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The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
A successful harvest is the cause for celebration. A failed harvest leads instead to starvation. It is not simply a nice optional extra for Christians to participate in an abundant harvest. Without it, the Church will be to a much greater extent barren, joyless, and hungry. Step one, as far as Jesus is concerned, is that we desire this harvest be brought in, and to pray for that desire.
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.
Note that tells his followers to ask for this before he sends them out. They desire and pray and only then do they act, finding in themselves a partial fulfillment to their own request.
Go on your way;
It is important that the bringing in of the harvest begins with the Lord's initiative because, humanly speaking, it is dangerous ("behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves") and difficult ("Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way"). This is not how we would typically undertake a journey or mission that we planned alone. We must begin with the Lord's initiative to make sure that we do things his way and therefore remain under his protection. We are called to surrender our own plans to the Lord, but still to take an active role. When we do so we discover the possibility for miraculous success just like the disciples.
The seventy-two returned rejoicing, and said,
"Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name."
We too are called to go forth and to proclaim peace to the households we enter, a peace so powerful that it can even overcome the strongholds of the enemy we encounter along the way. Proclaiming this peace fully is synonymous with inviting these households to enter (or enter more fully) into the kingdom of God which is at hand for them when the Gospel is proclaimed. Nor can it cannot be separated from curing the sick and otherwise addressing the material needs of those to whom we come. It is the nature of the Kingdom to undo the power of the enemy by means both natural and supernatural. As to the later, when we are led into mission by the master of the harvest, and guided by his Holy Spirit, we may find it less uncommon that we are accustomed to expect.
Do not move about from one house to another.
An important part of our mission is that we not be sidetracked with distractions about matters of no importance. This is why we don't risk greeting others on the way, lest we get pulled into superficial conversations and forget what we are about. This is why it is important that we not move from house to house merely seeking a situation that more perfectly satisfies our taste or desire for comfort. Even more, we must not go looking only for those houses where we find people with whom we are naturally predisposed to get along. That is, we can't go looking only for people like us. One thing which distinguished the Gospel from all that came before it was that it was to the whole world. From Paul's perspective this meant that, "neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation". It is indeed an entirely new creation in which the harvest is so abundant. We cannot seek it in the old ways. The old declaration of shalom needed to be energized by the power of the resurrection in order for true peace to be possible, peace with God and with one another.
Peace and mercy be to all who follow this rule
and to the Israel of God.
As Christians, we share in some measure in the mission of the seventy-two and in their authority over the enemy. We have been given all of this and yet we wonder when we see a Church that is less than joyful and often barely functional. First we must pray to the Lord of the Harvest. Then we must allow ourselves to be filled with his power to be part of his own answer. And only then will we see the joy to which the Church is meant to be home, to experience the power of a peace that is stronger than the power of death. It was about this comfort and this joy that Isaiah prophesied.
When you see this, your heart shall rejoice
and your bodies flourish like the grass;
the LORD's power shall be known to his servants.
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