells them to take nothing with them—no money, no bag, not even a pair of sandals. Maybe they’re supposed to go barefoot. Maybe they’re just forbidden from carrying a spare pair of shoes. Either way, they have to travel without a safety net.

If they find welcome in a town, they should eat whatever they’re given, cure the sick, and proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom. And if they’re not welcomed? They should shake the dust from their feet and move on.

Shake the dust from their feet. Let’s go back for a moment to last Sunday’s Gospel reading, just a few sentences before today’s. In that passage, James and John were outraged that a Samaritan village turned Jesus away, and they asked if they should call down fire from heaven to punish the town for its rudeness and lack of faith. And Jesus rebuked them. His kingdom is a kingdom of peace and invitation. Not a kingdom of wrath and coercion.

The lesson of today’s Gospel is the same. Jesus sends out messengers, but he doesn’t give them weapons. He sends them out like lambs among wolves. Not warriors. Not watchdogs. Not even shepherds—who might at least carry a heavy stick. Lambs. Lambs in the midst of wolves.

It’s not an image to build much confidence. Lambs are fragile, dependent. Cute and fluffy, perhaps—but seldom fierce. And yet this is how Jesus commissions his followers for their first important task. Not with swords or talking points or strategy. But with vulnerability.

I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience lately. What builds it. What threatens it. Where we can find strength in the midst of fears and threats and uncertainty.

We live in anxious times, times filled with personal anxieties, social divisions, and global uncertainties. Sensible people teach us that resilience comes from being prepared, from building walls, from having backup plans. But Jesus offers a different model.

“Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals,” Jesus says. The messengers of God’s kingdom don’t find their confidence in prepping and planning—but in utter dependence. Resilience, it seems, isn’t about having what you need. It’s about trusting the one who sends you.

Jesus does teach resilience, but not in the way we expect. Instead of stockpiling resources, he tells his followers to practice a different kind of strength—the ability to receive, to adapt, and to trust.

And if you don’t find welcome in the places your path takes you to? Shake the dust off your feet and move on.

Shaking the dust off your feet doesn’t need to be a threat to those who’ve rejected you. It can simply be a statement of faith. A gesture of trust that God’s Spirit continues to move in the world even when doors are shut and ears are closed. Shaking the dust off your feet can be a practice of resilience without bitterness.

In Matthew’s version of this moment, Jesus adds a phrase: “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Wise as serpents and innocent as doves. It’s not a contradiction, even if it sounds like one. There’s no naivete in the path Jesus calls us to. Be shrewd. Stay aware of danger. But don’t lose your gentleness. Don’t ever forget that Jesus’s path is a path of love.

Wisdom and innocence. Resilience requires both. The kingdom of God requires both. If you’re of a more cynical frame of mind, you might even say that wisdom teaches us that innocence works.

There’s a strength in the path Jesus teaches that no weapon can match. It’s not a strength found in safety or in conquest. It’s the strength of the cross. It’s a love that refuses to retaliate, a hope that doesn’t require results.

Jesus sent his followers out as lambs among wolves. He sends us in the same way today. Not because hardship and suffering are somehow good, but because there’s no other way for the Gospel to be true. If the good news can’t come without coercion, it’s not good news. A kingdom that arrives in a flash of fire from heaven isn’t the kingdom of Christ.

Jesus sends us still today with a message of peace and a spirit of resilience. He teaches us to walk lightly, to speak boldly. To stay where we’re welcomed and move on when we’re not. Without bitterness, and without fire. But always with faith.

We’re not defined by what we conquer. We’re not measured by the welcome we receive. Our joy isn’t in the power we wield.

If we follow Jesus’s instructions for our journey, we may well find that, like Jesus’s first followers, we’re helping to build God’s kingdom. But success can’t be our goal.

So go. As those seventy messengers went so long along. Go. Not because the road is safe. Not because the destination is certain. But because the one who sends you is faithful.

Go lightly. Go boldly. Go with a message of peace on your lips and with nothing heavier than dust clinging to your heels.

And when the wolves howl, remember this: you’re not there to win. You’re there to bear witness. And, through such witness, the kingdom of God will indeed come near.