and, wherever he goes in, say to the owner of the house ‘The teacher says – Where is my room where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?’
picking up their walking sticks
putting on their cleanest sandals
the two set off
looking for a changed heart
that bears another’s burdenhere a teacher
can put down roots
to transform expected solidarity
shattering partnerships
to sow new seed
This is the only time Jesus refers to himself as “Teacher”. Up to now it has been a title, status, or honorific that others have used in addressing him.
As one spends time in the wild wilderness to be able to address significant issues in civilized wildernesses, wisdom does accrue and so a significant part of being Beloved is to teach with a different sense of authority—not lecturing pearls of wisdom, but engaging lives where they are experiencing caughtness, stuckness, captivity, or even enslavement. This is different than being a Priest, Preacher, or Prophet.
This is also the only time Jesus refers to those he had called and those who joined them on the way as, “My Disciples”.
This begins to set this sending of two apart from previous sendings. When the Twelve were sent out two-by-two it was to experience authority of power over unclean spirits. This was done with proclamation regarding changed hearts and lives as well as with anointing by oil. When two were sent into a village to bring back a colt it was in regard to Jesus being a “Master” of the situation, a sign of a non-military victory entrance—a one-time event.
We are entering a scene that LaVerdiere2232calls “catechetical”. What is coming will not be a one-time event, but one regularly repeated by followers of Jesus as, generation by generation, we prepare to encounter the meanness of life that has been covered-up by tradition and resist one discriminatory status quo after another.
While others were preparing to arrest Jesus and put him to death, the disciples would prepare Jesus’ (mou) guest room (katalyma) where, eating the Passover with his disciples, Jesus would offer them his body and blood….katalyma refers to any place where hospitality is offered to people on a journey. [LaVerdiere2232]
“My disciples will learn lived hospitality”, says the Teacher.