January 23, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Isaiah 8: 2-9, 9:3 + 1 Corinthians 1 1-33,17 + Matthew 4: 12-23
With Matthew as bridge, we stand between Christmas and Lent. With Matthew as our guide from now until next November, teach is more important than miracles. We shall hear more of what Jesus says than what he does. The narrative of Christ’s birth is closed now. John the Baptist has been killed, but his call to repentance has not been silenced. No sooner than Matthew announces his death, than he has Jesus take up the message himself. Matthew puts Jesus in Zebulun and Naphtali Capernaum, because that’s where the prophet said the Good News would first be heard.
It’s a place like Sayre, Oklahoma. We are not talking about prime real estate here, but the message is clear, no place is too far for the Lord, and no one is too little or of no value. This is a culture of tight family identity. Kinship matters and without it, one is lost. Matthew moves Jesus out of his family, away from “their town” and puts him in a new place where he begins today to form a new family.
And s, to a group of fishermen he comes. Fishermen: people who work hard. These are not men who have power, influence, or prestige. They are unschooled, tough, and they probably smell like dead fish.
They wait – have been waiting a long time. They wait for the fish: but more than that, they wait for the messiah. They are synagogue and prophet-schooled to look, expect, and wait for that messiah who will lead them from gloom and darkness to rejoicing and an abundant harvest. They wait for someone to life the burden and smash the rod of the taskmaster. And so, when he comes along with what power or mysterious appeal we know not, they follow.
Where he takes them however is not where they expect to go. As he puts out his map for the journey into the reign of God next week, we too are invited into the mystery of what it means and where it will lead. We are waiting too, just like the fishermen. We work, we know darkness and gloom, and we are no strangers to oppression terror and anguish.
There is a miracle here, but it takes some faith and some thought to see it. The miracle is that no matter how many times they had gone after another, no matter how often they tried something or someone else, those fishermen got it right that day. They found the one who would take them, the one who would fulfill their dreams and their hopes.
It is a miracle that can be repeated for us. Most of us have tried everything there is everything we could imagine , think of, find, or create. We try drugs, sex, fashion, and money. We try power, oppression, violence, and lately we try war that we try to soften by calling it preemptive. None of those things can ever or will ever bring us peace or joy. They will not bring us security or fulfill our dreams.
We look to politicians for the things that only come from the Messiah. Governments and ideologies do not make peace. Economic systems, materialism, and consumerism do not make us secure, justice does. It is Love not legal systems that brings peace.
The one who says: “Come, follow me.” Offers us the way to find what we have dreamed of since we awakened to sin. We can chase after all kinds of phony plans and systems, ideologies and leaders”, but only one can take us where we long to be. This broken, violent, hungry, and homeless world remains so not because the plan of Jesus has been found inadequate or wanting, but because it has not been given a a chance and put to use by people willing to put down everything and every old way and follow Him.
Perhaps the miracle can happen again, and we shall repent and turn from those old, failed ways and go with Jesus The way may not be exactly as we imagined, and it may not be easy. The presence of God’s reign is so radical and powerful that it calls men and women from the safety and security of everyday routines to a life of unheard-of-newness. For Peter, Andres, James, and Joh, it required a break with fishing and family to join Jesus in “fishing for other.” Following Jesus is not for the tentative and indecisive, maybe that’s why there are so few who take Him seriously. How it shall be for us remains to be seen, but it is clear that we are getting nowhere as it is.anuary 23,