Matthew 10:1-8

Sent on Mission – the Twelve Apostles

Matthew 10:1-1 Jesus Chooses and Sends Out Twelve Apostles

(Mk 3:13-19a)

¹ Jesus called the twelve disciples around him,

and he gave them authority to cast out unclean demons

and to heal every kind of disease and weakness.

No mention had been made of twelve until now. Jesus sent them out to meet people’s needs, as Matthew had summarily indicated. They were not yet commissioned to teach. They had still much to learn before they would be equipped to carry out that dimension of their mission [28:20].

² These are the names of the twelve apostles:

first is Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother,

and James the son of Zebedee and John, his brother,

³ Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector,

James son of Alpheus and Thaddeus,

⁴ Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

In the light of their mission, the twelve disciples became the twelve apostles. The word apostle means “one who is sent”.

Matthew had given five instances of special calls: Simon, Andrew, James, John and Matthew. Little is known of the others, except for Judas, the one, as Matthew put it, who betrayed him; the other six are not mentioned in the rest of the narrative.

In calling Judas the one who betrayed him, Matthew obviously presumed in his readers a prior knowledge of Mark’s Gospel and the details of Jesus’ arrest. The title Cananaean, applied to the second Simon, indicated one “Zealous for the Law”.

Why twelve?

The number twelve evoked the early experience of Israel. After their liberation from Egypt and return to the Promised Land, the twelve tribes, each descended from one of the twelve patriarchs (sons of Jacob), formed a confederacy in which each tribe

maintained its own identity,
and worked with the others in their common resistance to the pre-existing and hostile city states spread throughout the land.

Together they formed Israel, God’s Chosen People.

Within the Jewish culture, the number twelve represented totality. In sending the twelve, Jesus was sending all. The emphasis on the twelve would seem to indicate the early Christian community’s conviction that, as followers of Jesus who fulfilled the law and the prophets, they were the authentic Israel.

⁵ Jesus then sent them out.

He instructed them,

“Do not follow the road to Gentile territory;

and do not go into a Samaritan town.

⁶ Rather, go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.

As far as Jesus was concerned, time was short. He knew his own energies and time to be limited, and saw himself sent only to Israel [15:24]. Similarly, he sent the disciples only to Israel. The motivation of the mission was to engage with the oppression and harassment of the general population, the lost sheep without responsible shepherds. (Southern Galilee, to which they were sent, covered an area about forty kilometres long by about forty kilometres wide. There were about two hundred small towns and villages in the area, none far from its neighbour.

Call and Mission

Call. Call precedes mission. God first calls people into relationship and intimacy. Every human person receives this call – though most may not know of it. That call is the basis of everyone’s human dignity, irrespective of other factors. It is a dignity that cannot be disowned by them or denied by others, just as the call made to them is irrevocable. Each has a divinely given destiny - to share in the love of God for eternity. Though all persons are gifted differently and have varied life experiences that contribute to shape their personal identity, all are equal in dignity and in their basic rights.

Beyond that, the human risen Jesus calls others to a recognised and conscious personal relationship. He calls them friends, and offers the possibility of intimacy with himself, just as he “summoned the twelve”. He calls them into community, the community of Christian disciples.

Mission. Following on the call to community in the Church, Jesus sends his friends, his disciples, on mission to the world. He entrusts to the community of disciples, to the Church, the mission entrusted to him by his Father. All disciples are sent to shape their world and their communities according to the values of the Kingdom of God. They are all empowered for this; they are all trusted. Mission is the purpose of the Church. Since everyone shares the same human dignity, it is the responsibility of those who recognise that dignity, and its source in the creating God, to alert others to that human dignity; and, together with them, to find ways to interact in society in ways that respect and foster that dignity.

Ministry. Yet, to carry out its mission effectively, the Church needs to become what it is called to be. It needs to work constantly to become a living, loving, believing community, where all of its members are challenged, supported and formed to deepen their sense of their God-given dignity, and to live accordingly. Every member of the community is responsible for this strengthening of the community. And for that purpose - for the health and effectiveness of the Church itself - members are gifted with a variety of aptitudes and skills for a range of different and complementary roles and responsibilities within the community.

However, the integrity and vitality of the community are not ends in themselves. Maintenance is secondary to mission. The purpose of Church is to provide formation and support to its members, who in turn are sent to be “light of the world” and “salt of the earth” [5:13-16].

⁷ As you go, preach the message

that the heavenly kingdom has come close.

⁸ Heal those who are sick, raise the dead,

cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

You received as a free gift; give as a free gift.

Their mission was the same mission carried out by Jesus, except that they were not sent to teach. Their task was:

to proclaim that God has come close,
and that this is good news,
and to illustrate the life-giving thrust of the love of God by bringing the marginalised and suffering into full life within the community.

As proof of their motivation of merciful love and care, they were not to approach their mission as a means to benefit themselves.

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