Sermon Epiphany 3 2014

Isaiah 9:1-4

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Matthew 4:12-23

I hope you are all having a good Christmas! Because of course, while the world outside seems to think that Christmas ends on the 25th of December, the Church thinks that’s when it begins. And it goes on for 40 days, until the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 40 days after he was born, which we shall celebrate next Sunday. 

As our Epiphany house reminds us, in this season we remember not only the birth of Jesus but also his naming, his Epiphany and the visit of the Magi, and his baptism in the Jordan. It is a season of beginnings and revelations: Jesus is revealed, shown to the world, in various ways.

Today is a beginning and a revelation, as Jesus appears and calls his first disciples. This is the beginning of the main section of Matthew’s Gospel, and it is a good time to read it, as through the year we too will follow Jesus and hear his teaching as the Gospel story unfolds.

Matthew’s Gospel was probably written in and for a group of Jewish Christians after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. They had had a tough time, they had experienced persecution and loss, marginalised by their own people and possibly rejected by their families for their belief in Jesus. And there is much in today’s reading, and throughout the Gospel, which would have had a particular resonance for them in their own situation. But it also speaks to us.

Jesus has chosen to begin his ministry, and call his first disciples, in Capernaum, on the shores of lake Galilee. This is a long way from Jerusalem,  the centre of religious and political power. And Matthew quotes Isaiah calling it “Galilee of the Gentiles”. Even in the time of Jesus it was a multicultural region, with people of different races and faiths living side by side. An important trading route - the “road by the sea” - ran through it from Syria to Egypt, bringing all kinds of different people and influences into the area. It is here in the melting pot of cultures, where boundaries are blurred and shifting, that Jesus chooses to begin his ministry. It is here that a great light shines, as Jesus begins his ministry with call to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.

And he begins by calling people to follow him. Repentance means turning around, pointing our lives in a different direction. But Jesus says more: we must also follow. Repentance is not static, it’s a new way of living. It is precisely not carrying on as before. Like the Kingdom of Heaven, it is something happening, the new way in which life will unfold for those who follow Jesus. If the Kingdom of Heaven is happening where Jesus is, if the light is breaking in where Jesus is, then that is where we want to be. And he does not stand still. 

In this short story we see both the attraction of Jesus and the cost of following him. These four disciples immediately leave everything - boats, nets, family - to follow Jesus. Did they know what lay ahead? No! But Jesus called them, and that was enough. They leave what was familiar behind and launch out into the unknown. It is an act of faith. And the mere presence of Jesus has given them that faith. Faith is a living relationship with a living person, Jesus the Lord. It is believing and trusting, whatever the path ahead will hold, because Jesus walks with us. Faith is God’s gift in us when we sense his light shining, his call in our lives.

For these first disciples the path ahead will take them to Jerusalem, to betrayal and fear, to the cross and the empty tomb. They will be among the witnesses and preachers of the resurrection, because they have known and followed Jesus along the way. 

They knew, as Christians down the ages have known, that when Jesus enters your life and says “follow me” nothing is ever the same again. The cost may be great. For some it may entail rejection by family or society, or persecution. It may entail difficult decisions to stay faithful when everything around us seems to be pulling in the other direction. It may entail simple honesty about the hard facts of life like incurable illness and death, when many people don’t want to admit that such things happen, want to turn away from the risks of the future. But when we find in Jesus the fulness of life and peace everything else becomes relative. The gift of faith that he awakens in us enables us to step into a future that we don’t know or control, because the future into which we are heading is the future with Jesus in it.

Jesus says, “follow me”. He doesn’t say, “admire me”, or “like me on Facebook”, but “follow”. Join in with what I am doing. The first disciples are called for a purpose - that they may “fish for people”, which is what Jesus is doing. They are to spread the good news of the Kingdom and draw more people in, yet more followers, yet more disciples, yet more people to carry and spread the good news. The church down the ages begins here, on the shores of Galilee, and these four who first follow Jesus will become the uncounted millions in every century and nation.

The path of discipleship means following, learning, being subject to a discipline. It’s like being in training. If you want to be a footballer, it is not enough simply to go to football matches and watch. If you want to be an artist, you need to do more than go to art galleries and look at the pictures.

To be a disciple means to learn, to be attentive, to practice. It means to make mistakes. These four disciples, like the others who come later, get it wrong. Often. They mistake the purposes of Jesus. They want the places of power. They turn away from the cross. Peter will deny that he knows Jesus at all.

Jesus knows this, perfectly well, and calls them anyway. Just as he knows us. To follow Jesus is to be on a journey, not to arrive instantly at the destination. But it is a journey in which grace is constantly working on us and transforming us. We learn from every failure. Every sin forgiven deepens our love and gratitude and joy. The tale of our halting progress along the way is the tale of the triumphs of grace.

Like the story of the disciples, the story of our following Jesus is one that is properly seen from its end rather than from its beginning. Just as the Gospel can only be understood, and indeed was only written, because of the resurrection. Because faith in Jesus, risen and glorified, means faith in the work of his grace in us, a work which he will bring to completion. As the first letter of John says:

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

So we do not lose faith, and we do not lose heart. Jesus calls us to follow him. His call draws us in to his life and his light, and gives us the promise that he will not give up on us. It is his path that we are following, he walks with us on the way, and we can trust him to the end.