This is the go-to text for any mission director worth his – or her – salt. The title given to this passage in my Bible is: ‘The Mission of the Seventy’. Although, there’s a little footnote that says: ‘Other ancient authorities read seventy-two’. Seventy, or seventy-two? Who’s counting? Well, us, it seems. At least that’s what we’re tempted to do when it comes to mission. The harvest is plentiful, but empty is the pew! Is that what mission is about, then? Well, let’s not discount that altogether, but I don’t hear much counting happening in this mission text.

“Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

*Sigh*

You’d be hard pressed to find a more depressingly contemporary question in the Bible. And this from two of Jesus’ disciples!

Well, here’s a contemporary response. A poem by John Roedel . . .

I can’t make the world be peaceful

I can’t prevent children from having to hide in bunkers

I can’t silence the sound of bombs tearing neighborhoods apart

I can’t turn a guided missile into a bouquet of flowers

I can’t deflect a sniper’s bullet from turning a wife into a widow

I can’t stave off a schoolyard being reduced to ash and rubble any of that

the only thing I can do is love the next person I encounter without any conditions or strings, to love my neighbour so fearlessly that it starts a ripple that stretches from one horizon to the next

I can’t force peace on the world, but I can become a force of peace in the world, because sometimes all it takes is a single lit candle in the darkness to start a movement

oh, Spirit, let me be a candle of comfort in this world

let me burn with peace.

Whenever I meet with a couple for pre-marriage counselling our discussion invariably gets around to their families of origin. I always ask: “Who was the disciplinarian in your house when you were growing up?” Twenty years ago when I asked that question the couple generally nominated one parent or the other (most often the father). In more recent times the couple are more likely to name both parents, and if the couple are really young they look at me blankly and ask, “What’s discipline?”

I may be a little old-fashioned but I still believe discipline and love are not mutually exclusive, it’s just that we often get them confused, or we conflate them, or we neglect one or the other.

Which is all very interesting. But, of course, what you’re really wondering is: Who is Neil?