Sunday, January 22, 2023

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1-9 (10-14)
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-25

Yahweh is my light and my salvation.

I have a very strange claim to fame: it has snowed everywhere I have lived or visited, even places where it rarely snows. I went to Tampa Florida for Christmas one year and it snowed a few inches while I was there, even on the beach. We lived in the Sacramento Valley of California for a few years. It is a place that rarely has snow, but it snowed enough to cover the ground the day after our first Christmas. There was a half foot of snow on the Sutter Buttes, not far from our home. It snowed in England, Arkansas, and Texas. It is not unheard of in those places, but it is unusual. One reason why we love living in Texas is because it is unusual. I’m not a fan of snow.

There was a period of time when we lived in Washington State. Now, we expected snow in Spokane. It was on the cold side of the mountains and though winters were not extreme, it could get cold, and we often saw ice and snow. One year, however, was terrible. We went for weeks getting several inches of snow almost daily. It wasn’t so bad at first; we had fun in the snow and did the best we could to get around the ever largening piles of plowed snow that quickly blocked the sidewalks. I had to shovel a pathway daily so I could take our daughter to the bus stop so she could go to school. Sometimes I had to shovel twice. It never warmed enough to melt any of the snow, so it just kept building. By the end of the snow, the “tunnel” I created for our pathway was taller than our son. We had nearly a hundred inches of snow that month. I decided then that I would need to move south, that I’d seen my share of snow.

I like snow. Well, I like the way it looks. I think I could live in a snowy place if God would make it snow only on the lawns and trees. The glistening white of the snow on a clear day after a storm is beautiful. I just hate to have to be in the snow. I hate having to drive on the slippery roads. I hate having to shovel the sidewalks. I hate when my clothes get so wet that they are difficult to get off. No matter how much I hate snow, I can’t deny that it is beautiful, almost miraculous.

It didn’t snow much in England, but I remember one time when it did. I had a long black wool coat I wear when it is cold; it keeps me very warm. One day it was snowing while I was waiting for the kids to get out of school. As I waited by the door to pick them up, I noticed the snowflakes falling on my coat. I had never really noticed a snowflake in such detail as I had that day. The flakes landed and stuck perfectly on my coat, making it possible to see even the smallest details, each were individual six-pointed stars. It was almost as if someone were dropping confetti on me from heaven. They sparkled on my coat, and I was awed by such simple beauty in God’s creation.

God is so good to put such beauty and perfection in something as tiny and insignificant as a snowflake. The glory those snowflakes offered is just a glimmer of the magnificence of God’s glory. There is even beauty in those things about His creation that we do not always like or appreciate. I couldn’t see the joy of those snowflakes after a few days in Washington, but they were just like those snowflakes that caught my attention so wonderfully a few years later. The snow which can be inconvenient has a purpose and a beauty to it. The psalmist invites us to sing for joy at God’s marvelous hand in the world.

If there can be such glory in a snowflake, we can only imagine what we will see when we come face to face with our Creator. No wonder the psalmist asked to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. There we won’t face the cold damp or the danger of slippery ice of winter any longer. We won’t need to shovel snow again. Best of all, we’ll be in the presence of God Himself for all eternity.

According to the scriptures, the wise men who followed the star assumed that the new king would be born in Jerusalem. It made sense; where else would one look for the King of the Jews? They discovered from Herod and his priests that the king would come out of Bethlehem, so they went there to see and worship. Now that Jesus is grown, baptized, and beginning His ministry, we might expect that He must end up in Jerusalem. He was born both King and Priest, so He should have gone to the Temple to minister and preach, to work with the priests and serve God in His house. He should be in the center of Jewish faith and the politics of Israel in Jerusalem. Instead, Jesus went to Galilee and lived in Capernaum. Galilee couldn’t be much farther from Jerusalem, not only in geography but also faith and politics. It was set apart from the rest of Israel, and the people lived their faith as they were able, different than those in Jerusalem. It was there that Jesus went when He began His ministry. Why?

