epiphany 3 year A

Isaiah 9: 1-4 NRSV text
Psalm 27: 1, 4-9 NRSV text
1 Corinthians 1: 10-18 NRSV text
Matthew 4: 12-23 NRSV text

This is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Matthew’s gospel. The Prologue is over – the Infancy Narrative, the proclamation of the Baptist, Jesus’ baptism and the temptations. Jesus is ready to begin his ministry; Matthew is ready to launch into his story proper. He follows Mark with Jesus’ appearance in Galilee, with the same summary of Jesus’ message:

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near! (4:17)

The voice that will not be silenced (4:12)
But before he moves to the ministry, look at what Matthew crams into his narrative (4: 12-16). These introductory verses to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry are absolutely crucial to Matthew’s theology of Jesus as the Son of David and his understanding of the Kingdom.

He has done what the other evangelists do and cleared the stage of that other great figure of the moment: John the Baptist. The Baptist has been arrested. Clearly, John was a threat. He was a prophet – and he wasn’t preaching a comfortable message! The reason he was in prison was because of his fearless denunciation of Herod (the son of Herod the Great) who had unlawfully married his sister-in-law, Herodias (see 14: 1-5).

Yet Matthew does something with the Baptist that the other evangelists do not. We saw two weeks ago how Matthew emphasises the continuity between Jesus and John by putting the same summary message on both John’s and Jesus’ lips: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near” (cf 3:2). The effect of this is to do something very different in having Jesus begin his own ministry just as John ends: this is not primarily a stage-clearing exercise in order to say, “Now we’ve got the minor figures out of the way, it’s time to concentrate on the really important bloke – Jesus!” Matthew retains the central role that Jesus has vis a vis the Baptist, but his primary purpose is to tell us that the message of the Kingdom will not be silenced! The powers can put John in prison and behead him (can there be a more eloquent image of silencing???) but the Good News of the Kingdom will not be cut off: it is picked up immediately by Jesus.

Jesus is more important than John because John is the messenger of the Good News; in Jesus, that Good News will be enacted (cf 4:23). The Kingdom has indeed drawn near – in the very person of Jesus. And it is part of Matthew’s message to us that Jesus is none other than the true King of the Kingdom, as opposed to the pretenders to the throne (Herod the great and his son, Herod).

Jesus the Judge
But Matthew also wants to emphasise that Jesus is the Judge of the Earth. Whereas Luke uses the Baptist’s message of judgement (the Q material in 3:7-12) as a contrast to Jesus’ message of grace, Matthew wants to portray Jesus as the Judge to whom all authority on heaven and earth has been given (28:18). The message of the Kingdom is judgement on all other forms of authority and all other priorities. It is the criterion against which everything else will be assessed.

Note that Matthew does not present Jesus as the agent of the wrath of an angry God! Jesus is no “hellfire and damnation” figure. The God of the Kingdom – the God whom Jesus calls Father – is not the offended law-giver who unleashes divine fury against those who are disobedient. At the outset of his ministry, Jesus (in the very next chapter) will preach the Sermon on the Mount – the New Law for the New Israel. There will be two conspicuous characteristics: the first is the emphasis on forgiveness and grace; the second is the “hardening” of the Law (cf 5:21-32). Yet the hardening of the Law is not to make it more difficult to keep, but rather, to recognise the radical challenge of living by grace! If love is the heart of the Law (5:43-48) and means that we receive love and grace from God instead of wrath and judgement, we ought to manifest the same, more radical love and grace towards out neighbours.

There is real anger and judgment in Jesus’ ministry in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is indeed going to fulfil John’s announcement that Jesus will “baptise with fire”, clear the threshing floor and burn up the chaff. Yet it is aimed, not against the “sinners” (who receive grace, forgiveness and liberation) but against the twin pillars of the Jewish religious establishment: the scribes and Pharisees, on the one hand, and the Jewish monarchy, on the other. These are the people who will collude in murdering Jesus.

Twice in Matthew’s gospel Jesus pronounces judgement on the scribes and Pharisees (16: 5-12; 23: 1-36). They “travel the world to make a new convert, and then make the convert twice as fit for hell as they are themselves” (23:15). These are the guardians of the Law – and they revel in the power that this gives them. They use the Law for their own gain, rather than manifesting God’s grace and love. The Pharisees supposed that the Messiah would come when Israel had been purified; Jesus’ point is that it is the Temple system and the teaching on Torah that needs purifying!

