Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing,” they answered. He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.” The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.” “That’s enough!” He replied. Luke 22:35-38
“Now things have changed…the adversative alla nyn (“but now”) indicates a drastic change in the times. Before, the disciples went out like “lambs surrounded by wolves” (10:3), but now it is much worse…now those who have a wallet and a travel bag are to take them, and those who have no sword are to sell clothing and buy one. Some think the sword in antiquity was “standard equipment for a traveler” and was necessary for self-defense in perilous times. Others see the command to buy as sword as “metaphorical indication of a new situation of hostility.” In favor of a metaphorical interpretation is the fact that Luke has already used “sword” in this kind of symbolic way to indicate division or hostility. Simeon tells Mary that “a sword will go through your very own soul (2:35; see also 12:49-53, which understands the “sword” of Matthew 10:34 to refer to “divisions”). Thus, the purse, bag, and sword are quasi-symbolic ways of concretizing the necessary readiness for such contingencies.”
Mikeal C. Parsons in Luke (Paideia; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015) 316.
“To conceal and carry” or “not to conceal and carry” a sword is not really the question in this Passion Week Thursday interchange between Jesus and the disciples just prior to His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
These are some of His last words on stewardship.
Basically, Jesus warns that the situation will only get worse from here so we as disciples must take whatever purse, bag, or resources we have and put them to work in the spiritual battle before us.
Immediately thereafter He is arrested, tried by the nefarious nocturnal council, and then goes to the cross for us on Good Friday. Contemplate with me the significance of these instructions.
Jesus started discipleship training with a dozen guys in Luke 9:1-6 and then expanded the group to seventy in Luke 10:1-12. In those texts, Jesus sent them out with nothing to teach them God would provide.
Now, because they would soon part ways, Jesus circles back to close the teaching loop. He tells them (and us) what to do henceforth when God supplies.
As we journey to the cross and think of life after Lent, may each of us hear Jesus say this to us, “Put to work what you have on mission, and watch yourselves, as it will be a battle out there!”
I’m thinking about this today as I drive west toward Colorado with Sammy driving a 2007 Toyota Prius that my parents graciously gave us. They are moving to Florida and don’t need the second car.
I’m contemplating how we will put to work the extra car we now have on mission. Or more precisely, I asking God to whom we share wheels even as others have shared wheels with us.