Year A

Matthew 4:12-23

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Eyes Opened to the Epiphanies

Here we are together again on this beautiful Sunday morning in January. It’s a beautiful day despite what the weather outside is doing because in a few minutes through the sacrament of holy baptism we will welcome a new member into the family of God, Texie Joy Martin. Yet, with Christmas several weeks behind us, and Lent and Easter several weeks or months before us, we have come to that time in the year when we can all use a few Epiphany’s in our lives as we settle into the routine. Epiphanies as you know are those awe inspiring moments that shake us out of the routine and open our eyes to something new. So it’s no accident that in this season called Epiphany the texts are all trying to do that very thing. 

They seek to open our eyes to come to understand that Christmas and Easter despite all their wonders, neither is sufficient to sustain us in the hard work of following Jesus during the daily routine of our lives. Therefore, during these weeks between Christmas and Easter, the scriptures seek to help us deepen our faith and have us reflect upon what it means to respond yes to the call of Jesus on our lives. Peter, Andrew, James and John in our gospel text this morning, fishermen, sure had their eyes opened that day by the Sea of Galilee when Jesus called them to help him in the routine of their lives to a new kind of fishing expedition. I can’t help but marvel at these men who simply dropped their nets, left their families, to follow Jesus. It hardly seems real.

Yet, they did and so many have. I did many years ago when I responded “yes” to God’s call into ministry. God had to move a lot of stumbling blocks so that I could leave my home of 40 years and my family but God has a way of making what we may think is impossible, possible. And God still does make the impossible, possible when we accept Jesus’ invitation to follow-not merely to believe, to agree or to support, but to follow him. What about you and Jesus’ call on your life? It’s natural to be hesitant, uncertain maybe, possibly asking ourselves what we have to offer God, but as we see from today’s text God calls ordinary people like you and me, just like he did that day on the Sea of Galilee to ordinary fishermen, to works of faith. This is when and how epiphanies happen in our lives.

Jesus is constantly calling people to be disciples and as we choose to follow him, we join with others who are making the same choice. We walk together on the road of faith to do the work of God’s kingdom. Last week, John in his gospel, gave us his version of the call of the disciples along with John the Baptist’s testimony concerning the baptism of Jesus at the river Jordan. The text today from Matthew, takes us one step further, after Jesus’ baptism and temptations in the desert, and upon hearing of his cousin John the Baptist’s arrest, Jesus heads to Nazareth to make his home in Capernaum by the sea. There he begins his public ministry and the calling of the disciples who decide immediately, to follow him.

Matthew, our gospel writer and one of those disciples who also left everything to follow Jesus and was extremely knowledgeable of the OT or Hebrew scriptures as he was a Jew, uses our text today from Isaiah in our gospel text in order to explain the ministry of Jesus. Matthew records the beginning of Jesus ‘public ministry to an audience that is largely Jewish who would have understood the meaning behind the Isaiah passage and would have seen in Jesus the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming of the great light, the Messiah. The messiah’s coming will bring joy, victory, hope and assurance. The hopelessness and desperation of the world in Isaiah’s day, the darkness and despair that accompany sin will be driven away as sin is vanquished. Mathew see’s in Jesus the fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise of a light to dawn in Israel that will become a daybreak of God’s glory for all the nations.

And because of Jesus’ movement, where Jesus travels from his hometown of Nazareth which lies on the edge of what was once the territory of Zebulun to Capernaum within Naphtali’s former district, Matthew also identifies his movement as fulfillment of Isaiah’s geographical map-painting. Yet, as we read, Jesus doesn’t begin his ministry until after John the Baptist has been arrested and removed from his public witness, because Matthew also understands John the Baptist’s role as that of the final OT prophet, his end and Jesus’s coming signals the transition from the old age, the OT age into the new, messianic age. All of these prophecies come together for Matthew as Jesus appears on the scene. 

This understanding of prophecy fulfilled is what Matthew then uses to interpret Jesus’ initial teaching. Jesus begins his mission by telling the people to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” This was the exact same message as that of John the Baptist. So when Jesus begins using the Baptist’s message, it becomes clear to those listening that the Messiah has arrived. This is the dawn of the new messianic age. Jesus’s ministry begins with all that is necessary from Jesus, a mere command, “repent” and “Come, follow me!” to those first disciples and they leave everything, the family business and join him to bring in God’s kingdom. Jesus’ call to follow has not changed theses many years and the demands are not any less. 

The church today faces many of the same issues that the church faced when Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians all those years ago on his third missionary journey. He wrote, in part, because he had heard that some things were going on in that church that contradicted the gospel and were a hindrance to the mission of Jesus. In his letters, he tried to bring those things to the surface and to set them in the context of the Christian faith so that the Christians would know what to do about them and we still look to Paul’s advice today. Those Corinthian saints had been baptized in Christ, baptized into the way of Jesus which is following in the way of his cross. “A cross that is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Paul wanted his fellow Christians to know that the light of God will shine on them in order for them to see the way forward as witnesses for the Lord. God promises to enlighten the way that we should travel in life, to make what we may think is impossible, possible, to guide our feet while we run the race. In Jesus, we find the way forward. We can lay down our nets leave everything to follow our Messiah, our savior, to bring his light and love to others. It may be a simple word of wisdom or a gentle gesture of love, a kind word of encouragement or a hug. It may be offering a listening ear to someone who needs to talk. Any way that one may relieve another’s burdens reveals the work of the light of God because this light, it calls and it saves. What an epiphany! What a mission we have as the followers of Christ!

I would like to close with a poem by Barbara Jurgensen titled ‘Fishing.’