Mt 10:1-7
1[Jesus] summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. 2The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; 4Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.
5Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. 6Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ ”
THE TWELVE: Social analysis of Jesus’ followers points to two basic groups. The first is the coalition kind. It is an informal, fluid, impermanent network of relations focused on limited goals. The coalition group is the crowd that follows Jesus. They have high regard of him—though their opinions may vary. They are loyal to him, but they may divide their loyalty with other leaders. Crisis may prevent them from further following, as what happened to the disciples who could not accept the idea of Jesus giving his flesh to eat (Jn 6:66).
A more formal, tightly knit, and permanent group is the faction kind, formed around a central person. It is also called ingroup or core group. The twelve disciples whom Jesus summons in the Gospel reading is this kind of group. They are called “apostles” because they are sent on a mission (from the Greek apostello, to send). At other times, they are simply referred to as the Twelve (twelve is a symbolic number, harking back to the twelve tribes of Israel).
Jesus sends out the Twelve to proclaim the same message he had at the outset of his career: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17). He further raises the status of his core group by empowering them to heal and to cast out demons. God alone has the power to heal and to exorcise. They are to be “brokers” of God’s power just like Jesus. Jesus elevates the chosen disciples to a position like his.