Similarly, kingship was understood as a sign and means of God’s grace, presence and rule. Yet the monarchy as represented by Herod and his sons is not the true monarchy – because they rule for their won benefit. Jesus is the true Son of David – the true King of the Jews. It is the Kingdom he proclaims that is what God intends. And because it is the Kingdom of Heaven in which God reigns, it will prevail – which means that everything else that ranges itself against it will fail and fall and be judged.

Judgment, then, is a reality. Yet, surprisingly, God’s wrath is directed, not against the people, but against those who exercise the levers of power that imprison people in false understandings of God’s Law and God’s rule. These are the ones who are implacably opposed to Jesus and all that he stands for. They will not hear. They will not recognise Jesus as the coming King and Messiah – because they are not willing to do so (cf 23: 37-39). For this reason, Jesus will pronounce and execute God’s judgement upon them – ultimately, through crucifixion and resurrection.

The gospel to the whole world (4: 13-16/Isaiah 9: 1-4)
The opposition to the message of the Kingdom is centred in Jerusalem. John the Baptist is in the wilderness, yet even at this distance, he is not safe. When John’s message of the Kingdom brings him into direct conflict with the royal powers, those powers will move to murder him – just as they sought to murder Jesus from his birth, and will actively seek to do so throughout his ministry.

Jesus therefore moves to the Galilee. Matthew’s citation of Isaiah 9: 1-2 (v15) and Isaiah 42:7 (v16) appears to be a clumsy way of “prophetically scripting” Jesus’ presence in the Galilee – a sort of “prophetic/messianic read-back”. Yet Matthew is doing something important here: he wants to link Jesus’ ministry from its very outset to the mission to the Gentiles.

For all the fact that Matthew’s is a thoroughly “Jewish” gospel, we need to recognise the sense in which he wants to stress that Jesus the Messiah is Good News for the whole of creation. His whole gospel comes to a climax with precisely this announcement:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (28: 18-20).

Matthew picks up the Isaiah quotations in order to remind us of something that has always been fundamental to the covenant that Yahweh makes with Israel: Yahweh chooses Israel, not out of concern for Israel and lack of care for the rest of the world, but precisely in order to be a blessing to the whole world! The passage in Isaiah 9: 1-4 is about the Davidic empire being extended. The purpose of the monarchy is to establish the rule of Torah. Here the empire is being extended into the Gentile region of the Galilee in order that Yahweh’s rule is extended beyond Israel. The extension of the empire means the extension of Torah – the means of Yahweh’s grace for society.

Matthew links this text to Isaiah 42:7 in order to make clear this connection: the rule of Yahweh brings salvation. It is light in the darkness. Remember: the beginning of Jesus’ ministry follows immediately upon the temptation narrative. The last temptation that Jesus has had to face is to inherit “all the kingdoms of the world” in return for worshipping the devil (4: 8-9). He has resisted this final temptation – to be king of “the world’s kingdoms”.

But what exactly has Jesus resisted? The citation of Isaiah 42:7 makes this clear: he has resisted being a king of darkness. The kingdoms of this world are trapped in darkness. Jesus can have them – and they will remain in darkness. But Jesus has come to bring light and salvation. Because of this – because he has chosen another way – the message of the Kingdom he brings is light in the darkness and the shadow of death. Jesus will indeed inherit all the kingdoms of the world (cf yet again 28:18); his rule, however, will bring light and Life.

”Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near”
The kingdom of light and salvation has come close in Jesus. It has come into the realm of darkness. That means that the people in darkness need radically to change the way they’re living – not because of fear of punishment, but because the Kingdom means a radically new and different way of living.

We need to understand “repent” in this wide sense, rather than in its more traditional and narrow sense of “turn away from your sins!” It literally means “change your mind” or “turn around”. It could legitimately be translated, “Live completely differently!” It involves both turning from (or putting away) the old ways and embracing the new. In other words, it will mean different things for different people, and what it will mean for them will emerge in the course of the narrative of Jesus and those who follow him – not only the close group of The Twelve, but the wider circle of those whom Jesus encounters.

“Follow me, and I will make you fish for people”
Small wonder, then, that Matthew hurries us on immediately to the call of the first disciples. The phrase “for they were fishermen” (v18b) sounds almost obvious, yet it tells us something of the radical nature of Jesus’ call to follow in the next verse.

