Today's gospel reading is the conclusion of Luke, where Jesus tells his followers to remain in Jerusalem until they are "clothed with power from on high." Then Jesus ascends into heaven. (These events are reported again, with more detail, at the start of Acts, the companion piece to Luke.) In his final words, Jesus is clear that "repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations."I suspect that the intent of Jesus' words would be better served if the translation said all "peoples" or all "Gentiles." The Greek word ethnos carries those meanings and is often translated as such. Jesus' instructions do include the notion of missionaries going to new places, but just as importantly and perhaps more so, they are an emphatic statement that God's love and grace are offered to those once thought to be outside the boundaries of us and them.
Given this command from Jesus (see the similar command from Matthew 28:16-20 where the same word ethnos is again translated "nations"), it is perhaps surprising that the early church struggled so over the mission to the Gentiles. Read Paul's letter to the Galatians and you will see how intense this conflict became. Clearly even Jesus' closest companions struggled to do as he commissioned them to do. The boundaries of Jew and Gentile, us and them, we so much are part of them, they sometimes found themselves working against Jesus' command rather than for it.
Makes me wonder what boundaries that seem certain and unquestioned are at odds with the love Jesus has to share.
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