Today’s Gospel reading is a special one for me and it’s Matthean counterpart (Matthew 9:37). “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2a). Almost 30 years ago, I was at a conference with my pastor at then Whitworth College (now Whitworth University). It was their annual summer Institute for Ministry. One of the sermons by the guest preacher/keynote speaker was on that text. It was a Holy Spirit moment for me because I was a rising undergraduate senior ready to head to law school and the Spirit used that text to impress upon my heart, “Who are you, really?” There was gnawing interruption in my plans, in my hopes, in my dreams of what I wanted to do with my college degree. The Spirit kept tugging and pressing the question, “Who are you, really?” In other words, what’s my life about? What’s your life about? Who are you, really?

The Gospel according to Luke, as we know, should be read juxtaposed to the Acts of the Apostles. Penned in the first century C.E. by early church communities who were bearing witness to the life of Jesus Christ, they were animated by the received testimonies of the apostles and the presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst. Theirs was a pivotal period of Gospel proclamation in the nascent season of the Jesus movement. With external pressure from imperial persecution and the internal challenges of heresies masquerading as the Gospel truth, the young Jesus movement was faced with the enormous question: what is the relationship of Jews and Gentiles in the one covenant of God. Who are you, really? What does it mean to live as one people of God, loved by the living God?

The portrait we get from the acts of the apostles as 70 (or 72) are deployed by the Lord Christ’s Spirit is of itinerant preachers and proclaimers who are to sojourn from town to town, place to place, blessing all they encounter. They are to keep their baggage light, not linger too long in any one place, not overstaying their welcome. They are to embody in word and in deed the living Lord. And by doing so, they proclaim the presence of the kingdom of God to all they encounter. The presence of the kingdom of God will be made known by the visible, oral, lived testimony of those 70/72.

But there’s a couple caveats. First, those 70/72 are mutually interconnected to the Lord (Luke 10:16). If they are on the receiving end of blessing, it is as if Jesus is being blessed; because He is. Likewise, if anyone listens to their testimony, it is as if people are listening to Jesus; because they are. It’s not that they themselves are Jesus. Who are you, really? Yes, you are representatives, ambassadors of the Lord. But you and I are so connected to Christ, the communion through the Holy Spirit is so complete that it is as if Christ were speaking through us to others. Because He is. Remember the Luke-Acts connection. The resurrected-ascended Lord Christ confronts and interrogates Saul of Tarsus, “Why do you persecute Me?” (Acts 9:4b) Saul’s persecution of the Church was, in effect, a persecuting and cursing of Christ himself.

We as children of God are embodiments of and manifestations of Christ, that to bless one another is to bless Christ himself. To receive his redeemed, his beloved siblings in faith, is to welcome him in our midst.

But there’s another caveat. The 70/72 mistakenly believe their embodiment and manifestation of Christ’s presence as somehow having the power of Christ himself. No, no, no. Let’s not forget, there is only one Lord, there is only one Savior.

There is only one Jesus Christ. And we ain’t it. Jesus admonishes them in Luke 10:17-20. Don’t mistake the ability to cast off snakes, to being able to get that sermon over home plate or having that successful capital campaign or having the confirmation class readied for baptism because of what you have done. Who are you, really? You are citizens and ambassadors of the kingdom of God, not the kingdom itself and not the king.

After all, there’s so much at stake to be preoccupied with pettiness of power, to be consumed with notions of self, or to overshadow Jesus Christ with the Church.

Thirty years later, I can still remember, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”