70 – Grits and Grains

For one day only – my poem Today

Here is a play on words,
a fundamental question.

Is the I a number that marks a beginning,
or, is that I me with rather less feeling,
as in number with a silent b?
Is this a play on words,
or, a play on numbers with words,
a play for today, November 1st?

Here it is: 1 11, 11/1 or 1/11 –
depending whether you’re American
or not, All Saints Day,
when the air’s cleaned of mischief
when the I’s come out to play,
1 11, the first eleven, the perfect team.

The play goes on.
Picture that All, for all the saints,
its two ll’s standing as one,
seeing as one, holding hands,
a love’s embrace.

Or is it illness we see
under the spill and spell
of numbers – III, iIIness –
to make a season to remember
the dark days of the fall,
when another I joins the ranks
of the ones of one and eleven

to make 11/11 a day when the evil of war
became an anvil
for the forging of peace?
Is this a play on numbers,
or a poem that builds today?

There are other acts, other dates,
nothing ever begins with the first.

Take, for example, 911, our 11/9
which we’ll call 9/11
for its hallowing of American soil.
911, the emergency number,
our 999. The 9 followed by the twin towers,
all the ones destroyed
when the ground reduced to zero.

Picture those 1s
and you’lll see there’s never one alone.

Ceiling to floor, ceiling to floor,
each 1 towering,
one copying another,
each office a cell
a spreadsheet of humanity,
each one working part of their lives,
one of a family,
one of a community of so many other ones.

And then came Hamas on a day
which belongs to the same season of war.
Did that mark a beginning?
Was that the start of things
as the Israeli right claims?
Or was it just
the extreme one
in a string of grievance and reprisals?

7/10 we’d call it,
a high mark of history,
possibly the end of a nation.
Israel has always known its numbers,
the seven days of creation,
the ten, the measure of God’s authority.
They multiply those numbers
to sum up the fullness and perfection of life

or to ask the question of the times –
how many times must we forgive?
Is it 70?
Is it just 70?
Good news responds:
It’s not just 70. It’s 7 times that.
It’s so many times we’re bound to lose count.
There’s no going back to number 1
and whatever its cause.
No one ever started it.

Is is 70 or 72, that is the question? I’m quite fascinated by numbers. Chapter’ 10 in Luke’s Gospel recounts the number Jesus sent out “like lambs in the midst of wolves” with “no purse, bag or sandals” with the greeting “peace to this house”.

Were there 70 or 72? I am just asking for a friend.

Of course, the answer begins with 7. Anything beginning with 7 is the right answer because 7 marks all our time. We have 7 days in a week – as God took 7 days for creation, 6 days work, then a day’s rest. 7 carries with it the meaning of perfection and completion.

According to some texts the answer is 70 – and there is good reason that there should be 70 because there were thought to be 70 nations – the descendants of Noah’s children who settled the earth after the flood. Is then the sending of the 70 the Godsend to all people who on earth do dwell? (And Jesus did send out the “70” two by two, didn’t he?)

According to other ancient texts the answer is 72. And there seems to be good reason for that as well. If there were 72 Luke 10 would read “after this the Lord appointed 72 others”. What is the “after this” referring to, and who are the others? The previous chapter (Luke 9:1-6) recounts Jesus calling “the twelve” together and sending them out with no staff, bag, bread, money. I am putting 2 and 2 together here and thinking that Luke might have intended “72”, because 72 plus the others (12 of them) makes 84.

84=7×12. There is the 7 again, that number signifying completion and satisfaction. But there is also 12, the number of the apostles, the number of the tribes of Israel (because of the number of Jacob’s sons). 84 is mentioned elsewhere by Luke – as the age of Anna the prophetess, who prayed in the temple night and day and who spoke about the child Jesus “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem”. (Luke 2:36-40). Anna’s age adds further significance to the number 84. It becomes a number of wisdom and proclamation.

If 72+12 = all the people of God, this becomes a passage not just about the sending out of 72, but the sending out of the whole people of God, you and me, sent out two by two.

If the answer is 70 then this become a passage about the destiny of peace’s greeting. “Peace to this house” then becomes a greeting for the whole world.

Is it 70 or 72? I’m just asking for a friend (to whom it matters).

Or do we treasure the happy ambiguity presuming that Jesus and Luke meant both: that the good news of the coming of peace should and would be carried to all nations, and that all God’s people are commissioned to be bearers of peace, even as lambs amongst wolves, even eschewing all the usual self defences?

Tag: 70

Today

70 or 72? Do numbers count in Luke 10?