Jesus calls them to leave their nets – their boats, their livelihoods, and their families. That in itself is pretty extreme! Imagine, for a moment, being Peter, Andrew, James or John. You’re pursuing your day’s work, and a complete stranger comes up and says, “Okay – leave those. You won’t be needing them anymore. Give up your jobs, leave your families and friends, and from now on, you come and follow me!” Can you imagine the conversations that must have taken place in those 4 Capernaum homes that evening?

But there’s more to it than that. Being fishermen was not simply a job that they chose to do entirely for themselves. They were part of the local village economy. The village needed fishermen. This was the role they played in the wider community. We need to remember that we’re dealing with small subsistence-economies on a village scale. Their departure would be a blow to the whole economy and way of life of the village.

What could justify this sort of radical departure from the norm? What could possibly justify abandoning the family and putting the welfare of the community at risk? Only the Kingdom! Only the announcement that, with the drawing near of the Kingdom, everything was going to have to change. The old ways and priorities are not appropriate – they belong to “the kingdoms of the world”. That is not so say that they were “dark” or “sinful”: it simply means that the Kingdom is a kairos – a visitation from God – whose importance eclipses everything else. Small wonder, then, that the issues of family loyalty crop up at several points in the gospel! They weren’t “theological concepts” – they were live, hot issues!

The call to follow is thus what is meant by “repentance” for Peter, Andrew, James and John. For them, it means leaving everything in order to follow Jesus. Jesus does not extend that same call or demand to everyone. Other people will become his disciples, without being asked to do what these 4 are asked. We are notall called to follow Jesus in the same way, or to exercise the same ministry. The point is, we need to respond in whatever way is appropriate to the call we receive to follow Jesus. That is our “repentance”.

The second part of repentance – embracing the Kingdom – is given in the commission: “I will make you fish for people”. Now that will sound either poetic or slightly sinister – or both! – depending on how “fishing for people” resonates with you. For some, it will sound unsavoury, conjuring up associations of “scalp hunting” and the very worst forms of Church recruitment! But here, the association is entirely positive. The disciples are fishermen – that is their contribution to the local economy. Instead, Jesus tells them, they will follow him and contribute to the Kingdom – something much larger that embraces the economy of Capernaum and, indeed, the whole world! And although it appears to everyone (and possibly to the disciples themselves!) that they are abandoning their responsibilities to home and village, in fact they are contributing to those same families and village something even greater: light and life!

“Only Jesus is worth following so radically!” (1 Corinthians 1: 10-18)

With this week’s reading from the epistle, we are straight into the heart of the problem in Corinth: there are divisions that centre around the personalities of different apostles (Paul, Apollos, Cephas). This section of the letter runs from 1:10-4:21.

But exactly what are these divisions? It was the 19^th century scholar FC Baur who first proposed the thesis that Paul is talking here about distinct “parties”. The Greek word for “divisions” (“schismata”, from which we get our English word “schism”) makes this attractive, and it is the thesis that has dominated.

The problem with this theory is that the letter doesn’t go on to address the issue of “parties” – or if it does, Paul is remarkably (and uncharacteristically) short on lucidity and strong argument! Nor does his dealings with the Church suggest that they were divided on issues along party lines. Most importantly, there is no suggestion that the “party leaders” themselves were divided (Paul speaks very warmly of Apollos in the letter – hardly his sort of language when dealing with an opponent!). In other words, assuming the existence of “parties” doesn’t immediately open up the letter helpfully.

How, then, are we to understand the “divisions” within the Corinthian Church? It makes best sense to read Paul’s concern as how he is to deal with a Church that is divided against Paul, its founding apostle. “Schismata” could indeed mean “divisions along party lines”; its more natural meaning is “tears” or “rents”. In other words, Paul’s concern is not with a Church that has competing factions, but with a Church torn apart by rivalries and competing personalities. These personalities are not the apostles listed by Paul, but rather individuals within the Corinthian Church.

But over what issue? I think the best clue lies in vv 17-19, in which 2 contrasting emphases appear that reappear again and again as Paul takes the Corinthians to task: wisdom, and the “foolishness of the cross”.

For Christ did not send me to baptise but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

This, I think, is the key. The Corinthians have misunderstood the visiting apostles for a “Christian version” of wandering Greek philosophers – teachers of wisdom (“sophia”). These were men renowned for their powerful rhetoric. It seems that the Corinthians have re-interpreted the Christian gospel in terms of philosophical wisdom-teaching, and have become a community proud of their “wisdom” and spiritual gifts. There is competition among the would-be leaders to be seen as the “wisest”. They want to lead – with an authority that is based on rhetorical and philosophical skill, just as happens within the wider Hellenistic communities.

