Matthew 4:12-23
January 23, 2011
Last week we read the story of how Andrew and his brother Simon Peter came to be disciples of Jesus. This week, we read the story of how Andrew and his brother Simon Peter came to be disciples of Jesus. But they are totally different stories, with different facts and different settings. This is, of course, because the author of the gospel of John and the author of the gospel of Matthew were trying to make different points about Jesus’ ministry and what it means to be a disciple. They focus on different things.
Last week we saw that Andrew followed Jesus because John the Baptist told him Jesus was the Lamb of God. And after staying with Jesus a few hours, Andrew went to his brother and said he had found the Messiah. I suggested that the author of John’s gospel invites the reader to ask what it takes for us to follow Jesus – to believe he is the Messiah.
This week, we look at Matthew and we find Andrew not with John the Baptist, but with his brother in a fishing boat. We could read Matthew’s account and decide to focus again on what it takes to follow Jesus. We could look at the disciples who left everything as soon as Jesus asked them to. We could ask how much we have to give up, how courageous we have to be. Jesus calls us to follow him and we, like the disciples, should drop everything and follow. And that’s not invalid. In fact, that’s largely how we do read this passage most of the time.
But, another way to approach it is to focus on Jesus – on the nature and power of Jesus’ ministry. In this way, we read it not so much as a story about how we “should” respond, or what we “should” do, but about who Jesus is – who God is – and why that is such good news. If we focus on Jesus, we see that in this passage he announces his public ministry. This will be his message, his mission, his life work according to Matthew. This is the most clear statement Matthew can make of what he believes God is up to in this world. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
“Repent!” “Repent!” We have all heard this from fire and brimstone preachers – either on TV, in the movies, on the street corner, or – notoriously – on college campuses. Repent so you can be saved by Jesus. And we know what this means: We are depraved individuals – sinners of all sorts – in need of salvation. We must confess our sins, repent of them, and turn toward God for forgiveness.
When Jesus utters these words, is he simply the original fire and brimstone, street corner preacher yelling at all the passersby, telling them they are sin-ridden and must repent to be saved? “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near.” It almost comes off as a threat: Repent because God is near and is about to judge and condemn all those who don’t turn from their evil ways. “Let’s go folks! Wake up! Shape up! It’s judgment time.”
When we really look at what’s going on here, I don’t think Jesus’ words are even remotely harsh – no fire…not even an ember, no brimstone…not even toxic residue. Those fire and brimstone preachers stole that word – repent. They stole it and gave it their own meaning. There is nothing in this passage that would make us think repentance is about sin and depravity. In fact Matthew takes care to show us what he means by repentance by quoting the prophet Isaiah right before Jesus speaks these words.
The passage Matthew quotes from Isaiah is about people being oppressed under Assyrian rule. While the prophet makes it clear that this Assyrian rule is because of a broken covenant between God and Israel, most of the people affected weren’t the ones who broke the covenant. It was the kings and rulers who worshipped other gods, hoarded money for themselves, while ignoring the needs of the poor, the orphans, and the widows. The rulers and the elite were the ones who had broken the covenant, and now the poor and the orphans and the widows, along with all the other Israelites, were suffering because of it.
Repentance means “to turn”, and it does, in fact, mean to turn from one reality – a negative one – to another reality – a positive one. But look at this passage. There’s no sinning here. This is not about self abasement or depravity. When Matthew quotes Isaiah to set up Jesus’ ministry, we see that this is about people who live in darkness, largely not of their own making. To those living in “the shadow of death,” as Isaiah puts it, “repent” is the ultimate word of hope: Turn around. Look – there’s another possibility.
Isaiah was talking about those living in darkness in his day. Matthew is talking to those living in similar darkness in his day. One group that fit the bill in Matthew’s day was the fishermen. Fishermen then did not operate in a “free market” economy. The fishing industry was state regulated for the benefit of the elite. The elite were Greeks or Romans who had settled in Palestine following their military conquests, or they were Jews well-connected to King Herod and his sons. Everybody else was poor. Everybody else was poor. Not middle class, but poor. About 5% were elite, 95% were poor. No in between. And living in poverty was living in darkness.
Because of taxes, taxes, and more taxes, fishermen were at the bottom of the economic hierarchy, the main beneficiaries being Caesar, then Herod, then the major tax collectors. Fisherman were almost always in debt – vulnerable to all the consequences that brings including servitude and prison – and they were barely making enough day to day to live. It was hard, back-breaking, work with little or no pay off, literally. In thinking about what a life of darkness looks like, surely fishermen in 1st century Palestine can’t be far off the mark.
When Isaiah and Matthew speak of those living in darkness, they aren’t talking about sin – at least not in the fire and brimstone sense. The disciples weren’t doing anything wrong when Jesus came with his call to “repent!” They were just living crappy lives, spiritually deadening lives. Jesus’ words are spoken to those in darkness and as such it is good news. “Repent!” he says. Turn over here – here is a different world, here is light, here is the kingdom of heaven.
Repentance is for the oppressed, the people who have been conquered, or those at the bottom of economic ladders. It is for those being abused, forgotten, killed, victimized. What the fishermen did when they left to follow Jesus wasn’t necessarily some great, heroic act of faith. They responded to the power of light over the crippling, stifling, deadening darkness. The ministry of Jesus was to seek people out who needed something else because what they had was killing them. And that is the ministry of the living Christ today.