Zebulun was the tenth son of Jacob, the sixth son of his wife Leah. He became one of the twelve tribes of Israel, the tribe that eventually settled to the east of the Sea of Galilee. The name Zebulun has two possible meanings. It could mean “gift.” Leah saw Zebulun as a gift, particularly in her sadness over Jacob’s rejection of her. It could also mean “honor,” and it stems from the idea that Leah hoped that her sixth child would finally bring her the honor due to her from her husband. The people from the tribe of Zebulun were known to be scribes and they are remembered for their sacrificial willingness to fight for Israel.

Naphtali was the sixth son of Jacob, the second son of Rachel’s servant Bilhah. The tribe of Naphtali settled north of Zebulun, also just to the east of the Sea of Galilee. His name came out of Rachel’s grief over her own barrenness, “I have wrestled with my sister with mighty wrestlings.” When blessing his sons, Jacob said of Naphtali, “Naphtali is a doe set free, who bears beautiful fawns..” Naphtali had an independent spirit, set apart by geography and topography as it was from the rest of Israel. The people from the tribe of Naphtali were fighters, and like Zebulun they gave their lives sacrificially for the sake of the whole nation.

Both these tribes were conquered by the Assyrians, exiled and lost forever. There are still some people who claim to be from the lost tribes, but between the exile and the intermingling of foreigners with those left behind, there is some question to the credibility of that claim. The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali were located in the same region that came to be known as Galilee, where Jesus roamed and did much of His work. It was home to Gentiles, foreigners. They were not Jews, and yet Jesus spent time with them. He shared His message of hope so that they too might know God’s grace. Though the tribes were lost, Jesus fulfilled the promise found in Isaiah that people who walked in darkness would see a great light. Jesus was the light.

Though Zebulun and Naphtali were burdened by the Assyrians, burdened to the point of being lost forever, Jesus went to break the rod. The captivity of the Northern Kingdom would end. Would the tribes return to their homelands and once again build a nation? No, but the people would be freed from an even greater oppression. That which was lost would be found. That which was forgotten would be restored. What was once divided would be made whole again. The wholeness would be greater than just the restoration of Jacob’s sons, it would include peoples from every nation.

When John was arrested, Jesus withdrew to Galilee. John’s arrest was probably a serious event in Jerusalem: front page headlines and breaking news. The leaders were looking for unrest and the attention John gave to Jesus would have made Jesus the next one they needed to watch. We might have expected Jesus to work out of Jerusalem, after all that was the center of religious and political life in Israel, but Jesus went to Galilee of the Gentiles. Isaiah wrote, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death.” During this season of Epiphany, we think about Christ as the light in so many ways, and we identify with Christ as He reached out to the entire world. Our texts for this week show us how God remembers and fulfills His promises in extraordinary ways.

Was Jesus running away? It might seem so when we consider the atmosphere in Jerusalem at the time. Yet, this was all part of the plan. The prophecy from Isaiah promised that the Messiah would come out of the area known for Zebulun and Naphtali. Matthew recognized the connection when he quoted Isaiah in this passage. During Epiphany, we are reminded that Jesus came to bring the message of hope to all the nations. He came to be a light in the darkness. He came to bring peace between peoples.

There were Jews in the region around the Sea of Galilee; after all, the disciples were Jews. We don’t know much about their lives before Jesus called them to follow Him. Were they strictly observant Jews? Did they travel to Jerusalem according to the Law? Did they visit the temple and or attend worship at a synagogue regularly? The disciples in today’s Gospel lesson (Peter, Andrew, James and John) were fishermen, and while the Jews took the Sabbath seriously, did those fishermen really put down their nets every Sabbath?

Jesus ran into those fishermen one day when He was walking near the Sea of Galilee. According to our Gospel lesson from John last week, Andrew and Peter had already met Jesus, but then they went back to fishing. Jesus found them and called them to join Him. It always amazes me when I see their response to this call. “They immediately left their nets and followed him.” Can you imagine dropping your work and following a man you barely know with no notice? In our day we would think it is irresponsible to do such a thing. Jesus found two other fishermen, James and John, and called them to join Him. They left their boat behind, an irresponsible thing to do, yet they did so seemingly without thought or concern.

