‘The Lord appointed seventy other disciples and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go’.
Today’s Gospel (Luke 10.1-11, 16-20) opens with Jesus appointing and sending out seventy disciples. The instructions they receive sound, at one level, relatively simple: go in pairs, travel light, heal the sick, proclaim the kingdom. And yet this is a passage that’s very much the product of its first century context, and so any desire for instant relevance by 21st century readers needs to be resisted, and not just because of the authority given to the Seventy to tread on snakes and scorpions and not be hurt. Please don’t try that at home!
Having said that, the passage’s emphasis on the urgency and difficulty of the mission that the Seventy are given, and the need for a somewhat spartan approach, has relevance in our contemporary context, not least as we struggle for financial sustainability within the church, and seek numerical growth in the face of a national picture of decline.
To my mind, though, the key to understanding this passage, and indeed to responding to the challenges of our own contemporary context, is the subtle but critical call to prayer that underlies it. Jesus says to the Seventy, ‘Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest’.
Jesus is clear that the Lord is not only in charge of the harvest but also of sending out the labourers. The authentic workers, those who will get the job done and reap what has been grown, are those specifically sent by the Lord. There is no room here for self-appointed entrepreneurs, who chart their own course and work as if the outcome depended entirely on their own efforts. Rather, prayer that articulates dependency upon God, makes clear who is in charge and under whose authority these labourers are working; and not on their own, but in pairs.
‘The Lord appointed seventy other disciples and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go’.
Here in Lincoln Cathedral this morning, we hear this passage in the context of a Jazz Mass and a Jazz Festival: jazz at whose heart lies improvisation. The American Jazz musician, Wynton Marsalis, says: ‘Improvisation is the core of jazz – it’s the art of creating something from the now, shaped by everything you’ve learned’.
For me, those words insightfully encapsulate what the Seventy  were being asked to do, and indeed what God asks of each of us as we seek to live the Christian life: to create something from the now, shaped by everything we’ve learned.
The history of the church, and indeed our experience of the church in the present day, suggest that Christians are threatened by any suggestion that we should try to improvise in matters of faith. We’re threatened by it because it takes us out of our comfort zone and removes our spiritual safety blanket. It requires losing control and taking risks, that sometimes lead to making mistakes.
Yes, the Seventy were given something of a roadmap to follow when they went out on their mission, but its success, whatever that would mean, depended not on their own efforts, but on their handing over control to God, ‘asking the Lord of the harvest’ and, trusting and being rooted in him, taking the risk of improvising.
It’s not surprising that our fear of letting go can very easily lead us to criticise improvisation as the antithesis of orthodoxy, of opening the floodgates to a free-for-all, no holds barred, anything goes religion. We trick ourselves into thinking that improvisation is not authentic Christianity, the faith which we are called to believe and live, and so we excuse ourselves from responding to the call to create something from the now, shaped by everything we’ve learned.
But that won’t do. As the theologian and musician Jeremy Begbie says: ‘Improvisation is not just making it up as you go along: it’s the skilled and discerning performance of what has been deeply learned and assimilated’.
For the jazz musician, improvisation is about responding creatively and expressively within the rules of harmony and form. You need to know those rules before they can become the framework for an improvised response to them. And so too for us – our improvisation, our living out of Christ’s mission within the context of the challenges and opportunities of the here and now – flows from our formation in Christ.
Worship, prayer, sacraments, creed and scripture are not thrown out with the proverbial bathwater when we seek to improvise in the present moment. Rather they enable it and shape it and, importantly, are themselves enriched and interpreted by it.
If improvisation were simply ‘winging it’, the Seventy may well have ended up disheartened and scattered, never returning to the one who sent them out. Instead, going out in pairs, they carry the presence of Christ, ready to respond to whatever they encounter, a response that is dependent upon and formed by their life in him.
And what does happen next? St Luke tells us that, when the Seventy return they rejoice: ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us’. True to form, Jesus’ response isn’t quite what the Seventy or we might expect: ‘Do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven’.
Here Christ reveals that real joy lies not in power over others but in belonging with others and, first and foremost, belonging with others in Christ, the king of heaven. Our improvisation isn’t measured by any earthly standard of success, but its quality, its authenticity, flows directly from its rootedness in Christ. Duke Ellington said that ‘Jazz is the freedom to be yourself’. As Christians, we are called to discover our true selves in Christ, and the joyful, life-giving freedom that gives us to improvise.
This morning at this Jazz Mass, each of us is called to be a musician of the Gospel, grounded and rooted in Christ, who is both the source of our lives and the audience of our music. With the Seventy Christ sends us, not to perform, but to be present to others and with others, radiating the presence of the one on whom we are called to depend and, in his name, offer mercy, healing, and hope in the service of his kingdom.
‘The Lord appointed seventy other disciples and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go’.
We are those disciples.