Darkness for the people in Isaiah’s time was Assyrian oppression. Darkness for the fisherman was working day in and day out for no economic gain and no purpose other than filling the coffers of those who controlled your life. And there is darkness today. Darkness for us takes many forms. It is depression, addiction, financial crisis, poverty, war; all of those things that weight us down. All of those things that suck the life right out of us. Jesus calls us out of that darkness.
And what is he calling us to? What does the realm of heaven look like? Maybe the place to start is with what it doesn’t look like – or at least didn’t look like for Andrew, Simon, James and John. And in truth, it really didn’t “look” much different from what they already saw around them, at least in a physical, material way.
The disciples’ lives were equally difficult before and after they joined Jesus in his ministry. They were subject to the same vulnerabilities – lack of resources, food, shelter, safety. Their lives were still under Roman rule – in fact before they joined Jesus they probably weren’t anywhere on the radar screen of the Romans, and now they were running around with a rabble rouser who was ticking off the guys with the guns (so to speak). The world before and the world after looked very much the same in many ways. Yet they were worlds apart.
One of the things we all experience in the depths of darkness is a lack of meaning or purpose. The disciples’ lives were consumed with survival, which only make sense. They didn’t know there could be anything else. They did what they needed to do to eat, feed their families, keep a roof over their head. But at the end of the day, there wasn’t much to show for all their work, and they knew they just had to get up again the next day and start all over again.
This lack of meaning or purpose resides in all kinds of situations where people live in darkness. When violence is all around, it’s hard to see any hope. When someone is depressed they can’t see any possibilities or a world beyond their darkness. When we are stricken with grief, we can lose all connection to the joys of life.
One of the biggest differences between the realm of darkness and the realm of heaven is the presence of meaning and purpose. Jesus doesn’t promise them riches, or a new political king, or the destruction of the tax collectors, or freedom from debt. Jesus promises them that they can both create and reside in the realm of heaven by doing exactly what our text says he set out to do right after the disciples joined him: “Jesus went throughout Galilee proclaiming the good news of the realm of God and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” Serving others, healing others, caring for the outcast, the marginalized, the destitute. This is what it means to live in the realm of heaven – and this is what gives us hope, purpose, and meaning.
The disciples must have found joy and meaning in serving others. They found joy in moving from fishing for fish to fishing for people; moving from a life about survival to a life about serving. That’s the power of Jesus’ ministry. That’s the light, the kingdom of heaven, the reality we can create and join that is so different from the reality in which we most commonly live. The truth and good news Jesus brings is that you can live in a death-dealing world and still have life and light. And you do that by giving life and light to others; by doing ministry with Jesus.
As individuals we put ourselves in the shoes of the disciples. We ask where are we broken? What is our darkness? How do we turn to see and live in the light? Maybe for you, like Andrew and Peter, your darkness is your job, your economic situation, a day to day life that is spiritually deadening. Maybe for you it is not your job but rather a relationship, or grief or loss, or it is an injustice you have experienced. Maybe for you darkness is the constant companionship of shame and fear, depression, loneliness, addiction. Anything that deprives your life of meaning, that leaves you wondering what the point is, that leaves you in despair.
Like the disciples, Jesus calls to us and says I can help you find hope. Follow me and I will show you how to live in such a way that even if your external reality doesn’t change, your whole life will be different. Jesus asks us to turn toward him, toward his way of life, his commitment to others and to the least among us, and in that way of life we will find light.
That’s what this passage might say to us as individuals. What does it say to us as a church? As the church – we put ourselves in the role of the light, because, at our best, we are the living, resurrected body of Jesus. The church is the kingdom of heaven, at least in part – in our own imperfect, human-laden ways. We are the light, we are the ones who should be calling to those living in the darkness, “Hey, look over here, turn around, there’s something better.”
Church, its worship and its ministries, is a space where we step out of what can be a death-dealing world. It’s joining the divine in worship and in serving others. It is where one can find meaning and purpose. For many of us, church is a kind of light in our darkness from time to time. For some it is the light of our life – giving meaning to everything we do from our job to raising children to choosing how to live and love. Church is not perfect. Sadly we can probably all name times it has failed us, caused us pain, brought more darkness than light. But at its best, church is supposed to be the visible manifestation of the kingdom of heaven Jesus proclaimed.
And we become that light by offering meaning and purpose to people’s lives. We become that light when we invite people to join us in healing and helping, in seeking out the lost and lonely, and living with different priorities and values than the death-dealing world around us. We become an alternative for people who are stuck in meaningless lives or are tired of the values of might makes right, more is better, and what’s mine is mine. We give hope when we work for peace and alleviate poverty. We offer light when we reach out to those usually forgotten or despised. The church can transform people’s lives – it can transform our own lives – by changing our entire world view and way of being.
As the church, as the living body of Jesus, we must call people to repent – to turn and look and see how light is possible in a dark world. We must find those living under the weight of darkness and invite them into a realm of hope and healing. We must find ministries and opportunities that serve others and seek out those most hurting. We must offer meaning and purpose by living from different values and with new priorities. Repent – look over here! Here’s something that will bring you life! Come, follow Jesus, and your life will never be the same. Amen.