Would the priests have answered Jesus’ call with such trust? I doubt it. Why leave cushy positions in the Temple where everything they needed was readily available for a life that was unknown with a guy they didn’t understand? Why follow this rising star that didn’t shine the way they thought He should shine? See, it is hard to see the light in a place where the people think the light is shining. The people of Jerusalem looked to the priests and the leaders to teach them about God, to lead them in faithful lives, but the leaders had their own agendas. They were shining a light, but was it the Light God promised? Would we leave our cushy (or our not so cushy but secure) lives to follow someone into the unknown?

We look at these disciples and we are taken aback by their dedication to Jesus’ ministry. Would we do such a thing? Would we drop our work and walk away from everything to follow Jesus? This is a point that is often preached in our churches in relation to this text. But we have to ask, is that what Jesus calls us all to do? Jesus had many followers. Some of them actually traveled with Him from place to place and town to town. However, what of the people who stayed at home? What of the mothers who believed and took their babies to be blessed but then returned to their housework? What of the businessmen in all those towns who returned to their shops when Jesus left? Did they have less faith than the disciples who dropped everything? Certainly not.

Jesus does call some to extraordinary ministry, but for most of us, He calls us to live our life of faith in the everyday experiences of our lives. Jesus doesn’t look at education or position. He doesn’t pay attention to the outward appearance or the worldly traits. God sees the heart and Jesus knew that those fishermen, though imperfect, would follow Him to the best of their ability. What does He see when He looks at your heart?

Elton Trueblood, the Quaker author, educator, philosopher, and theologian, once said, “There is no vital religion in the world today that is not sectarian, and there cannot be. The reason for this is rooted deeply in human nature. We naturally form into groups and find our best life in reasonably small fellowships. Like-minded fellowships in different committees strengthen one another in conscious loyalty to a heritage. Such groups are called denominations. There is nothing very dangerous or surprising about this and certainly there is nothing about it that is unique to religion. We do it in everything else, as the existence of lodges, political parties and service clubs so abundantly testifies. It is very curious, indeed, that a man who takes for granted the existence of separate organizations for Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions Clubs should profess to be shocked by the fact that Christians are organized in a similar way.”

We may seem divided, and the world uses our divisions as proof that there is nothing of value in the Church. But Jesus looks at our hearts. What does He see? Does He see that we are shining His light into our little corner of the world?

Paul wrote about the division that had been happening in Corinth. Some of the followers were focusing on the evangelist from whom they had heard the Gospel, rather than focusing on the message they shared. They were loyal to Paul or Apollos or Peter rather than loyal to Jesus Christ. There were some very real differences between those fellowships. Paul preached to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews. They were gathered around his message because it met them in their experience and understanding. Peter was sent to take the message to the Jewish community. He preached to them in a way that helped them juxtapose their heritage and faith to this new understanding of God. Apollos preached the Gospel with a baptism of repentance like John, which was a message with which many people identified. Human beings have a hard time accepting a free gift, even one like the Bible, if is not accompanied by some word of Law.

These men preached to their audience and their audience was drawn by the message they preached. What Paul was writing to the Corinthians, however, is that there is not a different message. There is only the Gospel. It is not necessarily a bad thing that the people of Corinth were gathering together like birds of a feather, but he wanted them to realize that they were not divided. They were one in Christ. Paul, who is among the greatest of the evangelists and preachers, did not want anyone ‘following him.’ He was nothing; it was the message that mattered. He was calling the people in Corinth to a life following Christ, not any particular man.

Paul made a big deal about not baptizing many people. His point was that it is God who does the work of grace that is found in baptism, and it is in His name that we are baptized. We will continue to gather around the Word and Sacraments in fellowships with people that are like us; it is natural for human beings to do so. However, we are reminded that we should not be following denominations or pastors, opinions or practices. It is in Jesus Christ that we will find hope, peace and grace. And it is in Jesus Christ that we are made one body with all those birds of a feather that are flying together in their own communities of faith.