The problem for Paul is that his original gospel message lacks the clout of wisdom! Look at Paul’s own statement of his original preaching in 2:1-5:

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Clearly, Paul, in retrospect, did not cut a particularly glorious figure as a preacher and teacher of wisdom! Here he is, repeating and owning the criticisms of him circulating within the Church that he has heard of first-hand through Chloë’s people. Paul was fine – to start with! But as the community grew, and they heard other, better preachers, Paul became sidelined by many influential people in the Church, and with him, his gospel of the crucified Christ. Hence these would-be leaders were aligning themselves with the (supposedly) superior preaching skills of Apollos and Peter as authority for their own, modified, cross-free pseudo-gospel.

Let’s be clear: the message of the cross is genuinely foolish! Once we accept that it is through the cross that God achieves salvation for the world, we can explore the “logic of the cross” in all sorts of creative depth. But the fact remains: why do it that way in the first place? It seems so absurd! Paul is well aware of that – in fact, it mirrors his own experience. For Saul of Tarsus, the cross was proof positive that Jesus was a dangerous heretic who had nothing to do with God’s ways. Yet he meets Jesus on the Damascus Road. He cannot get round this: against every expectation, against every tenet of good Jewish theology, and against all logic, Jesus crucified is the ultimate manifestation of the will and character of the God-who-saves! He cannot justify it: he can only proclaim it as the gospel. And that means that Paul is sidelined – and with him, that central gospel message. Other, more influential people hold both political and theological sway in the community.

Paul is hyper-aware of the dangers of personality cults within the Christian Church. His concern in this letter isn’t to win back admiration and standing; his problem is more difficult: how can he reassert his apostolic authority without buying into the whole business of personality cults himself?

His response is this: to reassert the primacy of the crucified Christ. At the end of the day, he wants to tell the Corinthians, it is Jesus alone who must be followed. Paul is only God’s faithful mouthpiece – the announcer of Good News. He, like the Baptist, has significance only to the extent that he points away from himself to the crucified Christ and says, “There! Look – the power and the wisdom of God!” (cf 3:5)

How does Paul himself deal with all the temptations that face Christian leaders to get themselves a following and win the admiration and authority that Church people are only too eager to invest in their leaders? Only by the overwhelming astonishment at the Messiah’s willingness to go to the cross! This is what makes Jesus worth following. As he says to the Corinthians, “No one else was crucified for you! You claim to follow Apollos, or Peter, or even me: was I crucified for you? No!” (cf 1:13) It was Jesus alone who went to the cross for us; it is Jesus alone who is worth following – who alone has the right to demand, “Leave everything and follow me!”

The cost of faithful leadership (Psalm 27: 1, 4-9)
We are back to the radical re-orientation of life required by the nearness of God. Psalm 27 expresses both confidence in Yahweh and Israel’s deepest desire when she is being most faithful: to have communion with Yahweh. All other priorities pale into insignificance. This is the Old Testament sense of Jesus’ announcement to “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near”. Yahweh is present, desiring fellowship with Israel, and nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of living in communion with this God.

What would this psalm have meant to Paul as he wrestled with the problems of the Corinthian Church? Paul did not find living with “Church” easy. He was someone whose personal experience on the Damascus Road had made him only too aware of both of the radical changes required in following Christ and the ability of the community of faith to “tame” those demands and make them more palatable. He was alive to the fact that compromise did not only deaden the power of the gospel, but cut people off from its heart.

Paul faced enormous pressure to conform for the sake of peace. He loved the communities he established. He agonised over them. He felt responsible for them. And here, with the Corinthian Church, many among his “children in the faith” had become his enemies, actively working against him. It must have been heart-breaking – indeed, if we read his letters, sensitised to this, we find incredibly poignant passages that disclose his hurt, agonies and wrestling with the temptation to back down.

But Paul chooses, like the psalmist, to put his trust in God. When he hurts like a child who has been abandoned by its parents, he turns to the God who will comfort him with all the tenderness of a father and mother (v10).

Paul, like the psalmist, knows that following Jesus Christ is not possible in his own strength. The powers ranged against him are too strong. It is Jesus alone who resisted the offer of the kingdoms of this world in order to bring about that other Kingdom: Paul needs to commit himself daily into the care and faithfulness of that same Jesus, and to be filled with the same Spirit who was with Jesus in the wilderness when he faced the temptations. That daily discipline is what is needed to follow the one who calls, saying, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of people”.

Amen.

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