If there is a byword for this week’s lessons, perhaps it is “on the way”.  Call it a slogan or a meme if you prefer. It’s not just a bible thing though. Because a lot of things happen, and maybe nearly everything in life, happens on the way.

In Isaiah the people are on the way back from exile in Babylon. Looking forward to coming home to mother Jerusalem to be nurtured back to spiritual health by proximity to the Temple where God feels so intensely present. Notice that everything is a promise, not yet a present reality.

God will give the city every provision necessary to house, feed, clothe, and heal her citizens. God will restore Jerusalem so that she flows with the gift that her name proclaims. For she is the ir (city) of shalom (peace). Such will be the peace of Jerusalem, that surrounding nations will honor her. And all people dwelling in God’s city will be consoled and comforted.

This is your vision, says Isaiah. To have hearts that rejoice and bodies that are lively. And for all people to know God’s presence and protection. All of it pure gift, none of it earned or deserved.

These remarkable and beautiful promises are in the last chapter, and nearly the final verses of the book of Isaiah. After years of the prophet’s words of warning, accusation, judgment, despair, hope, and consolation, comes a liberty so long hoped-for. With newfound humility and hope the people were on the way. Specifically, after years of immobility they were on the way with God.

In Galatians, people were on the way too. Good things and bad things, blessings and curses, had attended their passage through life to this point. It’s safe to say that every kind of former life was represented in the emerging Christian community. But they had chosen to go a new way.

The apostle Paul recognized that making a new life doesn’t come easily. He was still finding his own way in spiritual recovery. Old ways creep in, even the ones that don’t serve you well. We do what we know, body and soul, for good or for ill.

So, Paul advised them, be kind to one another. Help each other. There’s a lot to do in this rough little corner of the cosmos. Do your part, and don’t get hung up on how others are doing.

You’re on the way, said Paul. God’s way. Jesus taught ways that are good. Keep doing the good.

Think you can slide back into old ways without repercussions? Just remember. What goes around comes around, and sooner than you think. As Jesus said, it’s in your own best interest to be interested in the best for everyone. As in: love God, love your neighbor. Yes. Really.

This is more than advice, said Paul. He spoke from personal experience. Don’t be driven by the need to perform or conform for anyone. You’re dead to all that. Jesus came bringing liberation so that you can walk in a lively new way as messengers of God’s total peace and endless mercy.

In today’s gospel Jesus sent seventy followers out. Other texts say seventy-two. These were factors of the holy numbers seven and twelve. This signaled that though there were some who could not yet follow Jesus, there was an entirely sufficient and holy number who would.

Jesus said, “Go on your way.” But first he equipped them as best he could. Because Jesus knows what can happen while we are on the way.

Do these things, said Jesus.

Ask the Lord for help; in other words, pray on the way. Expect rejection on the way. Travel lightly on the way. Stay focused on the way.

Go with peace, that is, wholeness of spirit, into every place on the way. It will be fulfilled if there is even a single person there whose spirit is responsive. And if no one of such spirit is there, it’s no loss to you.

Accept hospitality uncritically on the way. Be confident on the way that the message you bring is valuable to your host and you are as much a worker as a guest at their table. Heal the sick and announce the nearness of God’s reign.

Shake off inhospitality on the way. Respect people’s freedom to accept or reject what you bring. Announce the nearness of God’s reign and move on.

The messengers of Jesus returned astonished with what had happened on the way. “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” Jesus replied that it was no surprise to him, he’d shared with them his own power to name and heal broken spirits. He’d had a vision of his cosmic opponent being overwhelmed by his travelling messengers of peace. But let’s move on, said Jesus.

A revolution was unfolding as the people went on their way. By their peaceable presence and spiritually healing acts, they brought clarity about what Jesus’s motives were. He was bringing revolutionary thinking through repentance. Teaching us to change the way we think about everything and to trust in the nearness of God’s reign.

Maybe the lesson here is that immobility works against God’s intention for good. That God’s good happens on the way. It’s always better for us to be on the way. As a friend’s physical therapist says, motion is lotion.

Being fluid and mobile rather than parked, paralyzed, or frozen, is not only good physically, but spiritually too. It is along the way that God’s reign does its best, most peaceable, merciful, gracious and revolutionary work in and through us.