As light shines brighter in darkness, grace shines brighter in the lives of those who need it. Jesus could have found some well-educated and faithful priests if He’d gone to Jerusalem. They weren’t all callous, self-centered, and self-righteous. There were even a few who risked everything during the Passion to help Jesus. Jesus chose ordinary men because they could be taught and led down the path God intended. Jesus didn’t call the ones who thought they were divinely called to shine the light to the people; He called those who were living in the shadow of death. He calls us out of darkness into His light, too.

As we ponder why Jesus went to Galilee and why He chose ordinary fishermen, we are reminded that it is never about us, our geography, accomplishments or abilities. The focus is always about God; He is the One who does the work. He is the One who shines. He is the One who forgives. He calls us to join Him in the work, using our gifts and our resources for His purpose. Unfortunately, we don’t always remember that it is about Jesus. We think highly of ourselves, a lot more like those priests and Jewish leaders than the humble fishermen on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Paul brought the focus of the Corinthians back to the work of Christ. Paul, Apollos and Cephas (Peter) were all great preachers. From the stories in Acts, we can see that they all were quite convincing in their arguments and adept at sharing the Gospel message. We can also see that they all had a slightly different vision of the future of the Church. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, Peter to the Jews. They reached these different people in different ways. Peter used the Old Testament witness and the experience of historic faith; Paul reached out to a wider, more diverse audience. Despite their differences, Paul, Apollos and Cephas were united in the same mind and the same purpose, to share the message of the cross.

But the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. It is spiritual but seems so far from spiritual. The message of the cross is that all men are equal, not in their ability to be righteous, but in their inability to be right with God. The work of the cross is that the Son of God, the Word made flesh, came to die so that we might be forgiven. To accept a message such as this, we must accept that we are sinners in need of a Savior. To believe it is to die. This is why the message was foolishness. To the Jews, they were made right with God by their acts of worship, by their sacrifices and their offerings. To the Gentiles, there was no need to be made right with God for they were good by nature. How many today still think righteousness is either earned or innate? Too many people believe this, even in the church.

Jesus Christ came to teach a different message. He came to restore people to God. The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali had been located in the same region that came to be known as Galilee, where Jesus roamed and did much of His work. But they were lost at the time of the exile. It was now home to the Gentiles, foreigners. They were not Jews, and yet Jesus spent time with them. He took His message of hope so that they too might know God’s grace. Though the tribes were lost, Jesus fulfilled the promise found in Isaiah that people who walked in darkness would see a great light. He was the light.

God is so good to put beauty and perfection in something as tiny and insignificant as a snowflake. There is beauty in those things about His creation that we do not always like or appreciate. I couldn’t see the joy of those snowflakes after a few days in Washington, but they were just like those snowflakes that caught my attention so wonderfully a few years later. The glory of those snowflakes is just a glimmer of the magnificence of God’s glory. The snow which can be inconvenient has a purpose and a beauty. The psalmist invites us to sing for joy at God’s marvelous hand in the world.

Jesus fulfilled The words of the psalmist teach us what it means to die; we are to humble ourselves before God. Peter, Andrew, James and John walked away from a life of security to face the unknown with Jesus. We are all called to live unique lives to His glory among their neighbors, friends, and family. However, God calls us to live, let us die to our old life and walk with Christ, sharing the light, the message of the cross, with the world. We are called as Christians to be of one mind and purpose, working together to use our own gifts to glorify God. We are called to share the foolish message of the cross as we are able from the place where we are with the gifts we have been given.

The psalmist wrote, “One thing I have asked of Yahweh, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in Yahweh’s house all the days of my life, to see Yahweh’s beauty, and to inquire in his temple.” This is what it means to die: to humble ourselves before God. The disciples walked away from a life of security to face the unknown with Jesus. God calls us too, inviting us to die to our old life and walk with Christ through the valley of the shadow of death, so that His light might shine through our lives and His grace be experienced by those who still dwell in darkness.