Epiphany 3A
January 26, 2020

Merciful and generous God, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I want to begin by acknowledging that our lesson from Isaiah this morning sounds like it is teeing up the Gospel lesson. It sounds like Isaiah was anticipating Jesus. But Isaiah wasn’t anticipating Jesus any more than Isaiah or Jesus were anticipating what George Frederic Handel might do with this beautiful poetry. Actually, it is exactly the other way around. Matthew was living and growing in the stories of Jesus, at least two generations after Jesus’ death. Matthew was retelling those stories toward the end of the first century of the common era and thinking, “these stories sound so much like the stories that Isaiah told eight hundred years ago!” Isaiah was delivering an oracle of hope to the people of Judah who were in deep distress, danger, and despair.

Isaiah, in turn, was most likely thinking about Gideon (from hundreds of years before Isaiah), who, when the angel of the Lord visited him to say that “The Lord is with you,” replied, “but sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this [calamity] happened to us?” (This is a truly a timeless question.) Then the Lord turned to Gideon and said, “Go in the might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.” And Gideon replied, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The Lord said to him, “But I will be with you….” [1] And so the story goes in the Book of Judges, that Gideon freed his people from the oppressive rule of the Midianites. 

In all three cases, the book of Judges, the book of Isaiah, and the book of Matthew, “the former time” refers to a time of alienation from the Holy One, and the “latter time” refers to a time of homecoming and restoration of relationship with the Holy One. In no case is the former time or latter time the only time or the final time. It’s always one of my goals to proclaim the Gospel without ignoring or misappropriating or obscuring the significance(s) of Hebrew Bible texts for ancient Israel. For Matthew, Jesus had offered his people freedom from the oppressive rule of the Romans. Of course the Romans were still in power, but Jesus had offered his followers a way to live with dignity, even in the face of death. Once (or whenever) you stop fearing death, you can start living and loving so much more fully. In every case, moving from former to latter times involves moving from fear to trust in the light or the way of Love.

Our Gospel lesson for this third Sunday in Epiphany is the passage from Matthew about Jesus, having heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, picking up John’s work, quoting John directly. He moved back to Galilee. Nazareth is in Galilee, but it was a quiet village in the hills. Matthew tells us that Jesus moved from there to Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, which was a bustling fish and olive oil processing center in the direct sight line of Herod Antipas who had established the city of Tiberias at the southern tip of the sea. Capernaum is about six miles north of Tiberias – an hour and a half walk. I should say that, for those of you who haven’t been there, “sea” is a pretty grand word for a fresh-water lake, about 7 miles across and a little more than 12 miles long. Jesus was moving out of safety toward danger, not away from it. Jesus was moving out of obscurity into a cosmopolitan territory, a center of political and economic activity. 

Jesus’ ministry began along The Way of the Sea, the Via Maris (or in Hebrew Derech HaYam), which was one of the most important trade routes in the ancient Middle East, connecting Egypt to Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia (modern day Turkey, Iraq and Iran). It ran along the western side of the Sea of Galilee, through Capernaum, Tabgha, and Magdala, and near Tiberias. The road was controlled by toll and tax collectors; the lake was controlled by fishing police who checked contracts and licenses.[1] Fishing and fish-processing were highly exploited by the Roman Empire, which place an impossibly heavy burden on laborers.[2] According to the historian Josephus, Herod Antipas, who oversaw the region was a lover of luxury in a way that was over the top. Fishermen and fish-sellers, on the other hand, worked in the most shameful occupations, just a notch above tax collector, that is. We only know two of the jobs or work skills among Jesus’ first twelve disciples: four were fishers and one was a tax collector. Were the other seven unemployed when Jesus called them to learn from him? We don’t know. Did he try to call people from other trades who turned him down? We don’t know that either.

I used to think that if the promise of fishing for people made them drop their nets, maybe they didn’t have much to lose. But Peter complains, later in Matthew’s Gospel that they have given up everything to follow Jesus. Clearly, for Peter, Andrew, James and John, there was something so compelling about Jesus and his teaching, healing and feeding ministry that they just had to go. There was something in Jesus’ call that touched the longing within their hearts for changing their world – both for themselves and for so many others who were suffering.

The idea that they left immediately often stirs up anxious conversation in places like this. It might help to know that the word can refer to a very short amount of time – as in “right away.” Or it can mean, “the very next event which is relevant to the total context.” It might be like looking back on a sequence of events and saying, “the next thing you know, they put down their fishing nets and left their boats and started traveling with Jesus.” It might have been a matter of minutes or a matter of days or months. Jesus and those first followers might have been total strangers to each other or Jesus might have known them for a while – we don’t know. What they heard was evidently some kind of wake up call.

The part that gets less talking time in the Bible study circles I travel in is that part about fishing for people. It’s generally considered a part of the Christian job description. I know that saying that will make some of you say, “oh, well I’m not really a Christian, I just come here for (well, you can fill in the blank).” Believe me, I’m glad you’re here regardless of who or what you’re fishing for! And I have to say that I have a strong sense that Jesus is fishing for you.

Here’s the thing about fishing like they do on the Sea of Galilee. You don’t use bait or hooks; you cast a large net and then pull it up to see what has gotten tangled up in it. You do it at night when the fish can’t see the net and easily swim away. It’s extremely hard work, labor intensive, but it really has little to do with technique or skills. Nets have to be washed and mended in the morning after every trip out. It’s also not a year-round activity – there are seasons for fishing. It has much more to do with persistence, strength, endurance, and fidelity to the project. So how might we think about fishing for people with all that in mind? 

Well, it’s network. It’s not at all like fly fishing for bass or trout. It’s about a group of people repeatedly lowering and raising a big net and finding out who has been caught up by a hunger and thirst for right-relationship with others and carried away by a longing for the compassion and mercy of the Holy One. The reason to catch people is that we have something that people need. At Emmanuel Church, for example, we are, for the most part, a community where the beauty of holiness shines very brightly in the darkness. We are a living example of the liberating messages and practices of equality, of caring for those who are suffering, an example of a more just society under God’s rule of love rather than the rule of imperial might. We are a living example of what the whole Bible teaches – that peace of God comes through justice and mercy and kindness rather than through economic or political or military power. We are a living example of generosity and compassion. Sure, we miss the mark now and then, but we are right on target a lot of the time. 

We are brave and we are loving. And there are a LOT of people who are hungry and thirsty for community that is generous and compassionate, brave and loving. There are a LOT of people who don’t have a community like this in their lives. When we raise the net, what do we show the people that have been caught? We show, we share balm for healing, bread for hunger, water for thirst, a roof for shelter and clothing for warmth. We show them dignity and respect, compassion and mercy just as the Holy One has shown us. We invite them to be a part of the team in whatever ways they can. We show them that the realm of Love has truly come near.

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